The Steampunk Princess

Where to begin on this post? Bah, I’m still getting used to the idea of baring all here I think. Though, it’s the only way to begin this thing, I think. Miss Oh. Miss Bryn Oh. There are so many things I could say about her. I suppose this will be a long blog. Apologies in advance. She is an amazingly deep and artistic soul, a watered down blog just isn’t going to work out. All I can say is… some days Miss Oh is the reason I don’t up and nuke my account. Seriously.

Immersiva. What is it? I hear so often, visitors will approach Bryn and I. A lot of the times, the first question they have for us is: “What is Immersiva?” Well, let me explain. Immersiva is a narrative. It is a story for people to find their own meanings in. It is not a place Bryn could give you a single definition for. It’s not that simple. Immersiva. It’s Bryn’s personal stories, translated into poetry and surreal images. She takes aspects of her life and transforms them, placing the essence of what they “are” into prims. It is a story tellers gift. Not something you can “teach” through build lessons. You can teach skill, you cannot teach soul.

Teleporting into Immersiva you will find sky settings to transform Immersiva into a hazy foggy sky. This overlays the atmosphere and sets the sim up into a mood. Unlike a lot of people, Miss Oh understands the need for total immersion (as much as can be granted to SL, we all know someone tapping you on the shoulder or a phone ringing can really fuck things up). She tries as much as she can to create a total world for the visitor. If you have the patience for it, it is worth it to take the sky settings notecard and set it up for yourself. (Or you can download emerald viewer: http://modularsystems.sl/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&view=sections&Itemid=5 and it has Bryn’s sky settings already loaded as a default windlight view. SWEET DEAL huh?)

There are so many beautiful stories Bryn has created for Immersiva. One of my personal favorites is her story for the Rabbicorn. I could explain it to you but you really need to see it for yourself. If you’ve never been to see it, you can find the entrance to it by going to the pier in Immersiva and finding the metal tower stand, beside Bryn’s statue holding the first page of the story. If you left click it, you will teleport into the next room. Each room has one of these, until you reach the end.If you make it to the end, you will find a video Bryn has put together to tell the story of the Rabbicorn. Which you can see here: (Aw I made it easy on the busy folks <.<)

(beautifully done by the way Bryn)

There is also another story (among many many other stories all scattered through Immersiva) called “Vessels Dream”. It was Miss Oh’s build for Burning Life 2009. Immersiva is constantly restricted by prim limitations so things are always moving to new guest art sim hosts (thankfully). If you never got the chance to explore this amazingly unique and moving experience, you may take a glimpse into the moments we had during Burning Life in a machinima I put together while checking in on her during the festival. You can see this video here:

I am sure I will write more and more about the wonderful and unique soul that is Bryn Oh. I could go on for weeks really. You would probably get pretty annoyed. Though all of my ranting about her talent and heart would not be exaggerated in the slightest.

Another story I have a soft spot for would be her tale of the “Angler Girl”. I’ll give you a small back story on this piece. Running around playing on Immersiva as we usually do, one day Bryn turns to me and says: “What do you think I should build?” I don’t know. Hell, I never know what to do myself 0,o So without thinking I just blurted out: “Oh, I don’t know Bryn. An anglerfish thingi?” Ok ok, I know, this wasn’t the most expressive of ideas, but Miss Oh seemed interested by it and ran off to work. An evening later appeared this marvelous statue series of a very sad girl, holding a net, with big sorrowful eyes and a dangling light-bulb extending from her head. It reached out like a lure guiding two lost robots over to where she stood, bucket collecting batteries behind her. I was so moved by this particular build that I filmed it, taking the poem Bryn has hidden inside of her (and the sounds from the build she generously shared with me to add to the video) and narrating the machinima to tell her tale. You can see this video here –>

So much effort and work Bryn puts into every single tiny prim work that she does. She understands the need for narrative in SL. She understands the need for things to have lore, to tell tales. It is what makes her robots more human sometimes than their visiting human counter-parts. Sure, there are plenty of builds that are beautiful just to be beautiful, but, after that? What are they? Just prims. Nice things to look at, and eat up your prim count. Yes, I know, each to his own and everyone prefers different things, and well, this is my blog right? ;p

Before I wrap this entry up… I wanted to share one of my favorite areas to appear in Immersiva lately. This is her new puppet and it’s backing stage. (if you pay attention to the stone nearby the front of the stage and walk over it, you will be pleasantly surprised) This build touched my heart, for many reasons. First and foremost, it is a puppet who has been broken. While she could just be free of her strings, she is sitting there trying to hang herself back up. Something about this build really spoke to me, I suppose.

My dear sweet friend miss Justine from the eclectic industrial/experimental/orchestral project “Absolute Entity” allowed me recently to use what is going to be her first single from a new album called “Stay with me tonight” to assist me in a little story telling in Immersiva. I used this brilliantly emotional and deep song to tell the story of a sad robot girl who wants to be real and learn to love others to sort of explain why I found the puppet so special to begin with. I was so pleased to hear just this evening back from Justine (who has been very very very busy doing new music and YAY THE WORLD NEEEEEEDS her voice, omg so seriously not even joking), who had a few things to say about the video. What touched me the most was that I did not know anything about her real life, and when I came to find out a few details, I was floored by how oddly accurate my imagery chosen really was. She said a few really sweet things to me but what touched me the most was: “I used to be a ballerina when I was younger and for my first “show”, I was the main character and I played the role of a doll with a key who had to wake up all the other toys around her to show them that they had a heart/were alive…

Strange “coincidence” isn’t it?”

Sometimes people just vibe on the same channel. I think that is what Immersiva is about the most. Connection with like-minded individuals. I will leave you with that video “Stay with me tonight”. Thank for you for following and sharing in my mind rants. -_o

Love, peace, particles

and

Keep rocking the grid

-Colie

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