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Weaving together the themes of Generative Art, Evolution and AI, this work shows the recent work from a collaboration between pioneering artist William Latham, his long-term collaborator, mathematician Stephen Todd, and Google DeepMind Research Engineer Dylan Banarse. It is curated by Professor Frederic Fol Leymarie from Goldsmiths
This collaboration has led to a new type of AI-guided evolution, for which Banarse has coined the term "Foundational Evolution". At its heart is Gemini, a foundation model trained on vast amounts of text and images. This allows Gemini to interpret abstract visuals in a human-like way, performing the equivalent of Rorschach’s "Ink Blot Test" by finding meaning in complex forms. In this work, the genetic mechanisms and unique 3D "form-growing" grammar developed by Latham and Todd over the past thirty-five years are married with Gemini. Emulating evolutionary principles, the system starts from a simple geometric form. The grammar and its parameters are then mutated by their custom software, Mutator, to generate multiple variants. These many variants are then handed over to Gemini to be judged - a process traditionally done manually by the artist. Based on its understanding of the forms and driven by Google DeepMind's "evolutionary prompts," Gemini identifies “winners” and weeds out “losers” in a Darwinian-style selection, pitting organic forms against each other in what Banarse calls "binary tournaments". It uses a "success-scoring system" and explains each of its selection decisions to retain or discard images. The result is a system that generates complex natural forms that resemble viruses, antlers, diatoms, horseshoe crabs, dragonflies and much more
William Latham
Artist
Goldsmiths University of London
is a pioneering UK digital artist well known for his evolutionary art created at IBM in the late eighties. After twelve years as a Creative Director in Rave Music and Computer Games, he became a Professor at Goldsmiths. Currently, William and his collaborator Stephen Todd are working with Google DeepMind to use AI to drive and steer the evolution of their organic art. This work was shown for the first time in the Evolution and Foundational AI exhibition in London in late 2025.
Stephen Todd
Software
London Geometry
is William's long time collaborator since they worked together 1987 - 93 at the IBM UK Scientific Centre in Winchester. Stephen worked as a Senior Scientist at IBM Hursley for over 20 years. He then became a Visiting Professor at Goldsmiths University of London for 3 years where he also worked on scientific visualisation work linked to the Mutator Project. He is currently working with London Geometry on software development.
Dylan Banarse
Software
Google DeepMind
is a Senior Software Engineer at Google DeepMind working at the intersection of AI, artificial-life and computational creativity. After his PhD on biologically-inspired neural networks he moved into industry to lead development on multiple BAFTA-nominated projects, from the Creatures series of artificial-life simulations to four series of the mixed-reality BBC TV show BAMZOOKi. He worked with William Latham on the Evolution and Foundation project.
Artist William Latham Software Stephen Todd AI Software Dylan Banarse (Google DeepMind).
