Latent (2024) comprises 80 works pairing digital negatives with silver-gelatin prints. Generated imagery is translated through a photographic process, bringing two different ways of producing an image into the same work.
Selection and printing
PICTO’s production account describes images generated through text prompts, selected from a larger set and printed at PICTO Bastille. It identifies silver prints on baryta paper mounted on aluminium. The retained gallery allows a negative and its print to be compared.
In retrospective notes on 26 November 2024, Butcher describes choosing the final 80 from around 8,000 outputs and using a language model to suggest titles, with further selection and revision. He frames prompting as setting conditions for an image to emerge, rather than specifying every detail. These are artist estimates and reflections.
Sources: PICTO, 7 November 2024; X / archived on jack.art, 26 November 2024
A negative without a camera exposure
The negative usually implies an earlier encounter between light and a scene. Here a generated image enters that material sequence. In this reading, the work asks what a photographic process establishes when its source was synthesized.
The reviewed documentation gives viewers no role in altering the generation or printing rules. Interpretation rests on looking at the paired forms and their production record, rather than on collector participation.
The same notes explicitly connect the edition size to Checks and the compositions to the Opepen silhouette. That is a documented reference within the practice, rather than a resemblance supplied only by an editor.
Paris Photo, 2024
PICTO records LaCollection’s presentation in the Digital sector at Paris Photo, Grand Palais, 7–10 November 2024. Its account credits Marlene Corbun as curator, Martin Klipp as producer and Gary Powell with Sonic Duality, a composition for the exhibition.
The production account draws comparisons with Surrealism. Those are part of the project’s framing; they do not demonstrate direct influence from every artist it names.
Sources: PICTO, 7 November 2024
Development
Images
Selected images from the artist’s project archive. Captions describe the images; they do not assign unverified photography credits.
Sources and further reading
Artist statements describe intention. Reporting and interviews record different perspectives; exhibition announcements establish specific presentations. How sources are classified.
Artist / studio · Selected posts from the downloaded account archive
Latent: notes after Paris Photo
10 selected posts, through 2024-11-27. Retrospective notes describe prompting, selection, naming and the comparison between a digital negative and a photographic print. Original wording and links are preserved; headings and notes are editorial. This is artist testimony, not independent verification.
Exhibition record · Production-partner exhibition record
Jack Butcher exposé à Paris Photo
Documents LaCollection’s 7–10 November 2024 Paris Photo presentation, printing, curator and producer, and Gary Powell’s composition. PICTO printed the works; the interpretive language is project-associated.