This week we have a guest speaker, Atau Tanaka, Professor of Media Computing, visiting from Goldsmiths.
Meta-Gesture Music: Embodied musical interaction and machine learning
In this talk, I present Meta-Gesture Music, a major project funded by the European Research Council, that ran from 2012-2017. The project draws upon the complementary research fields of human-computer interaction (HCI), sound studies, and machine learning to create gestural, interactive musical instruments for both musicians and non-musicians alike. We study humans’ embodied relationships to sound in everyday settings, investigating the affordances that sound may have to invite corporeal action, with the human body as the source of expressive gesture. We study the source of musical gesture inside the body by using physiological signals, notably the electromyogram. User-centred design methods use scenario building and creation of design mock ups. Machine Learning techniques perform recognition and report on expressive variation of musical gestures. We connect gesture to sound to propose new engaging, accessible, challenging interactive musical systems. This results in forms of embodied musical interaction, interaction with music that are physical, situated, social, and participatory.
About Atau
Atau Tanaka read Physical Sciences at Harvard and obtained a doctorate in Computer Music Composition from Stanford University’s CCRMA. His first inspirations came upon meeting John Cage during his Norton Lectures. Atau’s research in embodied musical interaction takes place at the intersection of Human Computer Interaction and gestural computer music performance. He carried out this work at IRCAM Centre Pompidou, as Artistic Ambassador for Apple France, and as researcher at Sony Computer Science Laboratory Paris. His performances and installations have been presented at Ars Electronica, SFMOMA, Eyebeam, Southbank Meltdown, NTT-ICC, and ZKM, and has been supported by the European Research Council (ERC). He has been mentor at NESTA and was Artistic Co-Director of STEIM. He is Professor of Media Computing at Goldsmiths.