I have a lot of readers who don't Second Life at all so I'm especially pleased today because I think this post will have something for everyone. Today we are going to talk about Bryn Oh.
Bryn Oh is an artist who is quite simply, amazing.
She is an important artist, a pioneer in her field with a list of remarkable and groundbreaking accomplishments. Her work is studied at colleges and universities. And she does her art in Second Life.
And she's also nice.
A while ago, I made a fool out of myself blogging Aural and then topped that by having a complete emotional breakdown about a third of the way through her amazing work, Hand.
In both cases she was super nice and sympathetic and I vowed I would one day try to avenge these wrongs and actually know what the heck I'm doing looking at this stuff.
So I just binge-watched much of the Bryn Oh oeuvre in anticipation of her new work, The Brittle Epoch, which opens tomorrow, Monday, November 1, and watching these vids and walking through Hand is some of the best quality time I've spent in a while.
If you watch the vids here, not including the lecture, I think it takes about an hour and a half total but you'll want to break it up. I found them incredibly moving and thought-provoking and I needed time between them to think and absorb and reflect so it's gonna take you an evening but it's worth every minute. Bryn Oh's work is seriously moving and seriously deep.
Such as;
If you could leave your life and live in paradise would you? You'd hafta leave your "real life" and the people in it behind, but it's paradise. All you hafta do is log in, stay logged in, forget about the real life. Would you?
What happens to the people you leave behind?
That's just a part of the background to the stories- there's so much more here that she explores in her work. In addition to the multi-layered themes and topics explored, they are incredibly beautiful to boot, both thematically and visually. Also, I mentioned that we're "walking around" these beautiful but often desolate places while we hear the story, right?
Immersiva- art made for immersion- you can walk around the stuff and hear the sounds and look from any angle you want. Open drawers, poke buttons, discover the story on your own with only enough guidance from the artist to keep you from getting too lost. It's already all around us but mostly commercial and very scripted. (Played a video game lately?) This is Art. This will be a thing future generations will do without thinking, and we have a major pioneer in our midst.
So after my first Hand debacle I eventually screwed my courage to the sticking place and scampered around the build to see the story but was so goal oriented in finishing, I missed a gazillion details and then a host of other details were lost on me because I didn't know all the stuff from the previous stories.
So then, the other day, after watching these videos to learn the whole story, I went back and spent hours going through Hand. It is truly a work of genius. There are little "easter eggs" throughout- special things to find that enrich the story or are just beautiful things tucked away to be found like poems or allusions to past Bryn Oh stories, pop culture, advertising, it's just fun and inspiring and thought provoking and always visually stunning.
I don't want to go into details because I don't want to ruin the story for anyone in any way- even giving you my reactions to stuff I shy from because I love the idea that you get to experience the art in your way when walking around it, and the videos capture the stories themselves beautifully, so I'm giving you links and things below to get you started in catching up with the story for The Brittle Epoch.
Ok so first, a picture from Hand, untouched picture from SL here. You really should see this "in person" because the light dances around the figure casting shadows. I believe she called this The Dancer.
