Here's the latest machinima from beloved metaverse artist Bryn Oh, who now has a Patreon page which you should definitely consider supporting if you're among the hundreds of thousands who've loved her artworks over the years. This new piece, called "Hand", was shot in both Second Life and Sansar, and as with some of her other works, was sponsored in part by an Ontario Arts Council grant. (Yes, the Canadian government will pay you to make virtual world art.)
"I decided to use footage from both Sansar and Second life because each has their strengths for machinima," Bryn tells me. "Sansar can actually have really wonderful graphics. Unfortunately their filming tools were quite limited. Second Life on the other hand is great for filming in. Also my machinima are a catalogue of my artwork so I wanted to capture a bit of both."
The locations for "Hand" are both still virtually explorable in Sansar here and in Second Life here.
Her inspirations for "Hand", as she tells me, include smartphone addiction, and the culturally corrosive power of advertising:
"Each of the stories I do are all connected so the inspiration for this work was tied into various other works before it. Essentially though the entire story over the last 13 years or so is a form of diary. Things taken from my life or observations on society.
"So for example an inspiration for this particular chapter called 'Hand' came in the form of an experience I had at a public playground. I was with a friend and watching kids playing on a climbing gym. I began to notice a lot of parents absorbed in their phones rather than interacting with their kids or even just watching as they play. Sometimes kids would call to their parents or attempt to engage them but the phone was just too powerful and addictive it seemed.
"I then began daydreaming it into an advertisement [right]. One way that I shape an understanding of the world which my characters live in is to fashion advertisements within the virtual environment which define the society. In a way our society is described by the types of advertising around us.
"Advertisers spend huge amounts of money trying to get to the root of our desires and then offering them to us or attempting to convince us we need and desire them. Banana peelers, shoe umbrellas and butter sticks. Slogans like 'A Diamonds is Forever', which changed society and made people rich. De Beers even suggested the percentage of a person's annual salary should be given to them in exchange for a wedding ring.
"There are many inspirations behind 'Hand' but this one example perhaps shows how things can grow into my larger narratives."
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