a sword and sorcery adventure game

made in Unity

ongoing

The Blademistress Trials a video game currently in development by myself and my partner, Jack Becker. It’s a Legend of Zelda-like adventure game featuring sword-fighting and time travel.

Set in a world of floating islands, Mun, a young swordswoman meets an angel, Antiquity, and they depart on an adventure about time, immortality, apocalypse, and learning to let go.

Coming soon to itch.io and Steam.

an interactive AI dance installation
made in Unity, using the Microsoft Kinect and Rokoko Smartsuit
at Expressive Machinery Lab @ Georgia Tech
2018 – present

LuminAI is an interactive art installation in which participants can engage in collaborative movement improvisation with an artificially intelligent virtual dance partner. The line between human and non-human is blurred, spurring participants to examine their relationship with AI-based technology and how it can be expressive, social, and playful.

The LuminAI installation ultimately examines how humans and machines can co-create experiences together as equals. By observing users and dancers with the Azure Kinect and Motion Capture, participants are able to creatively explore movement while having fun. LuminAI’s virtual agent analyzes participant movements through procedural representations of the Viewpoints & Laban movement theories (from theater and dance) and improvises responses from transformed memories of past interactions with people. In other words, the agent learns how to dance by dancing with us.

LuminAI was recently showcased at Kennesaw State University’s dance performance : “LuminAI” in May 2024.

Publications:

2024. Chengzhi Zhang, Chelsi Cocking, Milka Trajkova, Zoe Mock, Gemma Tate, Cassandra Naomi Monden, and Brian Magerko. Fostering AI Literacy with LuminAI through Embodiment and Creativity in Informal Learning Spaces. In Creativity and Cognition (C&C 2024).

2023. Milka Trajkova, Manoj Deshpande, Andrea Knowlton, Cassandra Monden, Duri Long, and Brian Magerko. “AI Meets Holographic Pepper’s Ghost: A Co-Creative Public Dance Experience.” In Companion Publication of the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS 2023)

2020. Duri Long, Lucas Liu, Swar Gujrania, Cassandra Naomi, and Brian Magerko. “Visualizing Improvisation in LuminAI, an AI Partner for Co-Creative Dance.” In Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Conference on Movement and Computing (MOCO).

made in Unity, using the Ideum Touch Table
summer 2021 – present

TuneTable is an interactive tangible tabletop experience in which users can collaboratively create sample-based music compositions using computer science coding concepts. The experience is designed to broaden perceptions of CS, encourage interest formation in CS, and facilitate learning of some introductory computing concepts. The TuneTable design team has explored a variety of different design iterations for the installation.

Xylocode is the most recent iteration of TuneTable. Due to COVID-19, the design team explored how to implement the project in an online web app that could eventually be converted to a tangible tabletop installation. You can play with Xylocode here.

Showcased at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, April 2022

a visualization of Who Knows Who in Hollywood
made in d3 using javascript and node.js
spring 2021

This visualization, lovingly named Auteur, maps the relationships between actors and directors. Named after auteur theory, the theory that directors are the central creative force in the creation of film, directors and actors often have a few actors and cast members that they turn to to create their films. As such, Auteur looks to examine the primary question: “Who works with whom in
Hollywood?” It does so by creating a node graph between actors and directors, with the films/shows they’ve worked on serving as the links between them. Actors are shown in gray, directors in black, and individuals who are both actors and directors are shown in yellow.

Users can click nodes and and links to view the actors, directors, and movies associated with them. This shows the details of their selection in the window in the bottom left corner. This features a list
of movies that the actor or director has worked on or cast members in the movie selected. These are also links, so that you can trace a path through works to see connections. Also, as the connections in the film industry are tightly interwoven, Auteur also boasts a number of filters for
both ease and increased depth.

an app to find and support Black businesses.
made in React Native for Android and iOS
fall 2018

Bread came out of this need for Black businesses to be more known and patronized within the Black Community. Named after the popular phrase: “Let’s get this bread,” the application promotes and fosters the entrepreneurship and hustle of Black business.

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