Craig Fahner is an artist who lives between Montreal and Calgary. A recent graduate of Concordia University's Intermedia/Cyberarts program and co-founder of the Sensorium Lab at the University of Calgary, Craig is interested in reconstituting technology to create work that engages physical space, enabling kinesthesis and exploration as modes of critical interpretation.

A detailed CV can be found here.

This installation is an investigation into the interactive potential of electromagnetic fields. Theremins - musical instruments played by placing one's body within the electric field surrounding an antenna - are used here to create a week long indeterminate sound recording.

Three theremins are placed in an equilateral triangle inscribed in a circular drum. The tones emitted by the theremins are determined by the presence of visitors in the space, changes in electromagnetic activity, and other environmental factors such as temperature. Without human interaction the tones of each instrument drift slowly, sympathetically. The three theremins, initially tuned to the same note, will configure themselves into various consonances and dissonances throughout the run of the exhibition.

The sounds created are visualized through a tom drum, whose skin is sealed to hold a small amount of water. A speaker is placed below the drum, and the wave patterns that are emitted through the speaker are visualized on the pool of water on top of the drum. The skin is tuned to resonate with certain frequencies, and at these points the skin vibrates the water forming circular shapes that expand and contract in relation to pitch.

Viewers are invited to interact with the sculpture, as their gestures will affect the soundscape and visualizations produced.

Produced in collaboration with Neal Moignard and Dr. Jean-Rene Leblanc at the Sensorium Lab at the University of Calgary

#garden is a piece that investigates the social media impulse. Several potted plants are set up in the exhibition space, rigged with electronic sensors and a water pump. Based on sensor data, the #garden will communicate its mood nightly via Twitter, a social media "microblogging" platform. Twitter users can give the #garden water by responding to its posts.

Over 50,000 Twitter messages are posted per hour. These messages may include political statements, eyewitness journalism, or mindless expressions of boredom — all on the same page. Cast-off thoughts of movie stars, and reminders from family members appear side by side. Twitter achieves this kind of democracy only by limiting its users: each post must be no longer than 140 characters. This limit of expression is the great equalizer.

#garden disrupts the limiting nature of social media by bringing it off of the screen. Interactions with the #garden, rather than being lost in a sea of fleeting transmissions, cause a physical response by contributing to a tangible community garden. Participants can communally support the garden, or via the impulsiveness of social media, drown and destroy it.

hrtdrm is another iteration of the Du Coeur project - now a participatory artwork. A finger-clip style heart rate sensor amplifies the participant's heart beat onto a bass drum. hrtdrm creates a simple relationship between object and interactor, entirely based on non-cognitive/physiological control.

In this performance, the artist's mind is locked in a feedback loop with his body. The artist's intention is forced to interact directly with his physiology: he performs a song, whose rhythm is an amplification of his heart beat.

The performer relies on his own anxiety - his racing heart - to maintain a driving rhythm. As a measure to maintain a tension between his mind and his body, the performer improvises music and words, on the theme of a slowing heart.

Palimpsest Plaza is the assertion that the city is a map overwritten by its evolving social technologies. It is a project of two parts - one performative and one static - that aims to create a discourse between the pedestrian and his urban environment.

This discourse is initiated by the pedestrian. A response is transmitted by the city in the form of traffic signals. A binary message of red or green - stop or go - is left for the pedestrian's interpretation.

This piece interprets Guy Debord's Theory of the Dérive in a media-proliferated urban environment. I assert that a traversal of the history of social technologies is essential to the act of urban maneuvering.

This piece intervenes on the ordinary functioning of a radio. Gestures and movements summon transmissions - fragments arranged by the participant's engagement.

Reversing the television viewing paradigm, Sleeper places the viewer in an anxious relationship with the image. The television's antenna - a theremin - tracks the viewer's presence and action, resulting in the torment of the figure on the screen.

Layering representations of sex upon themselves, Skin Loops situates sexuality within a media-proliferated gaze. The promiscuity of images obscures the projection, resulting in a representation that is predominantly mechanical.

Outlining the disparity between product and origin, these photographs superimpose symbols of consumption on tools of production. Pelt stretchers frame a sheet of latex, upon which the images are printed with oil. Gradually, the oil breaks down the latex, destroying the images within a matter of a few weeks.