false 462103 1 Artificial life, or a-life, is an interdisciplinary science focused on artificial systems that mimic the properties of living systems. In the 1990s, new media artists began appropriating and adapting the techniques of a-life science to create a-life art; Mitchell Whitelaw's <i>Metacreation</i> is the first detailed critical account of this new field of creative practice.<br /> <br /> A-life art responds to the increasing technologization of living matter by creating works that seem to mutate, evolve, and respond with a life of their own. Pursuing a-life's promise of emergence, these artists produce not only artworks, but generative and creative processes: here creation becomes metacreation. <br /> <br /> Whitelaw presents a-life art practice through four of its characteristic techniques and tendencies. "Breeders" use artificial evolution to generate images and forms, in the process altering the artist's creative agency. "Cybernatures" form complex, interactive systems, drawing the audience into artificial ecosystems. Other artists work in "Hardware," adapting Rodney Brooks's "bottom-up" robotics to create embodied autonomous agencies. The "Abstract Machines" of a-life art de-emphasize the biological analogy, using techniques such as cellular automata to investigate pattern, form and morphogenesis.<br /> <br /> In the book's concluding chapters, Whitelaw surveys the theoretical discourses around a-life art, before finally examining emergence, a concept central to a-life, and key, it is argued, to a-life art. 450555 2006 Metacreation: Art and Artificial Life total:4|5:1|4:2|2:1| 4 15 8 2 5 0 false false Sun Aug 19 12:44:54 -0700 2007 Sun Aug 19 12:46:57 -0700 2007 artificial intelligence, etc.]]> 4 0 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Apr 18 12:10:46 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 06 13:13:22 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Mon Jan 19 08:34:20 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 19 08:34:20 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Mon Sep 22 14:56:45 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 22 14:56:45 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Sun Jul 06 10:31:37 -0700 2008 Sun Jul 06 10:31:37 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Thu Jun 19 01:48:19 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 19 01:48:19 -0700 2008 2 0 false false Tue Apr 01 09:32:33 -0700 2008 Tue Apr 01 09:32:33 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Wed Feb 20 22:06:17 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 20 22:06:17 -0800 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=462103