Art, consciousness and artificial life

Abstract

This paper addresses the relationship of consciousness to artificial life set in the context of art. Artificial life is as much a part of our quest for self-definition as an instrument in the construction of reality. In exploring the technology of life we are exploring the possibilities of what we might become. In our hypermediated, telematic culture, the self acquires an essentially non-linear identity. Telepresence and virtual reality, the avatars of Net life, present us with a distributed, multiple identity which in turn is producing a radically new art. This embodies an ‘interstitial practice’ set within the domain of artificial life, and located at the intersections of cognitive science, bio-engineering, telematics and metaphysics. Can artists find in artificial life, nanotechnology, robotics and molecular engineering the means towards a re-materialization of art, after its postmodern, screen-based dematerialization? Just as ideas of the ‘immaterial’ have dominated art discourse for the last 15 years, so questions of emergent form, intelligent structures and artificial life are shaping a new discourse, from which art is moving off the screen and back into the material world. Will the real significance of art's re-materialization be at the level of mind? Will artificial life only gain cultural significance when it gives rise to artificial mind and the construction of consciousness?