"Hand" opening in Sansar

Hand

     This Friday December 6th will open "Hand" my new virtual reality artwork built in Linden Labs second virtual space called Sansar.  You can download the client here if you wish to visit my new work https://www.sansar.com/ 
To find it on Friday just search for Bryn Oh and Hand will show up.


 I would like to acknowledge the generous support of the Ontario Arts Council without whose financial help I would not have been able to create Hand in Sansar.  As virtual spaces fluctuate, it becomes more difficult to financially commit to working in Second Life and Sansar.  As an oil painter I sell paintings in the virtual space there is not a whole lot to sell for revenue. Organizations such as the OAC who offer financial support and, to be honest, an open keen interest in virtual spaces as an art medium, they deserve credit for projects such as Hand as without them I really could not have spent a year working on it.  I believe that the virtual reality medium is a new art form

which, in my case, focuses on immersion.  Throughout art history many artists have striven to immerse the viewer in their sculpture, painting or even cinema.  They want you become lost in their artwork whether it be compositional methods such as the eyepath leading the viewer around a painting, to cinema where they turn off the lights, turn the sound up high with a screen large enough to reduce the peripheral vision distractions to a degree where the immersion is strongest.  They overwhelm or control your senses, then tell you a story which, if well written, will take the viewer away from the world for a while.  We had the Cubists, Impressionists, Surrealists, Modernists and I see our movement as the Immersivists.  I have believed in this idea a long time but now with virtual reality headsets such as Vive or Oculus rift the immersion is less fragile.  You don't look at a computer screen and beyond its borders see a bill that needs to be paid or your cell phone rings... instead you are in the world I have created and firmly there.  Unlike painting where you stand from a distance and look at a static scene or cinema where you are told a story as a passive observer,  virtual reality artwork can offer the ability to be an active participant in the art.  For example, if you watch a movie and see a space under a bed you can not break free of the camera to look under that bed, but with virtual reality it is open ended to such a degree that your freedom is only hampered by the ability of the artist to provide for you.  Looking under a bed in a VR space might find you something taped to the mattress.. but you only find it if you look.

     Hand is best experienced with a virtual reality headset, but Sansar also allows for traditional

navigation through the screen and if you have a fairly new computer you should have no problem exploring the artwork.  Hand is the story of a girl named Flutter who carries something precious in a suitcase.  You follow her story in the same world that my others characters inhabit, and some of these you will recognize furthering their story and place within the world I have been working on for over a decade. If you do try it using VR then please feel free to contact me and tell how the experience was as I would to hear what worked and also anything that didn't.  Also for VR,  click the three dots to the left of your screen, click settings and in graphics turn on shadowed atmospherics and ambient occlusion.  They are off by default.  Hope you enjoy!