Robin Rimbaud (born 6 May 1964) is a Britishelectronic musician who works under the nameScanner due to his use of cell phone andpolice scanners in live performance.^[1] He is also a member of the bandGithead withWire'sColin Newman andMalka Spigel andMax Franken fromMinimal Compact.

Robin Rimbaud
Rimbaud in 2006
Background information
Also known as	Scanner
Born	(1964-05-06)6 May 1964 (age 61) Southfields, London
Genres	Electronic
Occupation(s)	Musician, writer, media critic, record producer
Years active	1982–present
Labels	swim ~,Ash International,Touch Music
Website	scannerdot.com

Rimbaud is also a writer andmedia critic,^{[citation needed]}multi-media artist andrecord producer. He borrowed his stage name from the device he used in his early recordings, picking up indeterminate radio and mobile phone signals in the airwaves and using them as an instrument in his compositions.^[2]

Born inSouthfields, London, Rimbaud was interested inavant garde literature, cinema and music while growing up. He was trained in piano from a young age and was exposed to the works ofJohn Cage by his piano teacher at the age of 11. In his late teens Rimbaud recounted having listened to a copy ofBrian Eno'sOn Land while his stereo equipment inadvertently picked up signal interference of a conversation over CB radio.^[3]

When he was a teenager his family was bereaved when his father was killed in a motorcycle accident.^[4] Later he attendedKingston University in Surrey, earning a degree in English (BA).

While attending university, he formed a musical project The Rimbaud Brothers with fellow student Tony Rimbaud, releasing cassette editions in the early 1980s, later becoming Dau Al Set with the addition of Chris Staley.

Rimbaud released thePeyrere compilation cassette album in 1986, featuring the work ofNurse with Wound,Derek Jarman,Current 93,Coil andTest Dept. That same year, he composed the soundtrack to a short filmA Horse with No Name, directed byPhil Viner, shown at theLondon Film Festival.^[5]

Around 1992, Rimbaud came into possession of ascanner — having bought it from a friend who needed money — and began to experiment with integrating intercepted conversations into his music.^[3] His debutScanner CD was released in 1992 onAsh International, a subsidiary label of London'sTouch Music label. He continued to produce the first dozen releases with Mike Harding of Touch, includingScanner²,Mass Observation,Blind, andRunaway Train, a real-time recording of the captivating radio contact between Alfie, controller of the line and Wesley, the driver of a runaway train. Location:New Brunswick, Canada, recorded 9 March 1948.

In 1994, Rimbaud produced one of the firstwebzines,I/O/D, in collaboration with Matthew Fuller and Graham Harwood. In 1998, he presentedSurface Noise on a London bus, commissioned byArtangel, and won the Imaginaria 99 Award for Digital Arts, ICA London the following year. He re-soundtrackedJean-Luc Godard'sAlphaville movie in a series of performances around the world, whilst playfully presenting 16 concerts in one evening in August 1999 using a series of Scanner look-alikes to perform in his absence.^[6] For 2003, he installed a permanent installation inRaymond Poincaré hospital inGarches, France as part of the bereavement suiteChannel of Flight.^[4] In 2004,Tate Modern commissionedSound Surface in collaboration withStephen Vitiello as their first sonic arts work. In the same year, he composedEuropa 25, an alternative National Anthem for Europe that was freely distributed via 10,000 CDs and a website.

He has continued to collaborate with classical musicians –Michael Nyman forArs Electronica inLinz, Austria, Musique Nouvelles inBelgium for their 'Play Along' collaborative string quartet, and opera singerPatricia Rozario for a new untitled work in 2007.

From 1994–2000, he set up and "curated" The Electronic Lounge music club at London'sICA, where these monthly sessions presented nights of music in a social environment.^[2] Nights included presentations with the record companiesWarp Records,Irdial,Ninja Tune, Touch,Mego, Leaf Records and many others.

Working with choreographerWayne McGregor, he createdNemesis forRandom Dance in 2002,Detritus forBallet Rambert in 2003, andQualia for theRoyal Ballet in 2004. He continues to work with dance, with new works forShobana Jeyasingh andSiobhan Davies in 2007. In 2006 he created the sound forMerce Cunningham's E:vent at London'sBarbican theatre.

In 2006, he created Night Haunts, a monthly online artwork, working with writer Sukhdev Sandhu and designers Mind Unit. He sound-designedAitan Errusi's new British horror filmReverb. In 2007 he soundtracked British filmmaker Steve McQueen's film installationGravesend, at the 52nd Venice Biennial.

In 2008, he was President of Honour at theQwartz Music Awards in Paris, and scored the musical comedyKirikou & Karaba in Paris, which was later released on DVD (EMI). He premiered his six-hour performance show,Of Air and Eye at the Royal Opera House London in late 2008, and sound-designed the new PhilipsWake-Up Light with Philips Electronics in NL, a lamp to wake you up with natural light and sound.

