Friday, May 21, 2010

Shanghai World Expo 2010; Liza Veliz interviews Bryn Oh

Fri 05/21/10


Second Life™ has made a contribution of machinimas from our world to the EXPO 2010™; the world fair of art, taking place in Shanghai in China May till October. In Real Life you find Second Life contribution in The Air Tree™ at Madrid Pavilion where the Expo for the first time ever shows machinimas.


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Bryn Oh - portrait


Bryn Oh is the curator of this contribution in world and one of the artists.

She built three of the five Sims that are shown in the machinimas, together with ColeMarie Soleil and Soror Nishi. Glyph Graves and Marcus Inkpen built the remaining two, one Sim each. The avatar Aino Baar (in RL Spanish art director Cristina García-Lasuén owner of Open This End – a SL group that works for combining virtual reality with RL) is the person who came up with this idea and managed to get Second Life into the art fair and she gave Bryn Oh the responsibility of being curator of the event in world.


I wanted to know more about Bryn Oh so we meet at “No Colour Island” at Utopia3, one of the five Sims Linden Lab™ donated to Bryn for the exhibition.


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Bryn Oh - Rabbits


Bryn Oh is a living artwork; a walking, talking, creating, machinima, pixel to soul poetry.


She is created from the mind of a Canadian Oil Painter. This painter went on to study Softimage™ and Zbrush™ to learn more. As the painter discovered 3D and Second Life, Bryn Oh™ was born.



“This is a great medium for me. In my first life I am an oil painter but I had some ideas that I couldn't do in oil paint, so when I found Second Life I found a place where I could make these stories.”


“Some of my themes are of robots that are in love with humans. They are all mostly about just things in my life, but I switch them to be about robots and people. Underneath I guess they are about me, but I hide that a bit. Everything I make is somewhat a diary. See, for me, I am the robot sometimes in my first life. I have a hard time to tell things to people if I am in love or angry. Some are about wanting unconditional love. Love you read about in stories. Only my robots look for it. They seek it out and the humans take it for granted.”


Bryn Oh has her own Sim called Immersiva, donated by Dusan Writer, where she exposes her beautiful self.


So far she has had success as a real life artist, as well as virtual, in many exhibitions out world; Nuit Blanche™ in Paris last year, Through the Virtual Looking Glass™ in April all around the world, and now at Expo 2010 Shanghai in China in The Pavilion of Madrid.


Even if she tells me she wont exists anymore if the first life of her would shadow her as Bryn Oh she herself the avatar has an impact and is affecting the First Life of her.


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Daughter of Gears and Rabbicorn


“I do make encaustic music box insects; some were shown in a Boston Gallery last month. They are influenced by second life. I can show you a short video of them.”


She hands me the link with the words


“This is the music box works Liza. The movie shows how they work”.

http://brynoh.blogspot.com/2010/04/through-virtual-looking-glass.html


“My creations within Bryn Oh are very melancholic and sad. They are about being disposed of or becoming obsolete. They are robots who look for love while humans take this for granted.”


She smiles a bit and adds



“She is a “coffee filter” for my mind.”


“One reason I don’t involve my First Life identity with Bryn Oh is that perhaps my family would become worried if they read into my narratives. The other reason is that Bryn Oh lives her own life and she develops her own ways and I don’t want to ruin this by letting people focus on my Real Life. You can believe in Bryn Oh as a character if I am not connected. You can believe in the marionette as long as you don’t see someone controlling it. Once you see that person the suspension of disbelief is gone.”


So far she succeeds in this. Not even the Press Centre of Shanghai Expo 2010 is revealing the true identity of the creator of Bryn Oh.


What is this Sim “No Colour” about to you?


"For me it has its own meaning. I place different narratives around. One is of the Owl and Mouse™, another is of some rabbits whose story I am still writing. The third and final is a build called Vessels Dream™ which is about fading memories and the desire to recede from society to find solitude.


The overall theme of the five World Expo islands is based off of a narrative written by Aino Baar. Each island is missing something. This island is missing colour. When you whisper a wish to the tree the idea is that colour returns. This is shown by my shopping carts turning into the trees of Soror Nishi by a script created by Desdemona Enfield."


"The shopping carts are a symbol to me of a disappeared society. In my work they often are left strewn about like bones of animals. The people are gone who shopped with them, yet there is almost an echo of families talking, children laughing and bustle."


Bryn Oh spreads before me on the ground some of her poems.


