Cyberfeminism and Artificial Life

by Kember,Sarah

• ISBN13: 9780415240277
• ISBN10: 0415240271
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2002-12-30
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Cyberfeminism and Artificial Lifeexamines construction, manipulation and re-definition of life in contemporary technoscientific culture. It takes a critical political view of the concept of life as information, tracing this through the new biology and the changing discipline of artificial life and its manifestation in art, language, literature, commerce and entertainment. From cloning to computer games, and incorporating an analysis of hardware, software and 'wetware', Sarah Kember demonstrates how this relatively marginal field connects with, and connects up global networks of information systems. As well as offering suggestions for the evolution of [cyber]feminism in Alife environments, the author identifies the emergence of posthumanism; an ethics of the posthuman subject mobilized in the tension between cold war and post-cold war politics, psychological and biological machines, centralized and de-centralized control, top-down and bottom-up processing, autonomous and autopoietic organisms,cloning and transgenesis, species-self and other species. Ultimately, this book aims to re-focus concern on the ethics rather than on the 'nature' of life-as-it-could-be.

Author Biography

Sarah Kember is a senior lecturer in the department of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths College, University of London

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Acknowledgements	xi
Autonomy and artificiality in global networks	1	(13)
ALife in context, or, the `return to Darwin'	2	(5)
Network bioethics	7	(7)
The meaning of life part 1: the new biology	14	(39)
Evolutionary biology - all about chickens and eggs	14	(9)
The metaphor of life as information	16	(3)
Biology as ideology - reductionism and determinism	19	(4)
Molecular biology - an endgame	23	(8)
Sociobiology and eugenics	31	(9)
Evolutionary psychology and the `Darwin Wars'	40	(13)
Artificial Life	53	(30)
`Information Wants to be Alive!'	60	(3)
The philosophy and biology of ALife	63	(15)
ALife's autonomous agents	66	(5)
ALife's non-vitalist vitalism	71	(1)
Spaces of dissent	71	(7)
The future of ALife - consolidating (digital) naturalism	78	(5)
CyberLife's Creatures	83	(33)
SimWorlds - ALife and computer games	85	(6)
Stirring the primordial soup	85	(1)
The Creation part 1: making worlds	86	(2)
The Creation part 2: making life	88	(1)
Cain's creation	89	(2)
Creatures	91	(14)
Playing the game	95	(3)
Creatures on the Internet	98	(7)
CyberLife - selling ALife	105	(4)
CyberLife Research Limited - or `real' ALife	109	(7)
Network identities	116	(29)
Artificial agents	116	(17)
HAL	116	(2)
Situated and autonomous robots	118	(6)
Bots	124	(3)
ALife aesthetics	127	(6)
Artificial cultures	133	(5)
Artificial societies	138	(5)
Artificial subjects	143	(2)
The meaning of life part 2: genomics	145	(30)
Artificial life as wetware	145	(5)
The species-self	150	(10)
Confessions of a justified sinner	150	(10)
The self as other	160	(9)
The other species	169	(6)
Evolving feminism in Alife environments	175	(36)
Alife-as-we-know-it	175	(7)
Natureculture	182	(6)
Risk	188	(5)
Pengi and the Expressivator	193	(5)
Alife-as-it-could-be	198	(1)
Autopoiesis and autonomy	198	(6)
Embodying Alife	204	(2)
Towards situating Alife	206	(5)
Beyond the science wars	211	(6)
Notes	217	(10)
Bibliography	227	(16)
Index	243