In 2009, he showedAtlantida, an HD film installation at the Canary Islands Biennial, created in collaboration with filmmaker Olga Mink. In the summer of 2009 he composed the soundtrack to the opening ceremony of the World Swimming Championships in Rome, broadcast in 164 countries, and soundtracked the new Samburg Corby telephone campaign in Italy.

In 2005, Rimbaud was a contributing curator 'J’en rêve' atFondation Cartier Paris, and in 2006, jointly curated the video art exhibition 'Mobile' atEspace Landowski Paris.

HisBBC Radio production ofJean Cocteau'sThe Human Voice won the Prix Marulic Award and recently, he won First Prize Neptun Water Prize for his installationWishing Well in Austria, in collaboration with Austrian artistKatarina Matiasek. In 1998, he became 'Professor Scanner' atJohn Moores University in Liverpool. In 2009 he became Visiting Professor at University College Falmouth UK, and Visiting Professor at Le Fresnoy National Centre for Contemporary Arts in Tourcoing France.

Rimbaud has collaborated withHarald Bode (posthumously).^[7]

He contributed a chapter toSound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture (The MIT Press, 2008) edited by Paul D. Miller a.k.a.DJ Spooky. In 2010 Rimbaud working with The Post Modern Jazz Quartet onBlink of an Eye with a very subtle touch, embedding his sounds into those of the New York jazz ensemble seamlessly as critics observed.^[8]

In 2013, Rimbaud dueted withAlexandra Strunin on the song "Robot" from herEP calledStranger released on 29 October 2013.

In 2015, Rimbaud collaborated withtextile designerIsmini Samanidou on the "Weave Waves" project for theSound Matters exhibition produced by the UKCrafts Council withDavid Toop. "Weave Waves" comprises two textile pieces whose patterns encode recordings of the artists' breathing (the larger piece) and ambient city sounds fromLondon andManchester (the smaller piece).

In 2023, Rimbaud remixedKenneth James Gibson’s trackSmall Triumphs And Deep Disappointments for the remix albumFurther Translations on Gibson’s label Meadows Heavy Recorders. Also featured on the album isJack Dangers,Brian McBride,Christopher Willits, and others.^[9]

In December 2019, along with 42 other leading cultural figures, Rimbaud signed a letter endorsing theLabour Party underJeremy Corbyn's leadership in the2019 general election. The letter stated that "Labour's election manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership offers a transformative plan that prioritises the needs of people and the planet over private profit and the vested interests of a few."^[10][11]

• Sub Rosa Live Sessions (Sub Rosa, 1996)
• The Garden Is Full of Metal (Homage to Derek Jarman) (Sub Rosa, 1997)

• Scanner(Ash International, 1993)
• Scanner 2(Ash International, 1993)
• Mass Observation(Ash International, 1994)
• Sulphur (Sub Rosa, 1995)
• Spore (New Electronica, 1995)
• Delivery (Earache, 1997)
• StopStarting (Audio Research Editions, 1998)
• Sound for Spaces(Sub Rosa, 1998)
• Lauwarm Instrumentals (Sulphur, 1999)^[12]
• Diary (Sulphur, 2000)
• Technorama (Digital Vision, 2001)
• 52 Spaces (Bette, 2002)
• Nemesis: Original Score For Random Dance Company (Bette, 2002)
• Warhol's Surfaces (Intermedium, 2003)
• Double Fold (rx:tx, 2003)
• Reason by Heart, Sleep by Twilight (BineMusic, 2005)
• The Radiance of a Thousand Suns Burst Forth at Once (Steamin' Soundworks, 2005)
• Messe, Macht Des Klangs / Klang Der Macht (KunstRäume Leipzig, 2005)
• Consegnaci, bambina, i tuoi occhi (Horus, 2009)
• Rockets, Unto the Edges of Edges (BineMusic, 2009)
• In-Between (Bette, 2011)
• Voyager: Amongst Others (Atelier, 2011)
• Pavillon D'Armide / Amarant (Bette, 2011)
• timelapse/(Mnemosyne) (Bette, 2011)
• Colofon & Compendium 1991-1994 (Sub Rosa, 2012)
• Electronic Garden (BineMusic, 2014)
• Fibolae (Pomperipossa, 2017)
• The Great Crater (Glacial Movements, 2017)
• The Signal of a Signal of a Signal (Touched, 2019)
• Trawl (Aquarellist, 2020)
• An Ascent (DiN, 2020)
• Alchemeia (Alltagsmusik, 2024)
• The Phenol Tapes (Alltagsmusik, 2024)

• "Scanner".Future Music. No. 56. May 1997.ISSN 0967-0378.OCLC 1032779031.

• Official Website
• Full Scanner Discography
• An interview with Scanner onNotebook on Cities and Culture