Atau Tanaka

Atau Tanaka uses muscle sensing with the EMG signal in musical performance where the human body becomes musical instrument. His mentors were Ivan Tcherepnin, John Chowning, and Michel Waisvisz. Atau’s first inspirations came upon meeting John Cage during his Norton Lectures at Harvard and would go to on re-create Cage’s Variations VII with Matt Wand and :zoviet*france: in 2008. In the 1990s 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. His second trio, Sensors_Sonics_Sights was with Thereminist Laurent Dailleau and visual artist Cecile Babiole. He performed in John Peel’s Meltdown at Southbank London, performed in the French improvised music scene with Camel Zekri, Metamkine, Le Quan Ninh, and Michel Doneda, had a mobile phone duo with Adam Parkinson (aka Dane Law), and performed with the visual artist Lillevan. He has had CD releases on CD’s on Sub Rosa, Bip-hop, Caipirinha Music, Touch/Ash, Sonoris, Sirr-ecords, Goldsmiths Press/NX Records. He has been artistic co-director of STEIM and has worked at IRCAM and Sony CSL Paris. His work has received awards from Ars Electronica, and been presented at Sonar, Mutek, Transmediale/CTM, SFMOMA, ICA, Eyebeam, NTT-ICC, and ZKM.