Prof Atau Tanaka

Atau researches embodied musical interaction, human computer interaction and gestural computer music performance.

Staff details

Position

Professor of Media Computing

Email

a.tanaka (@gold.ac.uk)

Website

http://www.ataut.net

Twitter

@atautanaka

Atau Tanaka conducts research in embodied musical interaction. This work takes place at the intersection of human computer interaction and gestural computer music performance.

He studies our encounters with sound, be they in music or in the everyday, as a form of phenomenological experience. This includes the use of physiological sensing technologies, notably muscle tension in the electromyogram signal, and machine learning analysis of this complex, organic data.

At the other extreme, he studies user experience through ethnographic methods of participatory design where activities of workshopping, scenario building, and structured brainstorming lead an understanding of a mediums affordances in bottom-up, emergent ways.

He is a member of the EAVI (Embodied AudioVisual Interaction) research group, which focuses on embodied interaction with sound and image. EAVI is a small group of academics, researchers, and PhD students carrying out cutting-edge research across topics including motion capture, eye tracking, brain computer interfaces, physiological bio-interfaces, machine learning, and auditory culture.

Atau has previously been Artistic Ambassador at Apple, researcher at Sony Computer Science Laboratory, and professor and guest professor in Japan, France, and northeast England. His work has been supported by the European Research Council (ERC), Horizon2020, and both science and humanities sections of Research Councils UK (RCUK).

Academic Qualifications

Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA), Stanford University
Bachelor of Music (BM), Peabody Conservatory, Johns Hopkins University
Bachelor of Arts (AB), Harvard University

Teaching

Professional projects

Atau is a composer and performer of live computer music, taking research out of the lab onto the stage. He uses muscle sensing using the EMG signal in musical performance where the human body becomes musical instrument. He has created large scale installations bringing together sound/image, mobile, and network technologies.

Atau’s first inspirations came upon meeting John Cage during his Norton Lectures and would go to on re-create Cage’s Variations VII with Matt Wand and :zoviet*france:.

He formed Sensorband with Zbigniew Karkowski and Edwin van der Heide and in the Japanoise scene he has played alongside artists like Merzbow, Otomo, KK Null and others.

He has been artistic co-director of STEIM, the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music.

His work has received awards from Ars Electronica, Fraunhofer Institute, and the Fondation Daniel Langlois, and been presented internationally at Sonar, Transmediale, SFMOMA, ICA, Eyebeam, NTT-ICC, and ZKM

Publications and research outputs

Edited Book

Live Visuals: History, Theory, Practice Gibson, Steve; Arisona, Stefan; Leishman, Donna and Tanaka, Atau, eds. 2022. Live Visuals: History, Theory, Practice. Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 9781032252681

Book Section

Embodied Interaction and Audio-Visuals in Performing Arts Correia, Nuno N. and Tanaka, Atau. 2025. Embodied Interaction and Audio-Visuals in Performing Arts. In: UNSPECIFIED, ed. Audiovisualisms. Abingdon: Routledge.
Gesture-Timbre Space: Multidimensional Feature Mapping Using Machine Learning & Concatenative Synthesis Zbyszynski, Michael; Di Donato, Balandino; Visi, Federico and Tanaka, Atau. 2021. Gesture-Timbre Space: Multidimensional Feature Mapping Using Machine Learning & Concatenative Synthesis. In: Richard Kronland-Martinet; Sølvi Ystad and Mitsuko Aramaki, eds. Perception, Representations, Image, Sound, Music. Springer International Publishing. ISBN 9783030702090
Embodied Musical Interaction Tanaka, Atau. 2019. Embodied Musical Interaction. In: Simon Holland; Tom Mudd; Katie Wilkie-McKenna; Andrew McPherson and Marcelo Wanderley, eds. New Directions in Music and Human-Computer Interaction. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, pp. 135-154. ISBN 9783319920689

