Glorianna Davenport, Cheryl Morse, Michael Murtaugh, Freedom Baird, Richard Lachman, Peter Cho, Phillip Tiongson, Laughton Stanley
Research Team

Michael Murtaugh
Interface Designer

This hyper-portrait introduces the audience to a remarkable man whose life centered on science, government, ecucation and issues of cultural humanism. Early in his career, Jerome Wiesner developed an audio recording laboratory at the Library of Congress and travelled extensively throughout America, capturing folk music by native performers.

He directed MIT's Research Lab for Electronics during the Cold War, served as National Science Advisor to John F. Kennedy, and eventually became President of MIT. After the end of World War II, Wiesner became a prominent advocate of disarmament and was a key player in negotiating the first Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

In this hyper portrait (which runs on the World Wide Web), we invite viewers to explore the Twentieth Centurey through an extensible collection of stories about and recollections by the central figure. We also invite viewers who knew JBW to share a memorable story with our growing society of audience.

Jerome B. Wiesner uses the Dexter continuity engine developed by Michael Murtaugh. This work is delivered using two principle channels: the World Wide Web and a CD-ROM.

Davenport G; Murtaugh M (1997). Automatist storyteller systems and the shifting sands of story IBM Systems Journal, vol.36, no.3, 1997, pp.446-56. Publisher: IBM, USA. National Information Infrastructure Awards (1996). Davenport G; Murtaugh M (1995). ConText: Towards the Evolving Documentary ACM Multimedia '95, November 1995. Beecham F (1995). Movies of the Future: Storytelling with Computers American Cinematographer, April, cover, pp 4-12.