Interactive art graces downtown Commerce street

The Commerce community is a bit more artistic this month as Max Fields presents his work downtown in A Space's inaugural exhibition.

Presentation for Fields' interactive video installation at the exhibit began Feb. 5 and will continue through Feb 26 at 1209 Alamo St., next door to Panda Restaurant.

Fields gave an inside of glimpse of how the inspiration for the show came about.

"The inspiration for my work," Fields said, "comes from a few things: The first time I saw interactive or Nü media work; the works of Rosa Menkman; and photographers such as Alexander Binder, Stephane Prigent, and Margaret Durow."

In a Youtube video for A Space, Fields described the specifics of the showcase.

"With this piece what I'm doing right now is just having (the audience) interact through motion so when they walk by they start to experience themselves on the screen. The neat thing about that is that it's playful and everybody can do it."

Fields enjoyed the process of creating the video installation.

"For this installation I used a web cam and ran it through a theatrical software that is made in the same vein as Photoshop," he said. "It has no bounds. I manipulated imagery in real time, changing things until I liked the result. It's a fun but tedious process."

Fields says in his video that anyone of any age can experience A Space, and his purpose is to explore the fallacy of memory and dreams.

"We pick up little pieces of what we think we remember," he said. "But we never know for sure if that's the way it happened or if we're having an out-of-body experience where we're seeing our memories played out as if we weren't really there."

He also explained that starting off as a photographer, his aesthetic was traditionally grain-filled noise. He said it "evoked stillness and quietness, but at the same time, violence."

As can be seen in the downtown exhibit of A Space, Fields changed his approach to film.

"The way that translated into my aesthetic for video was really strange actually, because I'm working now with noise and grain as I was before, but now I'm filling it with color trying to make pieces that are more approachable and exciting and happy. I want people to be entertained."