[artinfo] Metacreation: Art and Artificial Life

[Melinda Rackham]

Metacreation: Art and Artificial Life -  November on -empyre-

Described as  "provocative, literate, subtle, and knowledgeable" [1] 
Mitchell Whitelaw's "Metacreation" (MIT Press) is the first detailed 
critical account of the new field of creative practice of a-life art. 
This appropriation and adaptation by media artist's of the techniques 
from interdisciplinary artificial life science, has produced not only 
artworks, but unique generative and creative processes.

- empyre- is proud to host what promises to be a stimulating 
discussion, with Mitchell Whitelaw being joined throughout the month 
by eminent a-life practitioners Paul Brown (UK), Mauro Annunziato 
(IT),  Ken Rinaldo (US), and Maria Verstappen (NL).

Over the month Whitelaw and guests will extrude the book's concepts - 
how artificial evolution alters the artist's creative agency;  the 
complex interactivity of artificial ecosystems; the creation of 
embodied autonomous agencies; the use of cellular automata to 
investigate pattern, form and morphogenesis; and well as examining 
the key tenet of a-life, emergence.

Please join us at the -empyre- (http://www.subtle.net/empyre) from November 4.
_________________________________________

Mauro Annunziato, (http://www.plancton.com) artist and scientist, 
founded the art group "PLANCTON in '94 with Piero Pierucci focussing 
the research on the creative and aesthetical potentialities of chaos 
and artificial life, the relation between art and science, mind and 
society, communication and interaction.

Paul Brown (http://www.paul-brown.com ) is an artist and writer who 
has been specialising in art and technology, especially computational 
and generative art for over 40 years.  He was recently described by 
Mitchell Whitelaw as "one of the unheralded pioneers of a-life art".

Ken Rinaldo ( http://accad.osu.edu/~rinaldo/ ) is an artist, theorist 
and author who creates interactive multimedia installations that blur 
the boundaries between the organic and inorganic. Integration of the 
organic and electro-mechanical elements asserts a confluence and 
co-evolution between living and evolving technological cultures.

Maria Verstappen and Erwin Driessens ( http://www.xs4all.nl/~notnot ) 
have worked together since 1990. They both studied at the State 
Academy of Fine Arts, Amsterdam and the Academy of Fine Arts, 
Maastricht. They have held numerous exhibitions in galleries and 
museums. They received a 1st prize at LIFE 2.0 and LIFE 5.0, an 
international competition for Art & Artificial Life, with their 
Tickle robot projects.

Mitchell Whitelaw (http://creative.canberra.edu.au/mitchell) is an 
artist, writer and researcher in new media and audio art and culture. 
He is currently Head of Program, Media / Multimedia Production, 
School of Creative Communication, University of Canberra. His book, 
Metacreation: Art and Artificial Life, was published in 2004 by MIT 
Press 
(http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=10080&ttype=2 )

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[1] --Margaret A. Boden, Research Professor of Cognitive Science, 
University of Sussex, and author of The Creative Mind: Myths and 
Mechanisms
___________________

Dr Melinda Rackham
artist | curator | producer
www.subtle.net/empyre
-empyre-  media forum