A method for automatic recognition of human activity is provided and includes the steps of decomposing human activity into a plurality of fundamental component attributes needed to perform an activity and defining ontologies of fundamental component attributes from the plurality of the fundamental component attributes identified during the decomposing step for each of a plurality of different targeted activities. The method also includes the steps of converting a data stream captured during a performance of an activity performed by a human into a sequence of fundamental component attributes and classifying the performed activity as one of the plurality of different targeted activities based on a closest match of the sequence of fundamental component attributes obtained during the converting step to at least a part of one of the ontologies of fundamental component attributes defined during the defining step. A system for performing the method is also disclosed.