The Body as Musical Instrument Tanaka, Atau and Donnarumma, Marco. 2018. The Body as Musical Instrument. In: UNSPECIFIED, ed. UNSPECIFIED 1 Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190636234
The problems with participation Tanaka, Atau and Parkinson, Adam. 2018. The problems with participation. In: Simon Emmerson, ed. The Routledge Research Companion to Electronic Music: Reaching out with Technology. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 172-193. ISBN 9781317043607
Gestural Musical Performance with Physiological Sensors, Focusing on the Electromyogram Tanaka, Atau and Ortiz, Miguel. 2017. Gestural Musical Performance with Physiological Sensors, Focusing on the Electromyogram. In: M. Lesaffre; P-J. Maes and M. Leman, eds. The Routledge Companion to Embodied Music Interaction. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 422-430. ISBN 9781138657403
Multimodal Interaction in Music Using the Electromyogram and Relative Position Sensing Tanaka, Atau and Knapp, R. Benjamin. 2017. Multimodal Interaction in Music Using the Electromyogram and Relative Position Sensing. In: Alexander Refsum Jensenius and Michael J Lyons, eds. A NIME Reader Fifteen Years of New Interfaces for Musical Expression. Srpinger, pp. 45-58. ISBN 978-3-319-47213-3
HapticWave: presenting the multiple voices, artefacts and materials of a design research project Parkinson, Adam; Cameron, David and Tanaka, Atau. 2015. HapticWave: presenting the multiple voices, artefacts and materials of a design research project. In: UNSPECIFIED, ed. Proceedings of the 2nd Biennial Research Through Design Conference.
Creative Applications of Interactive Mobile Music Tanaka, Atau. 2014. Creative Applications of Interactive Mobile Music. In: Sumanth Gopinath and Jason Stanyek, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Mobile Music Studies, Volume 2. 2 Oxford: Oxford Handbooks Online. ISBN 9780199913657
Creative Applications of Interactive Mobile Music Tanaka, Atau. 2014. Creative Applications of Interactive Mobile Music. In: Sumanth Gopinath and Jason Stanyek, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Mobile Music Studies, Volume 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 470-486. ISBN 9780199913657
Making Data Sing: Embodied Approaches to Sonification Parkinson, Adam and Tanaka, Atau. 2014. Making Data Sing: Embodied Approaches to Sonification. In: Mitsuko Aramaki; Olivier Derrien; Richard Kronland-Martinet and Solvi Ystad, eds. Sound, Music and Motion. Springer, pp. 151-160. ISBN 978-3-319-12975-4
The A20: Interactive Instrument Techniques for Sonic Design Exploration Tanaka, Atau; Bau, O. and Mackay, W.. 2013. The A20: Interactive Instrument Techniques for Sonic Design Exploration. In: Karmen Franinović and Stefania Serafin, eds. Sonic Interaction Design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 255-270. ISBN 9780262018685
Composing for Cars Parkinson, Adam and Tanaka, Atau. 2013. Composing for Cars. In: UNSPECIFIED, ed. Proceedings of the Sound and Music Computing Conference 2013. Berlin, Stockholm, Sweden: Logos Verlag, pp. 136-141. ISBN 978-3-8325-3472-1
Survey and thematic analysis approach as input to the design of mobile music guis Tanaka, Atau; Parkinson, Adam; Settel, Zack and Tahiroğlu, Koray. 2012. Survey and thematic analysis approach as input to the design of mobile music guis. In: UNSPECIFIED, ed. NIME2012 Proceedings.
BioMuse to Bondage: Corporeal Interaction in Performance and Exhibition Tanaka, Atau. 2012. BioMuse to Bondage: Corporeal Interaction in Performance and Exhibition. In: Maria Chatzichristodoulou and Rachel Zerihan, eds. Intimacy Across Visceral and Digital Performance. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781137283337
Processes of Mutuality Tanaka, Atau. 2011. Processes of Mutuality. In: Irène Hediger and Josep Perelló, eds. Think Art, Act Science: Swiss Artists-in-labs. Barcelona: Actar, pp. 20-27. ISBN 978-8-492-86170-5
Situating within Society: Blueprints and Strategies for Media Labs Tanaka, Atau. 2011. Situating within Society: Blueprints and Strategies for Media Labs. In: Angela Plohman, ed. A Blueprint for a Lab of the Future. Eindhoven: Baltan Laboratories. ISBN 978-90-815830-0-8
Sensor-Based Musical Instruments and Interactive Music Tanaka, Atau. 2009. Sensor-Based Musical Instruments and Interactive Music. In: Roger Dean, ed. Oxford Handbook of Computer Music. UK: Oxford University Press, pp. 233-257. ISBN 978-0-199-79203-0
The Music Participates In Kazuhiro, Jo and Tanaka, Atau. 2009. The Music Participates In. In: Franziska Schroeder, ed. Performing Technology: User Content and the New Digital Media. UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 34-50. ISBN 978-1-443-81445-4

