Mauro Annunziato and Piero Pierucci

Plancton art studio, Rome, Italy

www.plancton.com

plancton@plancton.com

The progress in the scientific understanding/simulation of the evolution mechanisms and the first technological realizations (artificial life environments, robots, intelligent toys, self reproducing machines, agents on the web) are creating the base of a new age: the coming of the artificial beings and artificial societies.

Although this aspect could seems a technological conquest, by our point of view it represent the foundation of a new step in the human evolution. The anticipation of this change is the development of a new cultural paradigm inherited from the theories of evolution and complexity: a new way to think to the culture, aesthetics and intelligence seen as emergent self-organizing qualities of a collectivity evolved along the time through genetic and language evolution.

For these reasons artificial life is going to be an anticipatory and incredibly creative area for the artistic expression and imagination.

In this paper we try to correlate some elements of the present research in the field of artificial life, art and technological grow up in order to trace a path of development for the creation of digital worlds where the artificial beings are able to evolve own culture, language and aesthetics and they are able to interact con the human people.

Finally we report our experience in the realization of an interactive audio-visual art installation based on two connected virtual worlds realized with artificial life environments. In these worlds,

the digital individuals can interact, reproduce and evolve through the mechanisms of genetic mutations. The real people can interact with the artificial individuals creating an hybrid ecosystem and generating emergent shapes, colors, sound architectures and metaphors for imaginary societies, virtual reflections of the real worlds.