Cyberfeminism and Artificial Life examines the 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 discourse of genomics as well as through 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 extends current understanding by demonstrating the ways in which this relatively marginal field connects with, and connects up global networks of information systems.
Ultimately, this book aims to re-focus concern on the ethics rather than on the 'nature' of life-as-it-could-be.
Sarah Kember is a senior lecturer in the Department of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She is the author of Virtual Anxiety. Photography, New Technologies and Subjectivity, 1998.
Chapter 1 Autonomy and Artificiality in Global Networks; Chapter 2 The Meaning of Life Part 1; Chapter 3 Artificial Life; Chapter 4 CyberLife's Creatures; Chapter 5 Network Identities; Chapter 6 The Meaning of Life Part 2; Chapter 7 Evolving Feminism in Alife Environments; Chapter 8 Beyond the Science Wars;