{"title":"William Latham Collection","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"oval-etching","title":"Oval Etching","description":"\u003cp\u003eA rare early FormSynth etching created when Latham was a twenty-three year old student at the Royal College of Art. It shows a single tiny sphere in the centre evolving into complex organic structures through incremental sculptural steps. These include the main FormSynth operators “Beak”, “Bulge” and “Stretch Rules” and new organic rules such as “Lizard Extend” in which a long tentacle sprouts from the centre of the 3D form bursting out through the form’s surface. Many of the evolved forms have a ribbed-bone-like and an organic architectural feel and show a strong influence of Tantric Art and Chinese and Japanese Traditional Art.\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eIn this drawing and in all the FormSynth art works, the implication is that the drawing could go on “for ever” by using these simple rules driven by the artist. On the left section we see evolving \"pseudo chemical structures” and in the top section are evolving organic architectural forms. The “Lizard Extend” growths seen in this etching will reappear again later in the generative Mutator software works where thousands of tentacles proliferate bursting from the centre of evolving forms resembling sea anemones and strange multi tentacled alien forms.\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eUltimately, the Mutator software led to computer forms which could not have been drawn by hand in the FormSynth style due to their complexity, taking the artist in to new alternative three dimensional evolutionary worlds. However, these early hand drawn FormSynth images retain William’s core evolutionary ideas and in parts his quirky humour and are key stepping works in his move from Fine Art to Generative Art in the mid-eighties.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"William Latham","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46441229320491,"sku":"WL0003","price":4510.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0681\/4489\/0155\/files\/WL0003-2.jpg?v=1694699485"},{"product_id":"mutator1-zapx6red-13","title":"Mutator1. Zapx6red-13 (also known as The Second Listening Room)","description":"\u003cp\u003eCreated whilst Latham was Artist in Residence at IBM UK Scientific Centre in the late 80s and early nineties, it shows a mutated organic \u003cem\u003eFormGrow \/ Mutator form (ZAPX6RED-13)\u003c\/em\u003e carved out of a single block of synthetic marble with pinkish, white and reddish bands. This form is Raytraced with “head-on” lighting and cast shadows gives the illusion that it is real. It belongs to a series of works described by Latham as “Ghosts of Sculptures” – pseudo-photographs of organic sculptures that never existed in the real world. These works celebrate the creative potential of Fractal geometry and Perlin Noise and uses a clean 3D Renaissance perspective aesthetic with a single central vanishing point. The rendering and lighting and in photo-realist style is reminiscent of Dutch still life painting.\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eLatham’s work during this period builds on his early FormSynth evolutionary ideas and presents the idea of “artist as Gardener” with the artist working in partnership with the computer picking, marrying and breeding forms using a genetic system to evolve extraordinary organic forms. This work is a direct result of Latham’s early collaboration with mathematician and programmer Stephen Todd, a collaboration which has continued to this day. Stephen was the creator of ESME (Extensible Solid Model Editor) at IBM, a programming language which allowed William to explore the procedural generation of complex forms in his evolutionary system, which came to be known as FormGrow and then Mutator.\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eUp to this point, ’s solitary evolved Mutator forms from 1987 to 1990 had floated in a black void, which was described by the artist as “floating free from gravity in the “Infinity of Computer Space”. This piece showed a creative shift towards filling the whole picture and also using brighter and richer colours, which continued after William left IBM and produced his Rave Period images and later again would be present in his immersive Mutator VR works from 2016 onwards. Referencing Magritte’s Listening Room (1952), William’s image has a similarly claustrophobic feel and, as well as recalling Magritte’s trapped forms in closed rooms, also calls to mind the bold wood-grained texture employed by Magritte, for example, in his painting The Restless Sleeper. These Mutator and FormGrow images are deliberately unsettling and timeless, presenting a strange world of synthetically natural forms. The works also look to reconcile Systems Art with Surrealism. This surrealist influence on Mutator was also strengthened by William’s friendship at that time with the painter Matta whom he met in Monte Carlo and visited in his studios in Paris and London. This Surrealist influence persisted in William’s later works and can be seen in particular in his new Computer Gothic B+W Infinity Drawings from 2022 onwards.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"William Latham","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46441230106923,"sku":"WL0002","price":17000.