Freedom Baird
Director

Andrew Duggan, David Berman
Programmers

Stefan Agamanolis, Joe Paradiso, Josh Smith, Sophia Serghi
Investigators

Glorianna Davenport
Research Supervisor

A confluence of developments in video, audio and sensor technologies invites us to explore new methods of inter-media translation. In a world rife with vocabularies - spoken, gestural, visual and otherwise - we can use computers to perceive events in one vocabulary and translate them into another, therevy extending our senses and expressive abilities.

Sashay allows its users to create montaged animations by tapping into their associative sensibilities, and translating ritualized gestures into expressive animated events.

Sashay uses an internally developed scripting language, ISIS, designed by Stefan Agamanolis. It runs native on a DEC Alpha workstation, but only after dark. Freedom also borrowed some other technologies from the Brain Opera group; most notably, Joe Paradiso's "Gesture Wall" sensor.

Baird F (1997). The Un/Real Duet: Intimacy & Agency through Interaction with a Virtual Character MIT MS Thesis. Baird F (1997). Tilting at a Dreamer's Windmills: Gesture-Based Constructivist Interaction with Character Consciousness Reframed Conference, July.