NOIT—4 REFLECTIONS
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL

2018

NOIT is a creative journal published by Flat Time House. Comprising new writing and visual contributions, NOIT explores the theoretical concerns and artwork of John Latham (1921–2006), and their continued relevance.

The fourth edition, NOIT—4 Reflections, is dedicated to writing by Noa Latham on his father’s art and ideas. It provides one of the most comprehensive overviews of John Latham’s cosmology printed to date and combines a decades long critical investigation into his father’s work with intimate account of their time together.

NOIT — 4 Reflections is accompanied by a selection of material collated by Noa Latham. The website postings are divided into three sections – interactions, exhibition contributions and short essays.

 

Noa Latham:

The materials posted here accompany the essays published in NOIT—4. Together they form a collection of writings about John Latham’s art and ideas from my per- spective as his son and as a philosophy professor. They fall into three groups. First there are the interactions, consisting of correspondence and early pieces I wrote for him. Next there are contributions made for exhibitions, all composed after his death on January 1, 2006. These are overviews that serve as standalone pieces that do not presuppose any previous acquaintance with John’s work. Finally there are what I am calling “Short essays”. These currently consist of three short pieces that I cut out of NOIT—4 to present as appendices. Unlike those NOIT—4 essays that are now set in stone, I intend these essays to be revisable, and I may add some new ones here in the future.

About the Author

Noa Latham, son of John Latham and Barbara Steveni, was born in 1952. He studied mathematics, music and philosophy, and moved to the US in 1981. He is currently Associate Professor of philosophy at the University of Calgary. He writes on fundamentality, space and time, laws of nature, causation, the mind-body problem, consciousness, free will, and meditation. 

About NOIT

NOIT is a creative journal published by Flat Time House. The title of the journal, NOIT comes from Latham’s reversal of the suffix ‘-tion’ which transforms verbs into nouns. Its inversion ‘noit’ suggests a transformation of nouns into verbs, a shift from talk about objects to talk about events. ‘Noit’ can also be read as ‘no it’, the sign of an activity that ‘defies its own definition by denying the validity of any given definition’ (John Latham, 1970).

The fourth edition, NOIT—4 Reflections, is dedicated to writing by Noa Latham on his father’s art and ideas. It provides one of the most comprehensive overviews of John Latham’s cosmology printed to date and combines a decades long critical investigation into his father’s work with intimate account of their time together.

JOHN LATHAM’S UNIVERSE

Noa Latham, Tate Britain, February 2006