Dr. Yota Kobayashi is a soundscape artist. Through the integrated act of sound production, composition, and software development, he realizes soundscape for spaces in the forms of musical performance and installation with concrete as well as abstract sound sources. In any way of representation, the objective is to evoke images of the universe that comprises harmoniously developing phenomena.

He received BFA (2007) in music at Simon Fraser University with concentration on electroacoustic composition and soundscape study, and MMus (2012) and DMA (2018) in composition at the University of British Columbia with a special research focus on music technology. At the institutes, he studied music technology and composition with Barry Truax and Keith Hamel, and music theory with John Roeder. Since the inception of his research during the graduate studies, he has held “embodied virtuality” and “musical affordance” as the themes and developed interactive systems and generative programs for musical performances. His research and creation have been funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), The Institute for Computing Information and Cognitive Systems (ICICS), Canada Council for the Arts, the University of British Columbia, and National Association of Japanese Canadians (NAJC).

He currently works at Vancouver Art Gallery as an Audio-Visual Systems Developer, while working on freelance art projects as a soundscape artist and cross-cultural interdisciplinary projects between Japan and Canada as the artistic director of Formscape Arts Society. His sound-art works have been presented at concerts, festivals, and conferences in North/South America and Europe, including Bourges International Festival of Electroacoustic Music, International Computer Music Conference, Sound and Music Computing Conference, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Third Practice Festival, The Noise of Snow Festival, and also a number of film festivals including Oberhausen Film Festival International Competition.

Among his awards are International Competition for Electroacoustic Music Musica Nova (1st prize (mixed media category) in 2008; 1st prize (fixed media category) in 2009, Czech Republic), Concourso Internazionale Luigi Russolo (1st prize in 2010, Italy/France), and Prix Jeu de Temp/Times Play Awards (2nd prize in 2009 and 3rd prize in 2006, Canada).