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0681\/4489\/0155\/files\/Screenshot2023-09-14at14.54.27.png?v=1694699678"},{"product_id":"black-crystal","title":"Black Crystal","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis is another rare FormSynth etching from William’s time as a “Henry Moore Scholar” at the Royal College of Art, when he was heavily influenced by the time he spent at the Natural History Museum observing museum exhibits of natural forms and reading about Darwinian evolution. It shows the evolution of a cone that is subjected to a number of incremental rule-based \"shape changing\" steps using simple sculptural modifications designed by William known as \"Beak\", \"Bulge\", \"Scoop\" and \"Stretch\" and other rules. These individual rules harnessed the conceptual idea of a single sculptural action being performed on an imaginary form by the artist such as “taking a scoop out of the form” or “squeezing the form so it bulged out at a particular point”. For example, with the Beak operator the artist imagines a beak-like form being pinched and pulled from the form (which might be, for example, on a cone or another evolved form). The effect of this single action is imagined by the artist and then drawn by the artist adjacent to the ‘parent’ form and then connected by a single arrow showing it’s evolutionary path and so on. The number and order of sculptural modifications could be in many 100s, in effect using the artist’s own mind as a 3D drawing device, so to speak.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the FormSynth drawings, even though the individual sculptural operators are quite simple, when used cumulatively in different ordering, visually rich and varied forms emerge as new generations are spawned. This etching shows an evolutionary tree of forms derived from a cone with one major \"black crystal\" mutation, showing multiple simultaneous evolutionary steps dominating the image. All of William’s work from this period reflects his fascination with evolutionary systems and the idea of a new alternative evolutionary system to nature driven by the artist. No traditional Western pictorial composition is used, with the process of evolutionary drawing only stopping only when there is no more space on the sheet to fill. The FormSynth drawings were to form a blueprint for the subsequent Mutator software Art, where the computer drives the evolution together in partnership with the” artist as Gardner”. Here with FormSynth created in a low tech art studio at the Royal College of Art, the artist must rely on their own resources and own drawing ability.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"William Latham","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46441244393771,"sku":"WL0001","price":4510.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0681\/4489\/0155\/files\/WL0001-2.jpg?v=1694698637"},{"product_id":"peculiar-marriages","title":"'Peculiar Marriages'","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"William Latham","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53642162536833,"sku":"WL0004","price":20000.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0681\/4489\/0155\/files\/a86624b3f5cd79d6ce8d890880b06d77j_c337c0aa-318d-4d95-bbfd-b2bb3e9feeef.jpg?v=1730772421"},{"product_id":"dynamic-plumes-infinity-mutator","title":"Dynamic Plumes Infinity Mutator","description":"\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003eWilliam Latham’s \u003cem\u003eInfinity Mutator Drawing\u003c\/em\u003e series (2022\/2024) debuts at ART SG 2025 in the form of print accompanied by an ERC-721 token. In this series intricate, serpentine organic forms are generated using his pioneering Mutator AI software. Influenced by electron microscopy, Latham’s work engages in a collaborative process with the software, creating densely layered compositions that evoke Gothic architecture, Albrecht Dürer, William Morris, sprouting foliage and creatures from science fiction. Latham’s prints exemplify the fusion of traditional and digital art forms, demonstrating the creative possibilities of artificial life AI.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"William Latham","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53804397199745,"sku":"WL0005","price":19000.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0681\/4489\/0155\/files\/WL0006-1_1.jpg?v=1736350536"},{"product_id":"recursive-infinity","title":"Recursive Infinity Mutator","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"flex-shrink-0 flex flex-col relative items-end\"\u003e\n\u003cmeta charset=\"UTF-8\"\u003e \u003cspan\u003eWilliam Latham’s \u003cem\u003eInfinity Mutator Drawing\u003c\/em\u003e series (2022\/2024) debuts at ART SG 2025 in the form of unique signed print accompanied by an ERC-721 token. In this series intricate, serpentine organic forms are generated using his pioneering Mutator AI software. Influenced by electron microscopy, Latham’s work engages in a collaborative process with the software, creating densely layered compositions that evoke Gothic architecture, Albrecht Dürer, William Morris, sprouting foliage and creatures from science fiction. Latham’s prints exemplify the fusion of traditional and digital art forms, demonstrating the creative possibilities of artificial life AI.\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"William Latham","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53804521292161,"sku":"WL0006","price":19000.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0681\/4489\/0155\/files\/WL0006-1.jpg?v=1736350518"}],"url":"https:\/\/gazell.io\/collections\/william-latham-collection.oembed","provider":"GAZELL.iO","version":"1.0","type":"link"}