Maria Takeuchi aka ÉMU is a composer and audiovisual artist who creates sonic and visual poems, merging organismic soundscapes with generative art and illuminating objects inspired by nature. 
Maria plays and conducts the sound objects with a delicate yet intentional focus. The subtle sound textures created by water, dry leaves, and shells on the handmade primitive instruments, processed with modular synthesizers for added aesthetic atmosphere.

Maria co-directed and composed music for as·phyx·i·a (2015), a collaborative experimental short film using motion-captured sensors created with Frederico Phillips, performed by Shiho Tanaka. The work selected as a New Directors Shortlist by Saatchi & Saatchi, showcased at Cannes Lions and MoMA. It appeared on nearly 200 international mediums, including BBC Newsnight, Canadian Daily Planet, TIME, and Microsoft commercials.

In 2020, ÉMU curated the audiovisual compilation Solace with Testu Collective, featuring international artists, for fundraising efforts with the IRC during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Solace was projected onto the Manhattan Bridge at Light Year:76. She remotely showcased A Trilogy of Waves at Sound Forms 2020 hosted by Contemporary Musiking Hong Kong.

ÉMU has collaborated with insomniac hotel since 2021 as MA to explore sound art, installations, and audiovisual performances with a concept of 間: negative space. The duo has performed at Ars Electronica x NKB, sublime frequencies, and SIGNAL etc. Maria created visual programming for Petal Mori, illuminating Yuri Shimojo’s art piece with 108 Petri dishes with Sakura petals made of torn washi paper placed on the salt mound for her exhibition Memento Mori at Praise Shadows Art Gallery in 2021. In 2025, she collaborated with Nava Dunkelman, Yoko Murakami, and Akiha Yamakami for Arrhythmia, interdisciplinary performance at Roulette Intermedium. 

ENN (2023) is an interactive dome installation; the bio-inspired texture and motion-tracked particles of the audience were projected, along with the spatialized composition for 157 speakers at the Satosphere dome as a result of the SAT artist residency. Maria developed the motion tracking piece for the theatrical piece membrane | 虚実皮膜 (kyojitsuhimaku) in 2024 at Mabou Mines SUITE/Space 2023-24, collaborating with Yoko Murakami.