Article

Telematic music transmission, resistance and touch Tanaka, Atau. 2024. Telematic music transmission, resistance and touch. International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, 20(2), pp. 177-195. ISSN 1479-4713
An End-to-End Musical Instrument System That Translates Electromyogram Biosignals to Synthesized Sound Tanaka, Atau; Visi, Federico; Donato, Balandino Di; Klang, Martin and Zbyszyński, Michael. 2023. An End-to-End Musical Instrument System That Translates Electromyogram Biosignals to Synthesized Sound. Computer Music Journal, 47(1), pp. 64-84. ISSN 0148-9267
From GUI to AVUI: Situating Audiovisual User Interfaces Within Human-Computer Interaction and Related Fields Correia, Nuno N. and Tanaka, Atau. 2021. From GUI to AVUI: Situating Audiovisual User Interfaces Within Human-Computer Interaction and Related Fields. EAI Endorsed Transactions on Creative Technologies, 8(27), e5. ISSN 2409-9708

Conference or Workshop Item

Sonic entanglements with electromyography: Between bodies, signals, and representations Reed, Courtney N; Morrison, Landon; McPherson, Andrew; Fierro, David and Tanaka, Atau. 2024. 'Sonic entanglements with electromyography: Between bodies, signals, and representations'. In: Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’24). IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark 1 - 5 July 2024.
An Interactive Modular System for Electrophysiological DMIs Di Maggio, Francesco; Tanaka, Atau; Fierro, David and Whitmarsh, Stephen. 2023. 'An Interactive Modular System for Electrophysiological DMIs'. In: AM ’23: Embodied Sound in the Virtual. Edinburgh Napier University, United Kingdom 30 August - 1 September 2023.
The Light: Exploring Socially Improvised Movements Using Wearable Sensors in a Performative Installation Peng, Youhong (Friendred); Tanaka, Atau and Ward, Jamie A. 2020. 'The Light: Exploring Socially Improvised Movements Using Wearable Sensors in a Performative Installation'. In: UBICOMP / ISWC 2020. Cancun (online), Mexico.

