Atau Tanaka
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) and UK research councils. He has been mentor at NESTA and was Artistic Co-Director of STEIM. He is Professor of Media Computing at Goldsmiths.
Address: Department of Computing
Goldsmiths University of London
SE14 6NW London
UK
Address: Department of Computing
Goldsmiths University of London
SE14 6NW London
UK
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This paper presents *retro-active listening*, a concept which may be helpful to extend an understanding of sonic experience, focusing on its extra-auditory contextual aspects and embodied, kinaesthetic qualities based on the process of remembering and imagining to be listening to a sound from our memory. Retro-active listening exploits evocation of listening as an action rather than anamnesis of a sound. It is intended here as a mode of listening which can be investigated with the scope of generating participatory sonic interaction design. It feeds a qualitative method which can help research in sound studies and Sonic Interaction Design to explore the specificity of personal rencounters of listening situations as happened in the past, as evoked by listeners. It focuses on considering the unconscious, embodied, kinaesthetic aspects of sonic experience. It aims to help researchers to gather further insight into the problematic and yet unexplored aspects of participants’ everyday sonic experience, which they may have forgotten or failed to notice. The idea and challenge of using this concept is that by investigating diverse everyday sonic experience specifically from the past, with a strong focus on embodiment and affect, we can “resonate” multiple meanings, contexts, references and unknown forms of felt knowledge in an embodied resonance that is specific to thinking sonically.
This paper further reports the usage of the concept of retro-active listening to develop methods for our participatory sonic interaction design workshops. They can help researchers to retrieve the contexts in which sound was heard by participants and their specific, particular reactions and feelings. It may help to evoke a felt, corporeal awareness and bodily sensitivity that can be retained during the design phases. From this concept I developed the technique of the *sonic incident*, in which my collaborators and I explore participants’ recounted stories of problematic episodes from their everyday life in which sounds were memorable. These episodes are then used as case-studies and starting point for imagining possible interaction with sound and interactive technologies. Retro-active listening helped us to access forgotten, unnoticed and un-gestured embodied action-sound relationships and contextual information from participants’ everyday, helping us to explore not only a more “sonic” but also a more “embodied” approach to Interaction Design.
This paper presents *retro-active listening*, a concept which may be helpful to extend an understanding of sonic experience, focusing on its extra-auditory contextual aspects and embodied, kinaesthetic qualities based on the process of remembering and imagining to be listening to a sound from our memory. Retro-active listening exploits evocation of listening as an action rather than anamnesis of a sound. It is intended here as a mode of listening which can be investigated with the scope of generating participatory sonic interaction design. It feeds a qualitative method which can help research in sound studies and Sonic Interaction Design to explore the specificity of personal rencounters of listening situations as happened in the past, as evoked by listeners. It focuses on considering the unconscious, embodied, kinaesthetic aspects of sonic experience. It aims to help researchers to gather further insight into the problematic and yet unexplored aspects of participants’ everyday sonic experience, which they may have forgotten or failed to notice. The idea and challenge of using this concept is that by investigating diverse everyday sonic experience specifically from the past, with a strong focus on embodiment and affect, we can “resonate” multiple meanings, contexts, references and unknown forms of felt knowledge in an embodied resonance that is specific to thinking sonically.
This paper further reports the usage of the concept of retro-active listening to develop methods for our participatory sonic interaction design workshops. They can help researchers to retrieve the contexts in which sound was heard by participants and their specific, particular reactions and feelings. It may help to evoke a felt, corporeal awareness and bodily sensitivity that can be retained during the design phases. From this concept I developed the technique of the *sonic incident*, in which my collaborators and I explore participants’ recounted stories of problematic episodes from their everyday life in which sounds were memorable. These episodes are then used as case-studies and starting point for imagining possible interaction with sound and interactive technologies. Retro-active listening helped us to access forgotten, unnoticed and un-gestured embodied action-sound relationships and contextual information from participants’ everyday, helping us to explore not only a more “sonic” but also a more “embodied” approach to Interaction Design.