Latham first met Paul Brown at Middlesex Polytechnic in Cathill, North London in late 1986 where Brown, after having done many years of commercial animation in Soho, had become Head of Computer Graphics. At that time Middlesex Polytechnic was the leading centre for computer graphics education and were the proud owners of a Quantel Paintbox. After working on his artworks in Brown’s computer graphics Lab for a few months, Brown offered Latham his first teaching job, which he unfortunately had to turn down due being offered a Research Fellow position at IBM. Brown is a pioneer of systems computer art and they have kept in good contact through the years.

In September 2013 Brown was invited by Latham to give a talk about the history of computer art at the symposium accompanying Latham’s solo exhibition Mutator 1+2: Evolutionary Art by William Latham. Brown’s presentation, Computers in the visual arts: a brief history, outlined the emergence of the computer arts with particular reference to the work of Latham. He explained how names like computational, generative and code art emerge from the experiments of 20th century arts genres like constructivism and systems and conceptual art.

 

Visit Paul Brown’s website: www.paul-brown.com