Standby machinima and book

     A little while ago I was awarded a new media grant by the Ontario Arts Council in Canada, to produce and exhibit a project called Standby.  Standby is made up of a trilogy of immersive 3D works constructed within a virtual world which  then were exhibited within that virtual world (Second Life) for IBM over a three year period.  The first part was called The Daughter of Gears, the second was the Rabbicorn and the final being called Standby.  Each portion of the trilogy was released close to a year apart.  The grant was to create the final segment of the story (Standby), its 3D construction, and then to make a machinima which was all three parts put into one movie.  A real world exhibition, a book and a few other things.  I am very excited to say that I have now completed the machinima which you can watch below.  It is 38 minutes long and I would suggest watching it alone within a quiet darkened room.  I would also like you to watch it in HD if you can.  There is a little symbol at the bottom of the movie of a gear and you can set this to 720.

 One of the things I wanted to do with this movie was to have the music score done by residents of our virtual world to showcase the talent which resides here.   Travis Amaterasu of France composed the vast majority of the score with a small portion of work from Tasuku Ghost of Japan.  Two extremely talented people.

     The second part to the project was to make a real life book of this story.  You can view it here.. Standby book It has been a huge project for me to do and I am quite happy to have completed it.  I have included a few images of the book I have taken in my back yard because my stupid camera has decided to use a flash regardless of whether I am indoors or outdoors under the blazing sun in a sandy desert.  People have been asking me to make a book of this story for ages so finally I have and sorry for the delay.  You can purchase it if you like by going to the blurb site

Standby by Bryn Oh | Make Your Own Book

The art of virtual reality at UMASS

  -taken from Aviewtv site

Saturday, May 11th,  Sophia Yates will be hosting an event at UMASS Inn and Conference Center in Lowell, Massachusetts with a whole cast of Second Life personalities.

Tune in at  http://aviewtv.com/live to watch the live feed~ this schedule is listed in Second Life times~ for real life times, add 3 hours.(EST)

    This event is called  “ The Art of Virtual Reality”   a presentation on 3D Virtual Environments and how professionals around the world use this platform to promote their real life work or start new ones.   It will be an interactive event. The show will be streaming live from Second Life and the speakers will be representing themselves in their Virtual Reality personas. The show will also stream the live audience back into Second Life. Every 30 minutes a new speaker will be presenting and the audience is welcome to ask questions when they have finished.

 

If you happen to be in the real life Lowell, Mass. area…
There will be Virtual Art exhibit and there will be a $10 registration fee. Light food  & beverages.
Virtual Education, Architecture, Art & Entertainment (Filmmaking) & Virtual World Design will be subjects discussed

SCHEDULE
7am-7:30am – Jay Jay Zifanwe (Jay Jay Jegathesan) – Manager School of Physics, University of Western Australia , Perth Australia)
7:30am-8am – Bryn Oh – Artist – the virtual art medium – Canada
8am-8:30am – DB Bailey ( David Denton) David Denton Architect – Consulting practice in architecture, urban planning, exhibition and virtual world design- (Knoxville, Tennessee)
8:30am-9am – LaPiscean Liberty Promoting Art & Artist from An Original Content Community to Mainstream Media, founder of AviewTV a Machinima Newtwork and LEA (Linden Endowment for the Arts Curator (Ohio)
9am-930am – Pooky Amsterdam – Amsterdam, Pooky CEO of PookyMedia / Second Life visionary. Executive producer, writer and director.( NY NY)
9:30am-10:00am – Secret Rage – Artist , Machinimatographer and COO AviewTV (Dallas, TX)
10am-10:30am – Gracie Kendal LA California
1o:30am-11am – Pamela Clift – CEO & Author at Virtual Handhold, LLC (A consultant for business, education and interpersonal  relationships as they relate to Human/Computer Interface Psychology) Washington
11am-1130am – Marly Milena – Presenter & Live demonstration in real life
11:30am-12pm – Marcus Hinterthur – Vector Director – Vienna wien Austria
12pm-12:30pm – Frolic Mills -   BOSL & CO | CEO Venezuelan, writer, producer – LA California
12:30pm-1pm – Rysan Fall – Director of Virtual Life at How2Connect.com Motion Pictures and Film Hartford, Connecticut
1pm-1:30pm – Zak Claxton -  Singer/Songwriter Redondo Beach, California
1:30pm-finish up and thank everyone for coming Questions from audience or watch some machinima close up

Imogen and the pigeons - zeroes and ones created a two

       

      Zeroes and ones
        created a two
        in the form of a child
        from memories accrued
       
        through her books and dreams
        realities and fever
        reborn for Imogen
        never again to leave her
       
        and the computer slowed
        as the sand did rise
        but eternity waited
        within her child's eyes.

