EXPERIMENTAL STORYTELLING (2006) / UNCERTAIN PASSAGES (2012-present) / EXTREME MATERIALS (2016-2017)
EXPERIMENTAL STORYTELLING consists of framed moments in time, still lives from a fictional story about a universe that looks similar to ours, from birth to beyond death. The playful photographs, inspired by magic realism authors such as Italo Calvino and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, are packed with theories and jump through time.
For almost anything for which there is no other explanation, a reference is made to alternative universes: a déjà vu, religion – even physics. With UNCERTAIN PASSAGES, Jay Gould refers to the idea of the multiverse, which is making its ascent in modern physics. He went in search of symbolical doors through time, space, matter and other curious phenomena in order to embrace the unknown.
For EXTREME MATERIALS, Gould collaborated with scientists at the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute (HEMI) at the University of Baltimore. Materials are developed there which could be used in a nuclear environment or to endure the impact of an asteroid. The fundamental understanding of the material properties is crucial in this. He created the photographs using the classic collodion wet plate technique, in a reference to the timeless interrelationship between photography and research.
