Yasunao Tone

Why this artist matters now

Yasunao Tone pioneered sound art through tape manipulation, circuit bending, and algorithmic sound generation beginning in the 1960s, treating the materiality of recording media itself as artistic material. His practice merged visual art, music, and technology in ways that anticipated later developments in digital art and net.art. Working across both sonic and visual registers, Tone expanded the boundaries of what could be considered artistic composition in the postwar period.

Source: Moma Bulk 2026 05 04 · Trust score: 92% · Updated 1mo ago