Primary Instrument: Turntable
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. From his early 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.
Scanner is committed to working with cutting edge practitioners and has collaborated with artists from every imaginable genre: musicians Bryan Ferry, Radiohead and Laurie Anderson, The Royal Ballet and Merce Cunningham and Random Dance companies, fashion designers Hussein Chalayan and Shelley Fox, composers Michael Nyman and Luc Ferrari, and artists Steve McQueen, Mike Kelley, Derek Jarman, Carsten Nicolai and Douglas Gordon.
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. In 2004 his Sound Surface work with Stephen Vitiello was the first ever Tate Modern sound-art commission. In 2006 he presented Night Haunts with Artangel, produced a four-hour performance across the mountains of North Wales, and designed a new car horn for the US.
In 2007 he sound-designed new British horror movie Reverb, installed a permanent artwork for the Northern Neuro Disability Services Centre in Newcastle UK, and collaborated with film-maker Steve McQueen for his film Gravesend at the 52nd Venice Biennial. In 2008 he scored the hit musical comedy Kirikou & Karaba in Paris, premiered his six-hour show Of Air and Eye at the Royal Opera House London in late 2008, and sound-designed the new Philips Wake-Up Light with Philips Electronics in NL, a lamp to wake you up with natural light and sound.
In 2009 he released his new album, Rockets, Unto the Edges of Edges, showed new work at the Canary Islands Biennial and composed the soundtrack to the opening ceremony of the World Swimming Championships in Rome, broadcast in 164 countries. His avant-pop band Githead released their third album, Landing, in 2009, and continues to tour and record globally. He is currently Visiting Professor at University College Falmouth UK, and Visiting Professor at Le Fresnoy National Centre for Contemporary Arts in Tourcoing France.
His work can be heard on permanent display in the Science Museum London (Sound Curtains), the Raymond Poincaré hospital in Garches,France as part of the bereavement suite (Channel of Flight), The Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum London and the Northern Neuro Disability Services Centre in Newcastle UK (Turning Light).
He has performed and created works in many of the world's most prestigious spaces including SFMOMA USA, Hayward Gallery London, Pompidou Centre Paris, Kunsthalle Vienna, Bolshoi Theatre Moscow, Tate Modern London and The Royal Opera House London.
His work has been presented throughout the United States, South America, Asia, Australia and Europe.
Awards:
2009Visiting Professor at University College Falmouth UK
Visiting Professor at Le Fresnoy National Centre for Contemporary Arts France
2008
Composer in Residence Deda, Derby UK
2007
Tonspur Residency Museumsquartier Vienna Austria
2006
New Horizons London: Artangel project about London Nights
Associate Artist Trajectory: SPACE London
Wave Farm Residency free103point9 Albany NY USA
Arborescence Festival Residency Aix-en Provence France
2005
Neuro Disability Centre, Newcastle Upon Tyne for ‘Turning Light’ art commission
Convergence BBC Wales: Artist in Residence
2002
Art at the Centre Residency Reading College UK
First Prize Neptun Water Prize Austria
2001
BBC Radio 4 Artist in Residence
Djerassi Resident Artists Programme Woodside California
2000
Prix Marulic Award for BBC radio production ‘The Human Voice’
1999
Imaginaria 99’ Award for Digital Arts, ICA London
1998
Fellowship: John Moore’s University Liverpool UK