Gesture-Timbre Space: Multidimensional Feature Mapping Using Machine Learning & Concatenative Synthesis Zbyszynski, Michael; Di Donato, Balandino and Tanaka, Atau. 2019. 'Gesture-Timbre Space: Multidimensional Feature Mapping Using Machine Learning & Concatenative Synthesis'. In: 14th International Symposium on Computer Music Multidisciplinary Research (CMMR). Marseille, France 14-18 October 2019.
Body and Embodiment in Dance Performance Peng, Youhong (Friendred) and Tanaka, Atau. 2019. 'Body and Embodiment in Dance Performance'. In: The 6th International Conference on Movement and Computing. Tempe, AZ, United States.
EAVI EMG board Di Donato, Balandino; Tanaka, Atau; Zbyszynski, Michael and Klang, Martin. 2019. 'EAVI EMG board'. In: New Interfaces for Musical Expression. Porto Alegre, Brazil 3-6 June 2019.
Designing Gestures for Continuous Sonic Interaction Tanaka, Atau; Di Donato, Balandino; Zbyszynski, Michael and Roks, Geert. 2019. 'Designing Gestures for Continuous Sonic Interaction'. In: The International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. Porto Alegre, Brazil 3-6 June 2019.
The Effect of Co-adaptive Learning & Feedback in Interactive Machine Learning Zbyszynski, Michael; Di Donato, Balandino and Tanaka, Atau. 2019. 'The Effect of Co-adaptive Learning & Feedback in Interactive Machine Learning'. In: ACM CHI: Human-Centered Machine Learning Perspectives Workshop. Glasgow, United Kingdom 4 May 2019.
Myo Mapper: a Myo armband to OSC mapper Di Donato, Balandino; Bullock, Jamie and Tanaka, Atau. 2018. 'Myo Mapper: a Myo armband to OSC mapper'. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. Blacksburg, Virginia, United States 3-6 June 2018.
The Role of Live Visuals in Audience Understanding of Electronic Music Performances Correia, Nuno N.; Castro, Deborah and Tanaka, Atau. 2017. 'The Role of Live Visuals in Audience Understanding of Electronic Music Performances'. In: Audio Mostly. London, United Kingdom.
Datasets for the Analysis of Expressive Musical Gestures Sarasúa, Álvaro; Caramiaux, Baptiste; Tanaka, Atau and Ortiz, Miguel. 2017. 'Datasets for the Analysis of Expressive Musical Gestures'. In: Moco 2017. London, United Kingdom.
AVUI: Designing a Toolkit for Audiovisual Interfaces Correia, Nuno N. and Tanaka, Atau. 2017. 'AVUI: Designing a Toolkit for Audiovisual Interfaces'. In: ACM CHI. Denver, CO, United States 5 - 11 June 2017.
Designing and measuring gesture using Laban Movement Analysis and Electromyogram Ward, Nicholas; Ortiz, Miguel; Bernardo, Francisco and Tanaka, Atau. 2016. 'Designing and measuring gesture using Laban Movement Analysis and Electromyogram'. In: BodySenseUX. UbiComp, Germany 12/09/2016.
Haptic Wave: A Cross-Modal Interface for Visually Impaired Audio Producers Tanaka, Atau and Parkinson, Adam. 2016. 'Haptic Wave: A Cross-Modal Interface for Visually Impaired Audio Producers'. In: CHI2016. San Jose, CA, United States 7 - 12 May 2016.
Human-Centered Machine Learning Gillies, Marco; Fiebrink, Rebecca; Tanaka, Atau; Garcia, Jérémie; Amershi, Saleema; Lee, Bongshin; Bevilacqua, Frédéric; Heloir, Alexis; Nunnari, Fabrizio; Mackay, Wendy; Kulesza, Todd; Caramiaux, Baptiste; d’Alessandro, Nicolas and Tilmanne, Joëlle. 2016. 'Human-Centered Machine Learning'. In: CHI '16 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. San Jose, United States 7 - 12 May 2016.
The Haptic Wave: A Device for Feeling Sound Parkinson, Adam and Tanaka, Atau. 2016. 'The Haptic Wave: A Device for Feeling Sound'. In: UNSPECIFIED. UNDEFINED.
Machine Learning of Personal Gesture Variation in Music Conducting Sarasua, Alvaro; Caramiaux, Baptiste and Tanaka, Atau. 2016. 'Machine Learning of Personal Gesture Variation in Music Conducting'. In: UNSPECIFIED. UNDEFINED.
Form Follows Sound: Designing Interactions from Sonic Memories Caramiaux, Baptiste; Altavilla, Alessandro; Pobiner, Scott and Tanaka, Atau. 2015. 'Form Follows Sound: Designing Interactions from Sonic Memories'. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Seoul, Korea, Republic of.
HapticWave: Presenting the Multiple Voices, Artefacts and Materials of a Design Research Project Parkinson, Adam; Cameron, David and Tanaka, Atau. 2015. 'HapticWave: Presenting the Multiple Voices, Artefacts and Materials of a Design Research Project'. In: Research Through Design. Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Form Follows Sound Caramiaux, Baptiste; Altavilla, Alessandro; Pobiner, Scott G. and Tanaka, Atau. 2015. 'Form Follows Sound'. In: UNSPECIFIED. UNDEFINED.
PiaF: A Tool for Augmented Piano Performance Using Gesture Variation Following Van Zandt-Escobar, Alejandro; Caramiaux, Baptiste and Tanaka, Atau. 2014. 'PiaF: A Tool for Augmented Piano Performance Using Gesture Variation Following'. In: New Interfaces for Musical Expression. Goldsmiths, United Kingdom.
Beyond Recognition: Using Gesture Variation for Continuous Interaction Caramiaux, Baptiste; Bevilacqua, Frédéric and Tanaka, Atau. 2013. 'Beyond Recognition: Using Gesture Variation for Continuous Interaction'. In: UNSPECIFIED. UNDEFINED.
Muscular Interactions Combining EMG and MMG sensing for musical practice Donnarumma, Marco; Caramiaux, Baptiste and Tanaka, Atau. 2013. 'Muscular Interactions Combining EMG and MMG sensing for musical practice'. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. Dajeon, Seoul, Korea, Republic of.
Body and Space : Combining Modalities for Musical Expression Donnarumma, Marco; Caramiaux, Baptiste and Tanaka, Atau. 2013. 'Body and Space : Combining Modalities for Musical Expression'. In: Work in Progress for the Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI). UPF, Barcelona, Spain.
Mapping Out Instruments, Affordances, and Mobiles Tanaka, Atau. 2010. 'Mapping Out Instruments, Affordances, and Mobiles'. In: New Interfaces for Musical Expression. Sydney, Australia.

Composition

Suspensions Tanaka, Atau. 2010. Suspensions.

Performance

Myogram (2015) Tanaka, Atau. 2015. Myogram (2015). In: "Performing Sound", ZKM, Germany.
4 Hands iPhone Tanaka, Atau and Parkinson, Adam. 2010. 4 Hands iPhone. In: "Electron Festival", Geneva, Switzerland, 2010-2011.
Variations VII Tanaka, Atau. 2008. Variations VII. In: "AV Festival", Newcastle-upon-Tyne, United Kingdom, 2008-2010.

Project

Sound and the City (Natural History Museum) Bulley, James; Sahin, Ozden; Spinelli, Emmanuel; Tanaka, Atau; Hosang, Georgina M.; Cubitt, Sean; Drever, John L. and Kanngieser, Anja. 2014. Sound and the City (Natural History Museum).

Report

Situating Community through Creative Technologies and Practice Bitton, Joelle; Cavaco, Andreia; Gaye, Lalya; Jones, Benjamin; Mearns, Graeme; Richardson, Ranald and Tanaka, Atau. 2011. Situating Community through Creative Technologies and Practice. Technical Report. Arts and Humanities Research Council, Swindon.

Show/Exhibition

Sonic Womb Exhibition Henriques, Julian F.; Gelet, Pierre and Tanaka, Atau. 2026. Sonic Womb Exhibition. In: "Sonic Womb Exhibition", Vesalius Anatomy Museum, Leuven, Belgium.
Creative Machine Latham, William; Tanaka, Atau and Leymarie, Frederic Fol. 2014. Creative Machine. In: "Creative Machine", St James Hatcham Church Gallery, Goldsmiths, University of London, 7 - 14 November 2014.

Research Interests

Music interaction
New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME)
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
User-centred Design (UCD)
Interactive machine learning applications
Embodiment, the body and phenomenology

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