     In the final scene to Imogen and the pigeons we see Imogen's recorded life being reconstructed by her.  It is a warped reality that combines elements of her past life alongside a new creation which she is essentially programming herself.  The books that were a big part of her life in the asylum play a part as her mind conjures up a blue whale that descends from the sky carrying a monarch butterfly puppa, provided first by the rapist.  Inside the puppa she finds her lost child reborn, they are together never again to part.  Within her virtual world she has turned away from the pain and sorrow of her "reality" and composed a second life for herself.  Within the ruins of the Rebirth Life Encryption shop her computer continues to turn its wheels even as the sand slowly and insidiously finds its way inside.  She and her child are now the last "living" humans as they have become "aware" yet are now composed of programming code rather than DNA.  They are together and that is all Imogen needs.  Her world fades to just two sets of eyes mirrored upon each other, flecks of colour perfectly aligned.

But then again perhaps they are not quite the last ones.  Not far from where the whale delivers its prize to Imogen, there lay an open jar with a butterfly resting upon the glass.  By clicking this jar we are brought to a final secret scene to the story.  It is a scene for those who know my previous works and know to keep searching :).

     We are transported back to the the office of the therapist.  For some they will have noticed at the start of the story on the monarch board, a note saying that a new patient would be arriving on Monday.  A patient named Anna whom he completely underestimates by suggesting she is merely anti-social.  Anna is not easily contained to say the least, and should you wish to know more about her watch he machinima at the bottom called Anna's Many Murders.  In the office the therapist has met Anna who was not fond of the monarchs pinned to his board and has decided to add him to the collection.

      The Therapists calm
        was visibly curtailed,
        when it dawned upon him
        that he would soon be impaled

     I hope you have enjoyed Imogen and the pigeons.  I have a post to make next week which I have been waiting to do for over a year now and I am quite excited.  I have completed part of a new media grant which I was awarded from the Ontario Arts Council.  Specifically I have finished a 38 minute machinima called Standby which combined three artworks done over three years and exhibited by IBM.  They are the Daughter of Gears, The Rabbicorn story and Standby and they are now made into one machinima story.  On top of that I have also completed the real life book for Standby which I will also post about next week. 

Imogen - To fall and become aware

     

       She climbed up the pole
        that rose like a spire
        and attempted to join
        her pigeons on wire
       
        but startled they flew
        so Imogen leapt
        spreading her wings
        and silently wept
       
        missing her dreams
        by seconds and feet
        she soared for a moment
        then fell to the street

      Static emerged
        like cracks in a road
        and her minds construct collapsed
        which housed her binary code
        that was preserved for the day
        when it could be rewired
        into our human cells
        once we were expired
       
        but her memories were a virus
        that corrupted the core
        of her archived life
        preserved at the Rebirth Store

     

     Imogen rushes to the pole outside her bedroom window and climbs up while in her carefully constructed disguise.  The pigeons are not in the least bit fooled and immediately fly off.  In desperation Imogen tries to follow them and falls to the ground.

     If you cam into the window of the room you will see her still in bed there, but with the sound of a flatline.  Her true death in the asylum coincides with her death upon the street.  Her head rests against the pillow with her eyes pointed towards the book of whales upon the ground by her bed.  It is the last things she sees and is woven into her new reality. 

      Imogens life has been stored in the computer for a century, and she has evolved into a form of consciousness over that time.   Since her life is now made up of a computer language, descriptions in text, her desire to change the way her life was lived and its outcome acts as a virus within that memory.  

     She began to alter the seemingly hard coded events of her life by originally creating an escape which would have been that fairytale life with the pigeons outside her window.  A mere empty fantasy.  

    Without much control or direction she moved through a dream like state to try and find what she needed.  The pigeons were a distraction and it is at this point that Imogen begins to take control of her recorded life and memories.  The white room is her transition into an awareness that she dictates her life despite others writing it.  She descends through this obstacle and comes out the other side.

Her love is a virus and she wants her child back.   She will let nothing stop her now.

Imogen -Beauty salon and fridge drawings

Ruth Etting

When the viewer jumps down the walls and walks past the rope of the previous stage they come to another singing robot, this time its Ruth Etting.  She stands outside a beauty salon singing a song called "All of me".  Inside is this poem.

    Imogen mused
        that she was more pigeon than swan
        as she climbed down the walls
        to the Beauty Salon
       
        She entered a room
        surrounded by chairs
        lowered the curlers
        and singed feather to hair
       
        Her disguise now complete
        she walked to the ceiling
        and saw a vision emerge
        in her dream revealing
       
        a future suppressed
        like fading notes to a song
        that we desperately grasp
        yet can not prolong.

Imogen and her hair curlers

     Here you will discover Imogen using the antiquated curlers to singe pigeon feathers into her hair, her disguise is now finally complete.  On the floor is another feather for wall walking and in the ceiling a hole which leads one to the next scene in the story. 

must use the feather to get to the hole in the ceiling

       A darkened kitchen
        strewn with blank paper
        once a child's drawings
        now dispersed like vapor
       
        This future denied
        left her mind frayed
        so her reality for dreams
        was what she'd trade
       
        She fled this scene
        unable to bear
        and rushed to her pigeons
        to find comfort there.

 

     At this point in the salon Imogen has a vision of a future that was denied her.  Her focus is pulled away from her quest to find the pigeons, bringing her back to the painful memories of her lost child.   The vision is of a darkened kitchen with just a glowing fridge.  The floor strewn with blank pages that a child has never drawn upon.  A fridge with no artworks suspended by magnets.  She forces these thoughts aside and rushes now to find her salvation.  Opening the door to the refrigerator and entering allows us to continue along her warped and changing reality.

Imogen - Wings and adverts

The next scene is a somewhat dramatic change from the dark enclosed space of the mannequin room.  You walk up a ramp and out past a window onto a ledge overlooking the street far below.  If you don't immediately fall off the edge as some invariably do, then you will see pigeons and feathers strewn along the ledge.  Towards the end sits Imogen sewing the next part of her disguise together.  A set of wings.  

     She stepped through a window
        and onto the ledge
        the wind in her hair
        and pigeons on edge.
       
        She found on the stones
        a loose feather
        then gathered up more
        and sewed them together
       
        to fashion some wings
        for her disguise
        to join her flock
        within the skies.  

Mounted on the walls of this scene are some ancient advertisements which help to define the society that has now become extinct.  There is the advert for Tar-o-plast

which suggests that you need not ask what is in the product but rather just accept that it works and forget having to ever say no to your child. 

      Another advert is written in a child's handwriting which I guess means that a child, one who knows good milkshakes from bad ones, wrote the text for them meaning we can trust that other kids will like it as well because, you know, this mystery kid is vouching for it.
     It confusingly implies that if you don't like Auntie Ethels Milkshakes then perhaps you don't love your own Aunt.  It also, disturbingly, states the ingredients that often masquerade for strawberry.  Sadly this is not something I made up but rather an actual list of ingredients.

On the walls are spray painted adverts attempting to appear as graffiti.  One is for Retelevise, a service that offers to free up your own personal time by addicting your child to the TV.   Below is the full advert for Zinger the rocket dog.

     In most of my adverts I use the term "Scientypes" which refers to actors in white lab coats.  A type of scientist that we can't quite put our finger on.  Someone who seems to be quite intelligent and trustworthy yet is merely an actor or pseudo professional with hazy qualifications.  When you need a boost in credibility for your product simply insert a handsome actor into a white lab coat.  Works splendidly as a dentist, surgeon/doctor, scientist or Alberta tar sands environmental expert for either side of the argument. 
     Zinger is actually a character I made up years ago and is the pet of one of my other early characters named Mr Lightbulb.  I am sure nobody remembers him but he exists in my very first machinima (which is terrible) but I will put a link anyway.  I keep flirting with the idea of making this story one day as well.   Always something seems to get in the way though.

Imogen - wall walking

 For many the story ends in this room, but for those familiar with my work they will naturally click on things here and there, and in doing so will discover a feather on the ground which allows them to walk up walls and along ceilings.  Just outside jumping distance is a vent, by walking along the right hand side of the vent wall you will be brought out onto a spiral which takes you to the next scene within Imogens story.

This part of the story signifies that Imogen has broken through her static recorded life held within the computer.  She no longer is governed by the rules of her prison but like a waking dream she begins to mix her past reality into a new form.

 The first sign of this is in the very next room where she has incorporated her pen and ink drawing from the book on her bed into a new emerging reality.  From a certain vantage point her drawing lines up to compose the familiar picture but as you draw closer it begins to lose its cohesion and form.  Almost like a dream state where she mixes parts of her everyday life into this dream where it gets subtly warped.

        Imogen's mind
        split from its seams
        and wove in her books
        to merge with her dreams
       
        She sought out her pigeons
        pushing memories aside
        of the life that breathed through her
        its cord coming untied
       

 A cable for the monitor
        and cord for a life
        each severed her mind
        like a surgical knife.

The first hint of what happened to Imogen to bring her to the asylum occurs within this poem above.  She tries to focus on her pigeons in order to forget the child she lost.  The event which unhinged her.

She comes to a room full of old dusty fabric and from there she sews the first part to her pigeon disguise.  And from there she moves on to seek out the parts she will need to join her pigeons.

    


      Imogen arrived
        upon a scene
        of mannequins
        and sewing machine
       
        the lights revealed
        fabric pigeon grey
        dusty and torn
        its edges frayed
       
        and from there she sewed
        her pigeon dress
        that enveloped her body
        in a gentle caress.