As a musician, he's travelled the world playing wonderful instruments, such as a device that uses muscle and brain signals to control synthesisers. However, Culture Lab director Atau Tanaka is also a firm believer in the need for technology to affect social change. John Hill finds out more.

AROUND 15 years ago, the founder of America’s MIT Media Lab wrote a book that predicted the future.

Nicholas Negroponte’s Being Digital focused on the transition from “unwieldy atoms” of information, such as books, into bits of information. He foresaw personalised daily news such as web feeds, as well as the rise of touch-screen technology and digital books.

Society is more digital than it’s ever been. But what does it mean for us, and what’s the point of it all?

In his epilogue, Negroponte said: “Bits are not edible; in that sense they cannot stop hunger. Computers are not moral; they cannot resolve complex issues like the rights to life and to death. But being digital, nevertheless, does give much cause for optimism.

“Like a force of nature, the digital age cannot be denied or stopped. It has four very powerful qualities that will result in its ultimate triumph: decentralising, globalising, harmonising and empowering.”

This is the challenge of the digital age; to not only change objects into information, but to open the doors to the world. Steps on this journey are made every day in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Toyko, London ... and, of course, in a listed building in Newcastle. Welcome to Culture Lab.

“We’re not a lab that belongs to one faculty,” says Culture Lab director Atau Tanaka. “Culture Lab is the first lab funded by science that’s managed by a faculty of humanities and social science.

“There’s a shift now in focus from technological innovation to social innovation. When Negroponte wrote that book, it was about the future and the future had to be invented.

“In the time since, the future has arrived. People have started using digital cameras instead of film, and mobiles over land lines.

“Now we have a responsibility to see through everything that we imagined. We can’t automatically assume technology is good. We believe it can be good, but we need to adapt the uses of the technology for social gain.”

Backed by funding from the Science Research Investment Fund, Culture Lab opened in 2006 to support experimental creative arts and technology projects.

Late last year, it showcased some of its intriguing experiments, such as tables which allow users to alter ambient lighting in a room and electronic beer mats which can be used to send messages to each other.

However, there’s a wider social element. It is currently two years into a five-year exploration of the social benefits of technology. The £12m Social Inclusion Through the Digital Economy research hub is investigating how ill health, unemployment and poverty can be tackled digitally.

Culture Lab has held workshops at the Tyneside Cinema to show older people how blogs and social media can connect them with family and friends, and Culture Lab On Site is now connecting with the community from a railway arch at 5 Forth Street in Newcastle.

Tanaka says: “We organise film screenings, public events and poetry readings, but it’s still a lab. The way Culture Lab plays a role in the region’s well-being is by opening its doors and being inclusive in our vision.

“We’ve had success with open days for young children. They know technological innovation takes place somewhere in the world, but don’t realise it happens in their own backyard. That raises aspirations.

“Policymakers will observe the conditions of digital access and write a report about access. We’re looking at inclusion beyond access. We’re looking at what information we should pass on and what knowledge we can share. How can the infrastructure become socially empowering?”

Tanaka has been Culture Lab’s director since 2009. He took on the role of chair of digital media at Newcastle University in 2007 after six years as a researcher at Sony Computer Science Laboratory in Paris. However, it’s music that drives his quest for innovation.

Tanaka played classical piano until he was 18, but found himself drawn to electronic music. As a biochemistry student at Harvard, he took classes in modern art and contemporary music. He then tackled composition and recording at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, before pursuing a PhD in computer music at Stanford.

He says: “The first Mac came out when I was finishing at Harvard, and one of its first advanced uses was digital music programming.

“Software was coming out of Palo Alto, and I was an early adopter of this technology. I got to know the developers, and when I had the choice to move to California it was fantastic to meet them face to face.

“I was interested in taking the idea of live performance and applying it to computers. At Stanford, there was a small community of researchers and artists looking at interactive systems, in the form of sensors that could capture body gesture and give a physical and visceral nature to a performance.”

One of these inventions would soon become his signature instrument. Hugh Lusted and Ben Knapp of BioControl Systems had developed a device called the BioMuse, which tracked electrical signals from the eyes, brain and muscles and converts them into MIDI signals to control synthesisers and computers.

Tanaka was commissioned to compose a piece on the instrument, and took to the dynamic way it allowed him to perform electronic music.

He says: “Music is magical in that it’s a technical art form that takes enormous amounts of time to master, but it’s still accessible. People can dance to it, tap their feet or nod their head.

“Somewhere in between is the act of translation by a performer, sculpting sound in a compelling way through motion and gesture to communicate with an audience.”

In the final year of his PhD, he moved to Paris for a fellowship at the Cite International Des Arts. That one-year fellowship turned into an extended stay in Europe, exploring the potential of electronic music.

“We were always talking about the technology in Stanford, but when I went to Paris, the French were always asking about the music”, he says.