The apogee of fandom: Kevlar Keen breathes life into Bryn Oh's art

Posted by Bettina Tizzy


Kevlar poses for me at Immersiva

Kevlar Keen was so captivated by Bryn Oh's story and art for The Daughter of the Gears, that she created an avatar in tribute. Yes, friends, this is an avatar, and not Bryn's much admired virtual sculpture. It seems that Bryn approved, too.

Imagine how you would react if a piece of artwork at your local museum suddenly came to life and walked up to you. That is precisely how I felt when I glimpsed at Kevlar as the "Daughter" out of the corner of my virtual eye. The resemblance is perfect, right down to the beanpole legs and knobby knees, plus the "face" can be opened to reveal... ah, you will have to hunt Kevlar down to find out! This is a one-of-a-kind avatar, too. What must Bryn have thought when she saw it?!

Bryn developed both the character and the concept for the Daughter of the Gears when Rezzable Productions invited her to create an installation for the mysterious and poetic (and hallowed) Black Swan sim. I get a lump in my throat when I think of it, but we've learned that Black Swan will soon be erased from the grid. It seems it has less than one month left. However, you can now visit the piece on Bryn's own sim, Immersiva, by teleporting directly from here and looking for the tower.

Bryn Oh: It is a story about a mother who watches as her daughter becomes sick. And as her life begins to fail she transfers her daughter's soul into a vessel. A machine. When the townspeople find out what she has done they come to take the daughter. They see her as an abomination against all their beliefs and to all they hold true. But to take her daughter they must first get by her.

The mob climbs the tower and reaches the top. The mother fights them and wins. But is mortally wounded. And as she lays dying, she realizes that her daughter will now live forever alone and lonely. A girl in the body of a machine in a hostile world. So the daughter of gears goes into stand-by mode like a computer. And in stand-by she dreams of her mother for eternity.

As with every Bryn Oh creation, there is always a bit of poignant sadness, and also discovery. You can read the accompanying "machine" poems on Bryn's blog.

More coming soon on Bryn and her latest: the Rabbicorn Story.

Beautiful Mondays in the eyes of the Virtual Build Archive

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

If you read this blog with any regularity, I trust that you are already quite familiar with Bryn Oh's stunning sculptural and narrative work and especially her sim, Immersiva (teleport directly from here), as well as her Condos in Heaven installation, which I blogged about last year. Nevertheless, prepare to shine a new light on the subject.

This is the second video in what is to become a weekly documentary-style series produced by the Virtual Build Archive, a joint project of Gala Charron (Tamara Russell) and Lainy Voom (Trace Sanderson).

Condos in Heaven from The VBA on Vimeo.

Lainy shared with me yesterday that this is Gala Charron's first machinima in Second Life® (can you believe it?)! She explained, "The VBA started because we both love exploring Second Life and wanted to keep a visual record within some kind of framework. It will hopefully become a mix of regular builds and some art installations. It makes me sad when builds are no longer there. We want to create something permanent from something transient and (are) also trying to communicate something that is beautiful and inspiring, especially sometimes to non-Second Lifers who complain that there is nothing going on in Second Life and say that it is an ugly place!"

The pair's stated aim is to publish a new machinima every Monday "to document, through film and narrative, some of the most beautiful builds within the virtual world of Second Life. We hope, over time, to build the site from a small acorn into quite an extensive catalogue of in-world created content. Both Gala and Lainy will take it in turns to create a video of an inspiring build and present it on the archive site."

Mondays just got a little brighter...

Bryn Oh's abandoned robot theme park - Tomorrow's featured NPIRL-Koinup Safari

by Bettina Tizzy

Tomorrow, January 10th at 11:00am SLT, and awaiting on the other side of your teleport (directly from here) will be Bryn Oh. For an hour, this talented content creator will give an intimate and informative tour of one of the most photogenic sims on the grid: Immersiva. I've had the experience, and I guarantee that you will never look at Bryn's work the same.

A few weeks ago, Dusan Writer - the coolest businessman in SL, and yes! He is the same man who acquired and created a home for Eshi Otawara's Flower Tower - underscored his role as an arts benefactor by giving Bryn Oh her very own sim to do with it what she wished. Imagine Bryn with the abilty to create her own ground textures... her very own world.


Bryn Oh and Mr. Lightbulb

Immersiva is emerging as one of the truly great sims on the grid. Before you go, you really, really should add Bryn's Windlight preset and all its blue-ish atmosphere. You can download it and get installation instructions here (it's easy!) or set it up manually:


Immersiva Sky Windlight setting by Bryn Oh:

Go to World at top left of your screen. In the drop down menu at the bottom pick environment settings and then environment editor. Click on Advanced Sky. Then click the button "new".

If you are using a Mac, go to your Applications folder, right-click "Second Life WindLight", select "Show Package Contents", then open Contents > Resources > app_settings > Windlight

Under Atmosphere

Blue horizon R=0.24 G=0.43 B=0.50 I=0.50
Haze Horizon=0.65
Blue Density R=0.08 G=0.21 B=0.39 I=0.39
Haze Density=4.0
Density Multiplier=0.36
Distance Multiplier=11.6
Max Altitude=586

Under Lighting

Sun/moon colour is all set to 0.18
Sun/moon position is 0.25
Ambient is all set to 0.11
East Angle is 0
Sun Glow focus 0.1 size 1.81
Scene Gamma is 1
Star B is 0

Under Clouds tab

Cloud Color is all 0.7
Cloud Density x and y is 0.5 and D is 0.54
Cloud coverage is 0.5
Cloud scale is 0.53
Cloud detail x and y is 0.5 and D is 0.12
Cloud scroll x is 1.45
Cloud scroll Y is .01

Now give this preset a name, such as "Immersiva" and save it. Voila! You are ready.


Bryn's "Ferrisquito" in the background...

Immersiva has its own page on Koinup, which you will find here.



Once a month, NPIRL and Koinup - an inclusive social networking site for all Virtual Worlds that permits storage and sharing of imagery: photography, Machinima, and "storyboards" - are offering the NPIRL Safaris - with many of Second Life's best content creators, exposing the participants to new sims, new content, and new ideas that are leaving the old world behind and breaching the future.



Among the Virtual Worlds you'll find images of on Koinup: Second Life®, World of Warcraft, Lively, The Sims, IMVU, vSide, Kaneva, There, and more.

The Not Possible IRL (NPIRL) and Impossible IRL (ImpIRL) groups are dedicated to identifying and sharing well conceived and realized content creation in Virtual Worlds which would not be possible in Real Life: architecture, landscaping, art, animations, fashion, particle effects, building tools and scripts... show me, I'll show you.