Artificial Life

New developments in life science and information science invite rigorous inquiries into what we mean by - and ascribe to - 'life'. "Artificial Life" provides a summary of the key technical and legal developments and an account of why these developments are so unsettling to established categories like 'human', 'technology', and 'nature'.

In five chapters - that discuss spaces of life; theories of life; the industrialization of life; spaces of property; and new imaginaries - "Artificial Life": explains how research in biology and informational technology questions the division between human and animal, human and machine, bodies and data, cells and information; provides an account vitalist and bio-philosophical thinking from Whitehead to Deleuze; and elucidates a new set of ideas and methods focused on complexity and emergence. "Artificial Life" outlines the principal themes with economy and directness; while the focus is on issues of active social concern - like stem cells research - which have stimulated theoretical and methodological developments in the humanities and social sciences.