Atau Tanaka was born in Tokyo and raised in the U.S. He studied with Ivan
Tcherepnin at Harvard, and there met John Cage. While living in
the San Francisco area, he was commissioned to compose the first
piece for BioMuse, a bioelectrical musical instrument. Tanaka
moved to Paris in 1992 to conduct research at IRCAM. In his work with sensor technology, he as been artist in residence
at STEIM, Amsterdam, and designed an interactive art gallery for Fred
Frith. In 1995 became Artistic Ambassador for Apple France for
interactive music technologies.
Atau has concertized in Europe, North America, and Japan. He has
presented his work at conferences and festivals such as Doors of Perception, MILIA, ISEA, DEAF, ICMC, Sonar. He has used the BioMuse to control real time image processing,
creating solo sound/image performances. In 1993 he established
Sensorband with Zbigniew Karkowski and Edwin van der Heide as a sensor instrument
ensemble. Sensorband has performed widely as a trio, in network
concerts, and has created projects using large scale architectural
and laser instruments.
In 1997 Atau moved from Paris to Tokyo on a Sensorband commission
from NTT-ICC. He is currently conducting research on network music.
