Go to your happy place, courtesy of Yoa Ogee

Yoa Ogee always takes me to my happy place. And that is precisely the reaction he is after. You see, Yoa founded and heads up the organization World's Greatest Smile.

Yoa Ogee: Peace is what I have been most interested in all my life. The World's Greatest Smile is an international peace project dedicated to friendly communication, and is supported by 14 Nobel Laureates, as well as many other people from 131 countries. The goal is to motivate people to communicate in a more friendly and effective way and to give them the resources to do so. We develop games for children, too, to teach them teamwork in a playful way.

So committed is he to this goal, that 100% of the proceeds from the sales of all his fantastic avatars goes directly into the coffers of this organization.

For the Garden of NPIRL Delights, Yoa created an installation he calls Happy Humans!


Yoa's birds have strong feet

Yoa Ogee: It is a big birdhouse... and all the birds in and around the house have only one thing in mind: “Oh, the human rights are so great, it must be wonderful to be a human... it is our mission to tell everybody more about that! Sooooo happy humans...!“


These birds perch in most unusual places


Aviation school

Yoa Ogee: The birds must be prepared for this mission, so they have a newbie/newbird area in the house. There the young birds can learn more about the human rights. And, of course, an aviation school, a few nests with baby birds and more...


Be happy!

Don't forget to pick up the three freebie avatars at this installation, too (teleport directly from here).

Yoa Ogee's "high tech life forms" for peace... and smiles

Within three days of rezzing (1/26/2007), a Canada-based German named Yoa Ogee made his first avatar. Today, his avatars are already wildly popular with the NPIRL crowd; I myself purchased at least 15 of them within minutes of being alerted to their existence by artist and scripter Miki Gymnast.

Bettina Tizzy: So, it was avatars from the start, was it?

Yoa Ogee: I started to build avatars because I wanted to be an alien and have tentacles.


Yoa Ogee - Three days old and already "in the pink"

Bettina Tizzy: Pink tentacles, even! Your inspiration?

Yoa Ogee: ... my favourite colour, yes, my inspiration, like all of my avatars.

Bettina Tizzy: And then... this went so well, that ... you just kept making avatars? Never wanted to make houses or other things?

Yoa Ogee: I have so much to do with avatar ideas... I (also) have a list with ideas for houses and stuff like that ^^

Bettina Tizzy: Many of your avatars are sculptural. You are the first that I know of to do this. What were you thinking that led you to make avatars that didn't look like living things?

Yoa Ogee: They are alive. What humans declare as abstract, I declare as high tech life forms.


This was Yoa's first "art" avatar. The colors on the bands cycle continuously

Bettina Tizzy: The scripting for the "Tricky" avatar is very complex. I have shown it to scripters and they were impressed.

Yoa Ogee: I don't script. I use freebies or purchased scripts and combine them with animations and lots of ideas to create new effects. Animations are made by me.


"Tricky" displays a continuous series of geometric gymnastics on its shiny pedestal

Bettina Tizzy: What is the name of the tiny avatar that is 7mm tall?

Yoa Ogee: Shichi - the name of the number 7 in Japanese.


Shichi is 7mm tall and is shown here next to a standard box prim

Bettina Tizzy: Where does the rest of the body go... and why is it necessary to use invisiprims or whatever it is that you do?

Yoa Ogee: Often, I use invisible prims, but sometimes a good animation can cause the same effect. It was challenging to learn all about animations and now I love it! Some of my avatars are not that good for dancing, but some of them are better for dancing than human bodies :) Invisible prims are useful because it is not possible to shrink the standard avatar that much.

Bettina Tizzy: Someone mentioned that smaller avatars are accomplished by folding the avatar body underground. Is this true?

Yoa Ogee: Yes, I do that, too, with animations, and this way I can shrink it down to 40-50cm.

Bettina Tizzy: Thank you for that explanation. I was just very curious.

Yoa Ogee: Curiosity is one of my favourite feelings.



The lower photograph is a close up of a few details on the head of the tree avatar.



Bettina Tizzy: I see that 100% of the proceeds from your sales goes to the World's Greatest Smile.

Yoa Ogee: They do, because peace is what I have been most interested in all my life. It is an international peace project dedicated to friendly communication, and is supported by 14 Nobel Laureates, as well as many other people from 131 countries. The goal is to motivate people to communicate in a more friendly and effective way and to give them the resources to do so. We develop games for children, too, to teach them teamwork in a playful way.



Bettina Tizzy: Now you make avatars that look like art. Do you find any inspiration in the work of artists in Second Life?

Yoa Ogee: Not really. I'm mainly interested in astrobiology, and that's the basis of my creations. It is about life on other planets and wherever life can be in the universe.



Bettina Tizzy: Do you take a scientific approach, or a science fiction approach to this, or both? Extraterrestrials that look like art... this does not sound so unfriendly.

Yoa Ogee: The scientific approach. I have always been interested in astrobiology, because I tried to find a way to think about humankind in other ways.


Yoa's "Gold Leaf" avatar undulates gently as you move

Bettina Tizzy: You also make avatars that have all kinds of details.

Yoa Ogee: I love details! I love especially the hidden details, those which you have to discover. This avatar is full of them, too, including a hidden treasure chest.



Yoa Ogee: I need bubbles^^ (At this point, gentle bubbles began to rise around the fish)

Bettina Tizzy: I see your fish has a mic, too. It sings?

Yoa Ogee: I have to talk to humans, and sometimes I am a karaoke fish (under the shower).

Bettina Tizzy: ...that plays chess.

Yoa Ogee: Yes, the starfishes on the ground play much better than me.



Bettina Tizzy: Your prices are very low. Are you more interested in distribution than in making money?

Yoa Ogee: Our avatars should enhance tolerance and should be available for everybody. I know as an alien: humans are a very cute and friendly species... sometimes they just forgot it.



Yoa and his Real Life fiance, Yeti Bing, have a busy store, which you can teleport to directly from here.