À l’occasion de la 27ème édition de l’une des plus grandes foires de photographie internationale, Paris Photo, la plateforme digitale laCollection présente sur son stand l’exposition “Latent” avec une sélection d’œuvres signées par l’artiste Jack Butcher. Leur stand se trouve dans le secteur Digital, inauguré l’année passée. Pour cette édition, LaCollection a choisi le thème “Past vs Present” avec des artistes numériques qui s’inspirent de l’histoire de l’art.

Type de fabrication : Tirages argentiques sur papier baryté contrecollés sur aluminium.
Le laboratoire Picto aide les photographes professionnels pour la réalisation de leurs expositions, des tirages à l’accrochage, en passant par les finitions et l’encadrement.

Dans l’exposition “Latent”, Jack Butcher présente une série de photographies qui s’inspire du mouvement surréaliste.

Jack Butcher, the defining artist known for his incisive distillation of complex ideas, ventures into new territory with Latent. While Butcher’s work has largely been associated with digital-native projects like Checks and Opepen Edition, this series marks a profound shift, merging traditional photographic processes with the cutting-edge technology of neural networks. Latent’s 80 unique pieces were printed at PICTO Bastille, the legendary Parisian darkroom chosen by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa and William Klein, establishing a bridge between contemporary digital art and the legacy of early 20th-century avant-garde photography.

At its core, Latent engages with photography’s essential preoccupations: time, minimalism, and the invisible. Parallel to Henri Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment,” Butcher extends this exploration into the realm of the machine—a space where creativity unfolds in the abstract and multidimensional. The neural network’s latent space, a high-dimensional representation of visual possibilities, becomes the subject of inquiry. Butcher’s model navigates this space through text prompts, synthesizing thousands of outputs, from which less than 1% were selected. The resulting compositions are evocative of the surreal, their dreamlike nature recalling the impossible juxtapositions favored by Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, and André Breton.

Latent is not merely an exercise in digital generation; it actively interrogates the boundaries between human creativity and machine intelligence. The decision to translate these digital images into physical prints using traditional darkroom techniques reinforces the work’s connection to photographic history, while simultaneously questioning notions of originality.

Each physical artwork is paired with its digital twin in negative form, the dual works function as inversions of the photographic process, invoking the tension between digital and analog, code and chemistry. The use of the negative, often seen as a precursor to the “true” image, inverts this relationship, suggesting that the digital might serve as the original, with the physical as its reproduction. This treatment also reflects Butcher’s signature Visualize Value aesthetic of white on black, reinforcing the conceptual tension between form and substance while maintaining the minimalist clarity that defines his broader body of work.

The historical resonance is unmistakable. The invention of photography in the 19th century sparked heated debates about artistic authorship, authenticity, and the mechanical reproduction of images. Today, AI-generated art faces a similar scrutiny, as both critics and creators grapple with what it means for a machine to “create.” Butcher’s Latent acknowledges this parallel, positioning itself within this lineage of technological disruption. Where once the camera challenged the notion of what it meant to be an artist, today neural networks push the conversation further, questioning the very limits of human imagination.

Created by Jack Butcher, curated by Marlene Corbun, and produced by Martin Klipp, Latent comprises 80 unique works that blend machine learning with traditional photographic printing. Exhibited during the centenary of surrealism in Paris, the project embodies surrealism’s spirit of challenging reality and extending the possibilities of the mind. Butcher’s vision, at once cerebral and accessible, deftly situates itself in the ongoing dialogue between past and future, digital and physical, real and imagined.

The multisensory nature of the exhibition is further enriched by Sonic Duality, an original composition by Gary Powell of The Libertines. Powell’s music, created specifically for Latent, translates the project’s exploration of the creative dialogue between AI and human artistry into a hauntingly resonant auditory experience. The interplay between visual and sonic elements further shapes the exhibition, turning the space into a canvas for both sound and image.

In Latent, Jack Butcher masterfully navigates the convergence of technology and tradition, offering a thought-provoking reflection on the evolution of artistic creation. By intertwining machine learning with historical photographic processes, the exhibition pushes boundaries while paying homage to the past, inviting viewers to contemplate the role of the artist in an age of artificial intelligence. As AI continues to redefine the creative landscape, Latent stands as a compelling exploration of art’s future—where the digital and physical, the human and the machine, coalesce to generate new forms of expression.

• Date : Du 7 au 10 novembre 2024
• Lieu : Paris Photo – Secteur Digital
Grand Palais
3 avenue du Général Eisenhower
75008 Paris
https://www.jack.art/
https://www.lacollection.io/