Research

Culture Lab Newcastle

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.

Sony CSL Paris (2001-2007)

A technique for extracting information from user arm gestures that applies pattern recognition to arm muscle biosignals (electromyogram, or EMG), and is able to recognize six basic gestures in real time. The technique analyzes unconstrained free-space movements, and is able make an identification before completion of the gesture. Two electrodes placed on the user’s forearm are used to acquire EMG data. Statistical analysis matches incoming data against a training set. The program outputs a gesture by name to a process allowing control of musical playback. We propose a demonstrator whereby a simulation of a personal music player is controlled by hand-arm gestures.

Publications