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He is very experimental because he is searching in a realm of sound which
is not usually used for music...he has a good sense of atmosphere.
Karlheinz Stockhausen - BBC
Scanner - British artist Robin Rimbaud
traverses the experimental terrain between sound, space, image and form, creating
absorbing, multi-layered sound pieces that twist technology in unconventional
ways. A true renaissance artist of digital pop culture, from his earliest controversial
work using found mobile phone conversations, through to his focus on trawling
the hidden noise of the modern metropolis as the symbol of the place where
hidden meanings and missed contacts emerge, his restless explorations of the
experimental terrain have won him international admiration from amongst others,
Bjork, Aphex Twin and Stockhausen.
Since 1991 he has been intensely active in sound art, producing concerts,
compositions, installations and recordings, the albums Mass Observation (1994),
Delivery (1997), and The Garden is Full of Metal (1998) hailed by critics as
innovative and inspirational works of contemporary electronic music. He has
performed and created works in many of the world’s most prestigious spaces
including SFMOMA USA, Hayward Gallery London, Pompidou Centre Paris, Tate Modern
London, Palais des Beaux-Arts Lille, Kunsthalle Vienna, Bolshoi Theatre Moscow,
Hanoi Opera House Vietnam and the Royal Opera House London.
Scanner is committed to working with cutting edge practitioners and has collaborated
with artists from every imaginable genre: Bryan Ferry, Laurie Anderson, Carsten
Nicolai, Radiohead, The Royal Ballet, Random Dance, Neville Brody, Hussein
Chalayan, Shelley Fox, Douglas Gordon, Brian Eno, Michael Nyman, Luc Ferrari,
Mike Kelley, Orlan, Mike Hodges, Derek Jarman, Michelangelo Antonioni, Lorraine
Hunt and Peter Sellars, amongst others.
His works continually seek to break new ground: in 1994 he pioneered one of
the first experimental ezines, I/O/D , in 1998 he performed Surface
Noise on a London Bus around the city, in 2000 he performed over 20 KM
of beach in Italy on the public speaker system, re-soundtracked Jean Luc Godard’s
seminal film Alphaville, and controversially played 16 concerts in
just one evening with a series of lookalikes across the globe. In 2003 he became
the first electronic artist to ever perform in Vietnam, and in 2004 his Sound
Surface work was the first ever Tate Modern sound-art commission. From
1994-2000 he curated the pioneering Electronic Lounge club at London’s ICA
presenting new electronic music and media monthly.
Among his recently completed works are Europa 25 , a newly commissioned
National Anthem for Europe, re-arrangments of Bach’s Cantatas, soundtracks
for The Royal Ballet and Random Dance Company, a string quartet Play Along ,
a collaboration with legendary choreographer Merce Cunningham and creating Flower
Echoes work to open the Guangzhou Triennial in China. In 2006 he presented
Night Haunts with Artangel, sound designed new UK Horror movie Reverb, designed
a new car horn for the US, and installed a permanent artwork for the Northern
Neuro Disability Services Centre in Newcastle UK. 2007 began with a new commission for choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh’s Faultline and sound design for new British horror film ‘Reverb.’ His collaboration with film-maker Steve McQueen, Gravesend, was premiered at the 52nd Venice Biennial. He scored the hit musical comedy Kirikou & Karaba with Wayne McGregor in Lyon and Paris which is touring internationally until 2021. He is currently working with Philips Design in The Netherlands on a new commercial product, designing sound environments for the Coney Island Aquarium in New York, and is President of Honour at the Qwartz Music Awards in Paris. His avant pop band Githead continues to tour and record globally.
His work can be heard on permanent display in the Science Museum London (Sound
Curtains’) and the Raymond Poincaré hospital in Garches France as part
of the bereavement suite (Channel of Flight’).
His BBC radio production of Jean Cocteau’s The Human Voice’ won the prestigious
Prix Marulic Award and most recently he won First Prize Neptun Water Prize
for his installation Wishing Well’ in Germany. In 1998 he became Professor
Scanner’ at John Moore’s University in Liverpool. He is a Contributing Editor
of kultureflash.net, a London centric e-zine which goes out weekly via HTML
email to over 30,000+ subscribers.
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