Atau Tanaka

Professor, Chair of Digital Media & Acting Director of Culture Lab, Newcastle University

Atau Tanaka bridges the fields of media art, experimental music, and research. He worked at IRCAM, was Artistic Ambassador for Apple France, and was researcher at Sony Computer Science Laboratory Paris, and was an Artistic Co-Director of STEIM in Amsterdam. Atau creates sensor-based musical instruments for performance, and is known for his work with biosignal interfaces. He seeks to harness collective musical creativity in mobile environments, seeking out the continued place of the artist in democratized digital forms.

His work has been presented at Ars Electronica, SFMOMA, Eyebeam, V2, ICC, and ZKM and has been mentor at NESTA.

His research interests include Mobile and Locative Media Art, Interactive Performance, and Creative practice on Public Displays.

Current Work
Recent publications include chapters in "Transdisciplinary Digital Art. Sound, Vision and the New Screen" (Springer), and "Mobile Technologies: From Telecommunications to Media" (Routledge, in press). He is co-editor with Frauke Behrendt, Lalya Gaye, and Nicolaj Kirisits of "Creative Interactions: The Mobile Music Workshops 2004-2008" (di:'Angewandte). In his practice, he has recently re-created at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary art, on a commission from the AV Festival 2008, and in collaboration with *zoviet:france*, Matt Wand, and the John Cage Trust, "Variations VII" by John Cage after the historic 1966 Armory performances of E.A.T.'s 9 Evenings.