Authors:

 Tenhaaf , Nell.

Title:

 Art that is Lifelike

Keywords:

 artificial life, art and science, biotechnology, evolution
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Abstract:

 The title of the proposed paper is derived from an article on art and
artificial life that I recently published in the Leonardo "Digital Salon"
issue (also available on Leonardo Electronic Almanac,
http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/home.html). The article puts
forward a critical analysis of the mythologies that inform alife, myths of
computational generation of life and accelerated evolution, but more
importantly it proposes a positive and optimistic view of alife as a set
of representational strategies with great creative potential. My paper
will not reiterate the article, but refer to it and other recent
theoretical approaches to the topic as a backdrop for discussing alife
artwork, including but not limited to my own. Having tracked the
development of alife research since the early 90s, with much curiosity and
also skepticism, I am now immersed in it in both my art and writing
practice. Particularly in my art work, this represents a break from a
long-standing interest in biotechnology which has been focused on a
critique of how subjectivity is shaped by technoscientific practices and
the cultural narratives that surround them. What I struggled with for a
decade of work in this domain is that science invokes authoritative
answers, and quoting its representations in art practice tends to fall
back on that authority as an interpretive system. Alife is already a
hybrid set of practices, a kind of parallel science, one that admits a
narrative element and thereby keeps the subjectivity in technoscience much
more alive.
I am currently the artistic director of an alife art competition sponsored
by the Fundacion Arte y Tecnologia, Madrid (http://www.telefonica.es/fat/vida.hmtl). In this role I have been
thinking extensively about what constitutes interesting crossover work
between alife research and electronic media production. By next summer I
should have a very comprehensive and critically aware overview of the
field to present at Invencao.
Tenhaaf, Nell. tenhaaf@yorku.ca York University, Toronto, Canada. Nell Tenhaaf is an electronic media artist and writer based in Toronto. She has exhibited widely and published numerous reviews and articles. Recently she has been presenting an Internet-based performance called "Neonudism", and has been included in the exhibitions "Interface: Encounters with New Technology" at the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (1998) and "LikeLife" at the Brighton Media Centre, UK in conjunction with the fourth European Conference on Artificial Life (1977). Her new interactive installation "UCBM (you could be me)", which incorporates a genetic algorithm to involve the viewer, will be shown in Spring 99 at Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto. Recent publications include "As Art is Lifelike: Evolution, Artificial Life, and The Readymade" in Leonardo (Fall 1998); "Semiosis, Evolution, Energy: Interviews with Three Scientists" on Nettime at http://www.factory.org/nettime/; and "Production and Reproduction" in Women, Art and Technology (MIT Press and Leonardo, forthcoming). Tenhaaf is Assistant Professor in the Visual Arts department of York University, and prior to this appointment held a three-year visiting position in the Art Department of Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh.