On November 1st, the final chapter in metaverse artist Bryn Oh's groundbreaking "Rabbicorn" story will unveil in Second Life. An immersive narrative that began two years ago, the Rabbicorn tells what happens after a mother fails to save her dying child:
"In her fear and love she transfers her daughter's soul into a machine and she becomes the Daughter of Gears," Bryn says to me. "This makes her daughter an outcast from society and upon her mothers death causes her to now live alone, a lonely shunned figure with the mentality of a young girl. To cope she goes into her 'Standby', much like a computers standby mode, and dreams of her mother for a hundred years until the Rabbicorn finds her."
But it's how Bryn Oh tells this story that makes it so profound:
As a series of interactive scenes constructed in Second Life, visualized in constructions that suggest a kind of sad and fragile steampunk. Telling it this way, she believes, "allows the viewer to move at a pace more like a book rather than a movie. A movie rushes you past topics where a 3D narrative allows you to sit down and ponder ideas before moving on. You move at your own pace and are able to explore the environment in your own way rather than passively following scripted camera movements."
A Toronto painter in real life, Bryn had first planned to tell the story of the Rabbicorn in her chosen medium: "I initially was creating it as a series of paintings mixed with mechanical dioramas." After a creative block, she stumbled on Second Life, and decided it was the place to realize the Rabbicorn, and all the supporting characters. As with most artists in all realities, her main block has been financial, which translates in Second Life as virtual land. Much of her story is told in the region of Immersiva, donated to her by metaverse developer Dusan Writer, and to finish the story, a donation of SL land owned by IBM, brokered by staff member (and former patron of the metaverse arts) Tezcatlipoca Bisani. "[I]n the end, Hamlet," Bryn Oh says, "the timeline for the release of these narratives generally follow available resources to tell the stories."
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