Why Artificial Life in Digital World?

At the beginning, I was interested in the topic of ‘Genomic Art’, something related to Gene. However, the content of the topic is a little bit ambiguous because it contains real life art, like cells photography, without any manipulation which is not correlated to the course. Then, I wonder if I should start a new topic. Gene in life…Digital Art is an art which is made by hand…Why cannot I study the field of Artificial Life? Making or creating something new is always very interesting. On an upper level, you can create a distinctive life which is unique in the world, it is much more fun!

I start finding sources about the topic. It is not only present as an artwork in museum but also used in different place of life, from educational, academic purpose to the fun we enjoy when playing games on net. The topic can be interpreted in many aspects. We can search more about the concepts behind Artificial Life. What make it so lively like real creatures? Besides, it is exciting in knowing the life of their ‘creators’. Their motivation and aim are also an interesting topic to be deal with. Apart from it, it arouses the question of life. Is Artificial Life really a kind of life? Is it good or moral to create Artificial Life and just remove it in a minute? There are many subtopics really interest me which urge me to carry on the research.

(243 words)

Research Questions

1. How Artificial Life affects our daily life? Is it only an artwork that can only be exhibited in
gallery or museums?

2. I saw some projects of Artificial Life left uncompleted in a website. What are the factors that encourage the founders to curry out these projects even it is difficult to complete the task sometimes? And what are the reasons for stopping a project?

3. Artificial Life looks good because of its creativity and interaction. Is there any Artificial Life works that reflect other purposes? (e.g. reflect social problems or illegal uses) (similar with the first question)

4. What are the concepts that ‘run’ an Artificial Life? What are the freedom and limitations of the concepts behind (in reflecting real life)?

5. Some of the Artificial Life is used in education and research projects. To what extent is its value in these fields? What are the differences with the use of real life in academic studies?

6. Artificial Life is just the product of modern technology and can be easily deleted or manipulated by hand. Why does Artificial Life named as a kind of ‘Life’? What is ‘Life’ then?

Annotated Bibliography and Comments

Books:
1) Paul, Christiane. 2003. Digital art. London; New York, N.Y.: Thames & Hudson.

Comment: The third chapter “Theme in Digital Art” is the first article that gives me the idea of artificial life in digital art. It gives some interesting examples of artificial life which gives me a clear way for researching.

2) Adamatzky, Andrew, and Komosinski, Maciej. 2005. Artificial life models in software. London: Springer-Verlag.

Comment: This book is useful. This book present different software that use to make artificial forms in an organized way. It has a very complete introduction of every software, including its background, the concept that runs the program and the projects that have carry out and those will be enforced. For example, some of the works are used for educational and political purposes.

3) Helmreich, Stefan. 1998. Silicon second nature :culturing artificial life in a digital world. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press.

Comment: It is a valuable resource because it gets into the life of Artificial Life researchers. It includes how they make use of their works to reflect the doubts about personal and cosmological
meaning. Besides, Artificial Life in Net is discussed in the book.

4) Levy, Steven. 1992. Artificial life :the quest for a new creation. London: Jonathan Cape.

Comment: The author portrays how the scientist of Artificial Life have a new looking of life after pursue their dreams and ambitions. Moreover, it present the use of Artificial Life to solve complicated problems.

5) Magnenat-Thalmann, Nadia, and Thalmann, Daniel. 1994. Artificial life and virtual reality. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

Comment: This book is useful although it is a little bit old. It brings in a deeper aspect of the artificial life field. It includes some theories like artificial consciousness, artificial presence, artificial autonomy and artificial perception. It seems difficult to read.

6)“Natalie Jeremijenko: A-trees” in Tribe and Jana, 48-49

Comment: 'A-trees' is a good example of artificial life that use to reflect environmental problems.

Magazines Articles:
7) Designing Artificial Life. By: Szpir, Michael, Scientific American, 00368733, Dec2005, Vol. 293, Issue 6 (magazine)

Comment: The concept that runs artificial life comes from real life network. Have a brief study of cells or real life may help to understand this topic. It may be quite difficult for me to understand these concepts because I know little about science.

Newspaper articles:
8) Play a larger game of artificial life in the new 'Sims 2' ; Best-selling title goes 3-D in sequel; [FINAL Edition]
Steven Kent. USA TODAY. McLean, Va.: Sep 15, 2004. pg. D.04

Comment: Artificial Life is not only an artwork, but also related to our entertainment. The 3-D game can be an example to illustrate the relationship of artificial life with our daily life. Furthermore, the figures in the ‘Sims’ can made dead easily by human. Then, what is the value of this kind of life?

9) Worldwide fish go with the digital flow; [FINAL Edition]
A.S. Berman. USA TODAY. McLean, Va.: Sep 6, 2001. pg. D.03

Comment: It’s a funny article. It talks about software which the users can create fish in their PCs. Fishes you create may swim to PCs of other people from different countries. However, the website cannot be displayed. It’s a pity.

Websites:
10) ‘Artificial life’, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (October 2007)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_life

Comment: It is commonly believed that the information provided by Wikipedia is not quite reliable. Nevertheless, it can give some brief ideas of Artificial Life and suggest some websites for researching the topic.

11) Zooland: The Artificial Life Resource (July 2004)
http://surf.de.uu.net/zooland/index.html

Comment: A database with many great links and software related to Artificial life.

12) International Society of Artificial Life
http://alife.co.uk/

Comment: It seems to be the official site of the society. It includes publications and links related to Artificial Life. Most of its articles are not allowed to read on net if you are not a member of the Society but the links are very useful.


