Robin Rimbaud, otherwise known as Scanner, has created a soundtrack for a newly constructed house, called VEX, in Stoke Newington. The work will premiere as part of the Open House events which run from September 17-18.
Rimbaud has long been involved with projects that are well outside the boundaries of conventional music production and consumption. Scanner’s early musical ventures were based on snippets taken from random telephone conversations recorded with a police scanner. In recent years, he has been participating in a number of interdisciplinary projects, developing an interest in the production of site-specific sound.
For this newest undertaking, Rimbaud was called upon by Stephen Chance and Wendy de Silva, an architectural duo based in London, known for collaborating with a diverse set of artists from other disciplines such as dancers and photographers. For VEX, they were trying to create a space inspired by Erik Satie’s ‘Vexations’, an early example of seriality in music. The building’s walls are curved, each level’s egg-shaped contours sitting on top of each other at shifted angles. The idea was to create an immersive experience of the possible interactions between sound and space.
Of the project, Rimbaud says: “Much of our lives in cities are lived as if in a frenzied echo chamber, so much of my work offers an opportunity for reflection and thought.” The material for the piece was all taken directly from the construction site, recording the sounds of pouring concrete amongst others.
Importantly, the house is not conceived of as a gallery, but will be up for sale and is destined to become a family home. However, the new owners must consent to open the house to the public on a yearly basis. You can find out more information here.
