Michael Patrick Johnson, PhD 
Bio
[Curriculum Vitae]
I received my Ph.D. in Media Arts and Sciences from the MIT Media Lab in 2003, advised by Prof. Bruce Blumberg in the Synthetic Characters group, focusing on research in expressive animation algorithms for interactive virtual characters and tangible interfaces for virtual character control. I received my M.S. from the MIT Media Lab in 1995, advised by Prof. Pattie Maes in the Autonomous Agents group, focusing on research in evolutionary computation applied to computer vision. Prior to that, I received my B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with minor in Creative Writing from MIT in 1993, with reseach on pinball simulation and motor learning.
Recently, I have been working as a software engineer in the videogame industry in Boston.
Very recently, I was an Artist in Residence at GA Tech where I produced several digital art works and taught the "Interactive Expressive Characters" segment of the Games as Expressive Medium course with Prof. Celia Pearce in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture.
I am also a survivor of the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writing Workshop (MSU, summer 1993).
I like to play many games, including videogames and Go. I also enjoy hiking in the White Mountains.
Publications, Papers, Patents
- Exploiting Quaternions to Support Expressive Interactive Character Motion, (PhD Dissertation, MIT Media Lab, 2003)
- Integrated Learning for Interactive Synthetic Characters. B. Blumberg, M. Downie, Y. Ivanov, M. Berlin, M.P. Johnson, B. Tomlinson. (In Proceedings of the 29th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, SIGGRAPH 2002).
- Physically interactive story environments, C.S. Pinhanez, J.W. Davis, S. Intille, M. P. Johnson, A. D. Wilson, A. F. Bobick, and B. Blumberg. (IBM Systems Journal 39, 3&4, 2000).
- Multi-Dimensional Quaternion Interpolation, M. P. Johnson. (SIGGRAPH 2000, Technical Sketches and Applications).
- Sympathetic Interfaces: Using a Plush Toy to Direct Synthetic Characters. M.P. Johnson, A. Wilson, B. Blumberg, C. Kline, and A. Bobick.( In Proceedings of SIGCHI 99, 1999).
- Physical Limits of Portable Power Storage (unpublished, for Physics of Information Technology class at the Media Lab, April 1998).
- Method and System for Facilitating Wireless, Full-Body, Real-Time User Interaction with a Digitally Represented Visual Environment. P. Maes, B. Blumberg, T. Darrell, T. Starner, M.P. Johnson, K. Russell, A. Pentland. (U.S. Patent 5,563,988, Issued: Oct 8, 1996).
- Automated Creation of Visual Routines Using Genetic Programming. M. P. Johnson. (In Proceedings of the International Conference on Pattern Recognition, ICPR(A) pp. 951—956, 1996).
- Evolving Visual Routines (M.S. Thesis, MIT Media Lab, 1995)
- Evolving Visual Routines, M. P. Johnson, P. Maes, and T. Darrell. (In proceedings of Artificial Life IV Conference and selected for Artificial Life 1:4 "Highlights of Artificial Life IV Conference" Issue).
- Algorithms for Pinball Simulation, Ball Tracking, and Learning Flipper Control (B.S. Thesis, MIT EECS, 1993)
- An Empirical Investigation of Brute Force to Choose Features, Smoothers, and Function Approximators. A. Moore, D.J. Hill, M.P. Johnson. (Computational Learning Theory and Natural Learning Systems Vol III. ed. T. Petsche, S. J. Hanson, and J. Shavlik. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. 1995).
Interactive Installations
I have been involved with several interactive installations.
An interaction installation that showcased our novel Sympathetic Interface, using a sensor-embedded plush toy to control virtual characters.
LaserGloves
LaserGloves were created for Interactive Expression class, MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, Fall 1998. They were also worn in the fashion show at the Wearables Tokyo Wearable Computers Symposium and Fashion Show, Nicograph 1998.
Dancing characters controlled by wireless "fork and bun" interface showcased my quaternion-based animation blending research.
Whacka! Game for SmartSpaces (SIGGRAPH 1996)
Believable Inverse Kinematics for Stereo Interactive Video Environment (Azarbayejani). Whacka game video.
Teaching Experience
- Teaching Assistant, MIT. “Modeling Autonomous Agents,” Spring 1996, Prof. Pattie Maes.
- Visiting Faculty/Artist in Residence, GA Tech. Games as Expressive Medium, March/April 2007, School of Literature, Communication and Culture.
Traces of Life
Artist Residency | GA Tech | March/April 2007
During my Artist Residency in the Games as Expressive Medium class at GA Tech (producer/curator: Prof. Celia Pearce), I produced several digital art/game projects using the Processing development environment. I called the collection after the final piece, Traces of Life. The presentation I gave at the end of my residency has all the details and some movies.
Two of the pieces are interactive applets:
- Cartoon Cosmos : An interactive cartoon simulation of celestial mechanics using Newtonian gravity.
- Paintcan of Worms: Space toggles trace mode, A toggles alpha blend mode. Use trace and alpha to make "fingerpaint-like" images. You can grab the "heads" and drag them.
Traces of Life, the final piece is not yet available as an applet. In this piece, artificial lifeforms "eat" a source image and "trace out" a painterly rendering of it. Below are a few examples. The talk I gave has several more.
