Scanner

Scanner is the recording name of Robin Rimbaud, an electronic musician, multimedia artist, sound designer, writer, media critic and record producer from Southfields in the United Kingdom, born in 1964. His work is associated with ambient, electronic and electronica, and he uses the name Scanner in reference to the cell phone and police scanners he incorporates into live performance and composition.

Career and early work

Rimbaud grows up with interests in avant-garde literature, cinema and music. He studies Modern Arts at Kingston University in Surrey, where he forms The Rimbaud Brothers with fellow student Tony Rimbaud, later becoming Dau Al Set with Chris Staley. In the early 1980s he releases cassette editions with these projects, and in 1986 he issues the Peyrere compilation cassette, which features work by Nurse with Wound, Derek Jarman, Current 93, Coil and Test Dept. That year he also composes the soundtrack to the short film A Horse with No Name, directed by Phil Viner and shown at the London Film Festival.

His debut Scanner CD appears in 1992 on Ash International, a subsidiary of Touch Music. He works closely with Mike Harding of Touch on a series of early releases, including Scanner², Mass Observation, Blind and Runaway Train, a real-time recording built from radio contact linked to a runaway train.

Projects, installations and collaborations

In 1994 he helps create one of the early webzines, I/O/D, with Matthew Fuller and Graham Harwood. From 1994 to 2000 he sets up and curates The Electronic Lounge at London’s ICA, where monthly sessions include appearances linked to Warp Records, Irdial, Ninja Tune, Touch, Mego and Leaf Records. He also contributes writing on contemporary art, literature, music and dance to Cultural Icons, edited by James Park and published by Bloomsbury.

Rimbaud works across installation, film, radio and performance. He presents Surface Noise on a London bus for Artangel in 1998 and receives the Imaginaria 99 Award for Digital Arts from the ICA London the following year. He re-soundtracks Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville in performances around the world and stages 16 concerts in one evening using Scanner look-alikes in his place. In 2003 he creates the permanent installation Channel of Flight for a bereavement suite at Raymond Poincaré hospital in Garches, France. Tate Modern commissions Sound Surface, made with Stephen Vitiello, in 2004.

He composes Europa 25, an alternative anthem for Europe, and distributes it freely on CDs and through a website. He also works with classical musicians including Michael Nyman, Musique Nouvelles for the string quartet project Play Along, and opera singer Patricia Rozario. With choreographer Wayne McGregor he creates Nemesis for Random Dance in 2002, Detritus for Ballet Rambert in 2003 and Qualia for the Royal Ballet in 2004, and later continues work with Shobana Jeyasingh and Siobhan Davies. In 2006 he creates the sound for Merce Cunningham’s E:vent at the Barbican, the online artwork Night Haunts with Sukhdev Sandhu and Mind Unit, and the sound design for Aitan Errusi’s horror film Reverb. In 2007 he soundtracks Steve McQueen’s film installation Gravesend at the 52nd Venice Biennial.

Media, awards and academic roles

Rimbaud presents a BBC Radio 4 commentator role on popular music from 2000 onwards. He receives the Prix Marulic Award for a BBC radio production of Jean Cocteau’s The Human Voice, and later wins First Prize in the Neptun Water Prize for the installation Wishing Well, made with Austrian artist Katarina Matiasek. He is President of Honour at the Qwartz Music Awards in Paris in 2008.

He also holds academic posts: in 1998 he becomes Professor Scanner at John Moores University in Liverpool, and in 2009 he becomes Visiting Professor at University College Falmouth in the UK and at Le Fresnoy National Centre for Contemporary Arts in Tourcoing, France. He contributes a chapter to Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture, edited by Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky).

Further work

Later projects include the six-hour performance Of Air and Eye at the Royal Opera House in London, the sound design for the Philips Wake-Up Light, the HD film installation Atlantida with filmmaker Olga Mink, the soundtrack for the opening ceremony of the World Swimming Championships in Rome, and work on the Samburg Corby telephone campaign in Italy. He also scores the musical comedy Kirikou & Karaba in Paris.

Band work

Rimbaud is also a member of Githead with Colin Newman, Malka Spigel and Max Franken, and of Tone Scientists.