The kinetic sculptor Nemo Gould has had a lifelong fascination with taking things apart and putting them back together, one he traces to a discovery he made as a child: most things are held together by screws and, once these are undone, the pieces can be built into something new. That early impulse, which led him to dismantle everything from his GI Joes to household appliances, grew into a deep curiosity about machines and how they work. Eventually, it became his art: discarded objects rebuilt into machines that whirr into motion with a life of their own.
This instalment of the documentary series Portraits of Another Life captures Gould searching for objects to repurpose and working in his studio as he explains his creative process and the evolution of his work over the years, including his more political recent pieces. Through animations as well as interviews with Gould’s father, a fellow artist, the video makes a strong case for keeping childhood fascinations alive. Gould’s art, too, serves as a reminder that much of the joy in making things lies in the physical, hands-on experience of it, rather than just the final result.
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