ROBIN RIMBAUD
scanner@scannerdot.com
Robin Rimbaud, alias Scanner (b. 1964, London, UK), is a British composer whose work traverses the experimental terrain between sound, space and image. Since 1991 he has been at the forefront of sonic art, producing concerts, installations and recordings that have reshaped contemporary electronic music. Albums including Mass Observation (1994), The Garden is Full of Metal (1998) and An Ascent (2020) have been widely acclaimed as innovative and influential works.
Committed to collaboration across disciplines, he has worked with leading practitioners including Bryan Ferry, Wayne McGregor, Merce Cunningham, Mike Kelley, Mirosław Bałka, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Michael Nyman, Ben Kelly, Carsten Nicolai, Steve McQueen, Stella McCartney, Laurie Anderson, Hussein Chalayan and Pauline Oliveros, among others.
His large-scale public commissions include scoring The Big Dance in Trafalgar Square for 1,000 dancers during the 2012 London Olympics, and composing for the reopening of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, in the presence of Queen Beatrix. He premiered his score for Dutch National Ballet’s Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (2015) and later created the score for Nightfall (2016), the world’s first Virtual Reality ballet. That same year he presented Water Drops at Rijeka Airport, Croatia, and Ghosts at Cliveden National Trust, UK.
In 2004 his Sound Surface (with Stephen Vitiello) was the first Sound Art commission for Tate Modern London. In 2017 he collaborated with Chance de Silva Architects on Vex, a London residence featuring a permanent sound installation. The project was shortlisted for the RIBA House of the Year and featured on Grand Designs (2018). In 2024, Esprits de Paris (2002), his audiovisual collaboration with American artist Mike Kelley, entered the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou, Paris. In 2025 he received the Savvy Award in Amsterdam recognising over 30 years of innovation in sound art. In 2026 he will premiere a permanent 40-speaker installation at the new London Museum.
Permanent works include Sound Curtain (Science Museum, London, 2002), Channel of Flight (Raymond Poincaré Hospital, Garches, 2002), Turning Light (Northern Neuro Disability Services Centre, Newcastle, 2007), London, Sugar & Slavery (London Museum Docklands, 2007), and Lost at Sea (Scottish Fisheries Museum, 2018).
Rimbaud has presented projects across the United States, South America, Asia, Australia and Europe, and performed or exhibited at major institutions including SFMOMA, Hayward Gallery, Centre Pompidou, Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Palais des Beaux-Arts Lille, Kunsthalle Wien, Bolshoi Theatre, Hanoi Opera House and the Royal Opera House.
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Scanner :: Selected Recordings
2025
Scanner & Nurse with Wound: Contrary Motion
Scanner & GN: VITIO
Scanner & Gareth Davis: Songlines
Scanner: Forces, Reactions, Deflections
2024
Scanner: The Magician’s Hat Vol. 4 Studio 2024
Scanner: Alchemeia
Scanner: The Phenol Tapes
Scanner & Michael Wells: Zero
Scanner & Neil Leonard: The Berklee Tapes
Scanner: Columns, soundtracks for Ben Kelly
2023
Scanner + Geins’t Naït + Laurent Petitgrand: Et il y’avait
Scanner + Geins’t Naït + Laurent Petitgrand: OLA
Scanner + David Harrow: South London Originals EP
Scanner + øjeRum: Vågnende Jeg Ser De Døde
Scanner: Radio Rainfall
2022
Scanner: The Homeland of Electricity
Strië & Scanner: Struktura
Scanner: Listening Forest
Scanner & Modelbau: Loess
Scanner: La Fenêtre Magique
2021
Scanner: Wing Pinger
Robin Rimbaud: Alchemeia
Robin Rimbaud: Staging Silence
Scanner: Trawl
Scanner: Earthbound Transmissions
Scanner: The Magician’s Hat Vol.1
Scanner: The Magician’s Hat Vol. 2
2020
Scanner: Waft & Weft
Scanner: The Sound of Design
Scanner: An Ascent
Scanner/GN: Album
Rimbaud/Banabila: The Spaces You Hold
2019
Scanner: The Signal of a Signal of a Signal
Scanner: Alphaville
Scanner + Gareth Davis: Footfalls
Scanner + Erik Kessels: Archive Land
2018
Scanner: Mass Observation (Expanded)
Scanner: Ash 1.7 Digital Deluxe edition
2017
Scanner: Fibolae
Scanner: The Great Crater
Scanner: Vex
2016
SCANNI (with Anni Hogan)
Scanner & HiFiKlub: Mayol
Scanner: Choral Reworks
Scanner: Venus & Elgar
2015
Scanner: Narnia: The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe
2014
Robin Rimbaud: The Garden is Full of Metal
Scanner: Electronic Garden
Scanner & London Sinfonietta: Ripples & Roots
2013
Scanner & Kwartludium: Graphic Scores
Scanner/48 Cameras: We Could Bring You Silk in May
Scanner & Nightswimmer: Red Sails
2012
Scanner: Colofon & Compendium
2011
Scanner/Rothenberg: You Can’t Get There From Here
Scanner: In-Between
Scanner: timelapse/(Mnemosyne)
Scanner: Pavillon d’Armide/Amarant
Scanner: Voyager: Amongst Others
Scanner/Paci Dalo: The Maya Effect
2010
Scanner/Banabila: Ears Tell Us/Radiance
Scanner/PMJQ: Blink of an Eye
Scanner/Eric Kessels: Nocturnal /In Almost Every Picture 6 DVD/Book
2009
Scanner: Conversations with the Dead
Scanner: Consegnaci, Bambina, I Tuoi Occhi
Scanner: Rockets, Unto the Edges of Edges
Scanner: Faultline
Scanner: Correspondence
2008
Scanner: Dante’s Inferno
2007
Scanner/Lockett: Twisted Artifacts
Scanner: Moskau Disko
2006
Scanner: NightJam
Scanner: Teenage Wochen
Scanner with Rolf & Fonky: Tinnito
2005
Scanner: Flower Echoes
Scanner: Messe / Macht des Klangs
Scanner: The Radiance of A Thousand Suns Burst Forth At Once
Scanner/Dessy: Play Along
Scanner/Lockett aka Parallax Beat Brothers: Autek
Scanner: Reason by Heart, Sleep by Twilight
2004
Scanner: Europa 25
Scanner: Double Fold
2003
Scanner/Vitiello: Audiosphere
Scanner: Echo Ricochet
Scanner/Mike Kelley: Esprits de Paris
Scanner: Warhol‘s Surfaces
Scanner: Publicphono
Scanner/Cascone: Crystalline Address
2002
Scanner: 52 Spaces
Scanner: Nemesis
Scanner + Tonne: Sound Polaroids
Scanner: Temporary Broadcast Vol 1
Scanner: Salles des Departs
Scanner: Lost without Light
Scanner: Spray
2001
Scannerfunk: Wave of Light by Wave of Light
Scanner/Alva Noto: Uniform
Scannerfunk: Technorama
Scanner: Case
2000
Scanner/Shea: Free Chocolate Love
Scanner/DJ Spooky: The Quick and the Dead
Scanner: Diary
1999
Scanner: Lauwarm Instrumentals
Scanner: Cystic
1998
Robin Rimbaud: The Garden is Full of Metal
Scanner: Sound for Spaces
Scanner: Stopstarting
1997
Scanner: Delivery
1996
Scanner: Sulphur
Scanner: Accretions
Scanner/Krokers: Memetic Flesh
1995
Scanner: Spore
1993
Scanner 2
1992
Scanner 1
1992
Koven-Oe: Spharenklängen
1984
The Rimbaud Brothers: Distortion