13)NearLife Homepage (2000-2004 Nearlife, Inc.)
http://www.nearlife.com/intro/flash.html

Comment: The page represent a project named ''Visual Fishtank" (http://www.virtualfishtank.com/) which is an example of 3D Artificial Life.

14)Artificial Life and Other Experiments (By Ariel Dolan)
http://www.aridolan.com/

Comment: It is a website with artificial life made by Java system. Besides, it allows the viewers to manipulate the option for the system.

15) Neopets Homepage
http://neopets.com/

Comment: It is a great example of 2D Artificial Pet website. I have join the network since I were a high school student. Go to the 'Key Visual Materials' to know more about my pet.^^

16)Lotus Artificial Life
http://alife.co.uk/

Comment: Another website for Java made artificial life. It also allows the viewers to manipulate the option for the system.

Key Quotes and Key Visual Materials

Key Quotes:

1) ‘At the basis of many digital art projects addressing artificial life are inherent characteristics of digital technologies themselves: the possibility of infinite “reproduction” in varying combinations according to specified variables; and the feasibility of programming certain behaviors (such as ‘fleeting’, ‘seeking’, attacking’) for so called “autonomous” information units of characters.’

Paul, Christiane. 2003. Digital art. London; New York, N.Y.: Thames & Hudson.
‘Chapter 3: Themes in Digital Art’, p.140

2)‘Artificial Life is devoted to a new discipline that investigates the scientific, engineering, philosophical, and social issues involved in our rapidly increasing technological ability to synthesize life-like behaviors from scratch in computers, machines, molecules, and other alternative media. By extending the horizons of empirical research in biology beyond the territory currently circumscribed by life-as-we-know-it, the study of artificial life gives us access to the domain of life-as-it-could-be. Relevant topics span the hierarchy of biological organization, including studies of the origin of life, self-assembly, growth and development, evolutionary and ecological dynamics, animal and robot behavior, social organization, and cultural evolution.’

‘About Artificial Life’
MTS Press Journal
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/page/about/artl

3)‘Artificial Life is more than a new way of thinking about biology. It is a symptom and a source of mutating versions of “nature” and life” in an increasing computerized world. As such, it has a social, cultural, and historical specificity. The book is concerned with chasing down that specificity. I document how the local knowledges and artifacts Artificial life are produced in the institutional and imaginative spaces of the Santa Institute and in the cluster of computer simulation that it holds in its orbit. My argument is that Artificial Life scientist’s computational models of “possible biologies” are powerfully inflected by their cultural conceptions and lived understanding of gender, kinship, sexuality, race, economy, and cosmology and by the social and political context in which this understanding take shape. Ideas and experience of gender and kinship circulating in the homosexual cultural in which most researchers participate, for example, inform theories about “reproduction”, “sex”, “relatedness” and “sexual selection” in artificial worlds, and notions of competition and market economics in the capitalist West shape the construction of “artificial ecologies” in which population of programs vie to “survive” and “reproduce”.’

Helmreich, Stefan. 1998. Silicon second nature :culturing artificial life in a digital world. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press. ‘Prologue: In Silico’,P.11
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/page/about/artl

4) 'Built by Nearlife, Inc. (www.nearlife.com) for the Museum of Science, Boston (www.mos.org), VirtualFishtank.com represents the dawn of a new era in educational entertainment. Until now, most museum exhibit websites have merely contained static descriptions of the exhibits. They have not included an interactive element. And they certainly have not been dynamically linked to the actual museum exhibit. VirtualFishtank.com changes all that and enables the highly successful Virtual FishTank(TM) exhibit at the Museum to transcend its walls to be experienced in homes and schools anywhere in the world. And, the Virtual FishTank experience continues to grow with the installation of another tank at the St. Louis Science Center. Now, users can send fish to either destination in Boston or St. Louis.

Virtual FishTank(TM) at MoS is all about building your own fish, releasing it into the gigantic 24,000 "gallon" virtual tank and watching YOUR fish interact with the others. VirtualFishtank.com lets you build your own fish online and release them directly into the Museum tank! You also can release your fish into an online simulated tank, or save your fish and go to the Museum to retrieve and release your fish there.

The Virtual FishTank(TM) exhibit teaches lessons about emergent behavior, group behavior and modeling. The rich functionality of VirtualFishtank.com will enable parents and educators to enhance the educational experience by planning pre and post Museum visit online exercises. '

'What is VISUALFISHTANK.COM?'(and why is it important?)'
Press Information (The name of the author is not stated)
http://www.virtualfishtank.com/press/

5) 'Alife, as a research and activity field, has some special attributes. It is new, very loosely defined, multi-disciplinary in the strongest sense, and its equipment (both laboratory and field) is the computer. Above all, it is fascinating and it seems (to some) to have a potential for breakthroughs. This is why it attracts curious people from all trades, both from the academic world and outside it. You need little more then a computer to perform an Alife experiment.

Alife activity involves programming. The laboratory of Alife is the computer, its tools are computer programs. When you need a new tool you can program it from scratch, but it is wise to look first at existing tools. In some cases it might be possible to use existing code and extend it or otherwise build upon it. Here enters the power of the WWW and the cross-platform languages: You can find pieces of code that suit your needs, in a language you can use directly, given free by people all over the world. '

Abstract form 'Code Sharing as an Alife Experiment in Memetic Evolution'
Artificial Life and Other Experiments (By Ariel Dolan)
http://www.aridolan.com/ofiles/ad/adcodesharing.aspx


Key Visual Materials:
http://picasaweb.google.com/quietpurple