Robin Rimbaud a.k.a. Scanner

A true renaissance artist of digital pop culture, this ingenious British audio auteur, composer and sonic spy trawls the hidden noise of the modern metropolis to create absorbing, multi-layered soundscapes. Taking his name from the machine he uses to scan radio waves, Scanner (aka Robin Rimbaud) created his early work pilfering scanned fragments of cell phone conversations but more recently shifted his focus to trawling the hidden noise of the modern metropolis as the symbol of the place where hidden meanings and missed contacts emerge. As well as producing compositions and audio cds, his diverse body of work includes soundtracks for films, performances, radio, and site-specific intermedia installations. He has performed and created works in many of the world1s most prestigious spaces including sfmoma usa, Hayward Gallery London, Pompidou Centre Paris, Tate Modern London, Corcoran Gallery dc and the Modern Museum Stockholm. A frequent flyer and collaborator, his works have won admiration from Stockhausen to Bjork and in recent years he has worked with countless artists, among them Mike Kelley, Laurie Anderson, dj Spooky, Derek Jarman, Michael Nyman and Bryan Ferry. His live performances constantly seek to break new ground: in 1999 he performed OSurface Noise1 on a London Bus around the city, in 2000 he performed over 20 km of beach in Italy using the public phono system, re-soundtracked Godard1s seminal film Alphaville, and most memorably played 16 concerts in just one evening with a series of lookalikes across the globe. Among his recently completed works are Into The Blue, a gallery installation using 10,000 latex balloons, soundtracks for Rambert Dance Company1s Detritus and Random Dance Company1s Nemesis, Market Stories,
a theatrical work for the Adelaide Festival Australia, a series of string quartets entitled Play, an on-going collaboration with Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino and graphics artists Dfuse, and cd releases of 52 Spaces commissioned by the British School at Rome and Sound Polaroids which won The Imaginaria O99 award for Digital Art at the ica in 1999. His work can be heard on permanent display in the Science Museum London (OSound Curtains1) and the Raymond Poincaré hospital in Garches France as part of the bereavement suite (OChannel of Flight1). He recently won First Prize Neptun Water Prize for his work OWishing Well1 in Germany. In 1998 he became OProfessor Scanner1 at John Moore1s University in Liverpool.