“This will help you get an idea of my work”


It’s the Rabbicorn™ Story, The story of the Daughter of Gears™, Angler Girl™ and poems about pixel life and love inside Second Life.


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Liza in the lap of Steel Moon Heart


Bryn Oh creates her story from poems into exhibitions, machinima´s and books.



The Rabbicorn and the Daughter of Gears characters are beneath one of the streetlights of this world where the soil is of metal and shopping carts are everywhere. It is an abandoned world, like a big metal churchyard.


There is a book on the second part of the story, but the first one is only in poems, machinimas at YouTube™ and blip.tv™ and in world. Bryn Oh tells me the third part of this story will be made on a Sim for IBM™ in October 2010.


The story is very sad. The Rabbicorn is made by a scientist who then gives her to a man for his boy’s birthday. All the other robots made at this time are soldiers meant for war, but the Rabbicorn is made with the ability to think and feel emotions. At the end of this boy’s life Scientists arrive to capture the fabled Rabbicorn and the old boy tells her to flee. He realizes that the scientists only wish to take her apart to see what’s within. Later on her trip she meets the Daughter of Gears. In Bryn's words "A mother has a sick daughter. Her daughter is slowly dying and the mother can not bear to lose her. As her daughter's life begins to depart she transfers her daughter’s soul into the body of a machine so that she will remain. The people from around hear of her rebirth into a machine and believe the daughter to be an abomination. A mob comes to the tower where they live to take the daughter away from her. The mother will never let them do this and brings her daughter to the top. The mob eventually arrives and she fights them like a mother would. In her fury and fear she defeats them, but is mortally wounded. As she lay dying she realizes that when she is gone her Daughter will live alone and lonely for eternity. As an outcast. Upon her mothers death the daughter of gears goes into stand-by mode much like a computer does. In her stand-by she forever relives the memories of her mother."


At the landing point at the beach of this island the first thing you see is an owl and a mouse dragging a steel moon after them. The big moon carries a gramophone within her heart that plays an old song about love and romance. You can sit in the lap of her heart and listen to this tune. I Liza love this. It is my favourite place in my world of pixels right now.


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Bryn Oh (by Liza Veliz)


"That sculpture is called Mouse drawn Owl and they are characters with a narrative. Many of my sculptures have stories hidden inside them and this one does as well. If you click inside the owl’s chest it will play this poem.


They escaped the test lab without a sound

Over dead leaves and past the Robo Hounds

Fleeing nothing felt

And conveyor belts

A mouse on rusted wheels

An Owl programmed to feel

Knowing of a concept called free

And attaching it to the Sea


They both are robots created in a laboratory. Each was programmed to feel emotion. They flee that cold place and search for freedom. But for them the meaning of freedom is only from an overheard conversation about a vacation by the sea."


First thing to do when you visit this exhibition is to click the big sign at the landing point. You will then get a note card with directions on how to change your sky settings so you can see the worlds as Bryn Oh intended you to do. Next thing is to watch carefully the surroundings. And search for things. Bryn Oh loves to hide stuff from you. In the black structure behind the hill on opposite side of this island you will find Vessel’s Dream™. Here you must use your camera to get it all. Same trick goes for most of Bryn Oh´s art. Check the YouTube and her own website. She is instructive in showing how to get into the goodies to explore in her machinimas.


Did I mention the Whisper Tree? That’s what is common in each Sim and it is based upon an old legend with the same name. I assume you know that machinima is video created in 3D with avatars in virtual world.



No Colour Island

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Utopia03/27/98/23


Video from the Sim No Colour;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TShnuZ8UwCU Stay with me


Poems mentioned in the text;

http://blip.tv/file/2334264 Daughter of Gears story

http://blip.tv/file/3106327 Rabbicorn


Some of the poetry Bryn Oh lay out on the ground;

http://blip.tv/file/2435685 Willow™

http://blip.tv/file/2117132/ Angler Girl

http://blip.tv/file/2715180 irrevocably™

http://blip.tv/file/2701783 Vessels Dream

http://blip.tv/file/2792708 Condo’s in Heaven™


A poem I Liza love;

http://blip.tv/file/3200914 26 tines™


The machinima shown at World Expo 2010;

http://brynoh.blip.tv/ Bryn Oh – World Expo Shanghai Shown in the Madrid Pavilion


Bryn Oh blog

http://brynoh.blogspot.com/




Reporting for PressPass,my name is Liza Veliz
Ty for reading and feel free to comment!
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