PARALLEL CO-EVOLUTION OF LIVING AND artificial SYSTEMS Martina Ivičič Theory and History of Science and Theory of Interactive Media Faculty of Science, Masaryk University in Brno INTRODUCTION The general public has followed analysts and theorists predictions about the potential impact of developments in 21^st century biotechnology, with much concern and skepticism. The digital revolution of the 90s now seem like child’s play in comparison to the potential discoveries of biological scientists, which could mean total control over the organic world. Understanding these new technological changes will lead to significant questions about our nature and the consequences of biological manipulation. Naturally, the artistic community wants to participate in this discussion and be actively present in research that could act as a first commentator on scientific research, but also attempt to independently shape the possible future course of new research. This thesis should contribute to the revision of the understanding of new media art (which utilizes advanced communication technologies through the interconnection of the organic world and technology) by reviewing previous thinking on human-machine connections and generally the relationships between living and non-living entities in the context of cybernetics. A particular emphasis will be placed on the growth of digital media art in the postmedia and postdigital era, where there is now an explicit link between ICT and biology and its sub-disciplines. There is now a link between computer software and so called ‘wetware.’ The first is the software environment, where artificial life art is based on mathematics, algorithms, and especially the scientific discipline of artificial life (AL). Artificial life art creates simulated worlds of digital organisms. The emerging works simulate certain physiological properties of living organisms, mapping statistical information on biological or geographical data and processing and visualizing this into new data-scapes. Functioning principles of living natural organisms are remediating in the digital universes using generative software. The second level is the expansion of the conceptual framework for new media art on the biological context, when we talk about the so-called moistmedia. It's a natural evolution due to the effects of the dissemination of biotechnology. The third culture leads to combining art and science in various fields, among them biology and expanding biotechnology. Artistic experiments extending beyond the art at different levels are realized in collaboration with scientific teams where the handling of living material highlights the living structures and their processes. This work is based primarily in terms of the theory of new media, but also there is some organic connection with the interrogation of philosophical existence - natural and artificial, which distinguishes between natural evolution of nature in opposition to culture, which means artificially produced reality. Following on evolutionary-ontological reflection of nature, culture, technology and human knowledge[1] which distinguishes the evolution of nature and human (anti-natural) culture, where there is mutual ontological conflict. This traditional conflict, or in other words the opposition of two opposite poles (natural and cultural) is beginning to soften in the expansion of digital media art which draws on man- made technology and the natural living world. All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace I like to think (and the sooner the better!) of a cybernetic meadow where mammals and computers live together in mutually programming harmony like pure water touching clear sky. I like to think (right now, please!) of a cybernetic forest filled with pines and electronics where deer stroll peacefully past computers as if they were flowers with spinning blossoms. I like to think (it has to be!) of a cybernetic ecology where we are free of our labors and joined back to nature, returned to our mammal brothers and sisters, and all watched over by machines of loving grace . Richard Brautigan: The Communication Company, 1967 1. PostmediA PERIOD This thesis deals with the developments that have led to the creation of new artistic hybrids, formed from the interconnection of machines and living systems. Before this it is necessary to put the issue into the correct context. The first term that requires explanation is the notion of a postmedia era, into which we put the whole issue. Characteristics of this postmedia period[2] are "convergence and hybridization of different types of media (traditional and new), equality of all artistic media and freedom of movement of artists across them and weaken the emphasis on relationship media / content in favor of code, script or algorithm." [3]. There’s not just this revaluation, but also questioning the very nature of the medium. This point was discussed in the essay of Rosalind Krauss Sailing the North Sea: Art in the age postmedia situation[4]. Krauss argues that contemporary art does not place such emphasis on the medium than in the modernist period, when the medium was considered to be a source of artistic interest. She relies also on Lyotard's Postmodern situation[5], in which the author defines postmodernism as the end of big narratives, stories and theories. Artists who use the new equipment and modern technology adapted from commercial culture and even scientific environment, thus no longer work with traditional media in "modern" meanings. The paper of Lev Manovich which goes back to the 1960s, when there was a massive expansion and fragmentation of art forms (assemblage, happening, installation, performance, intermedia, time-based media etc.). These forms disrupted previously well-established typology of media, built in the sorting of materials used in the work. Unlike traditional media, new media leads to different combinations of mutations, even the dematerialization of the art work, which constantly creates new forms of technological culture. Among one of the six principles of postmedia aesthetics Manovich formulated related to the detachment of commitment to the media: "Categories of postmedia aesthetics should not be tied to any special storage or communications media."[6] As indicated in the introduction, the art, whose themes and used media expanding into new contexts and materials in time called postmedia, is seen in the context of the overlapping of different types of media in contemporary art practice. But there is one term that indicates not only the background but also the future development and transformations of new respectively digital media. Mel Alexenberg talks about postdigital art work, which "involve more humanity through symbiosis between digital, biological, cultural and spiritual systems, between cyberspace and real space, between physical media and mixed reality and augmented reality in communications, [...] and further between work in alternative media through participation and collaboration interactions "[7]. He suggests the emergence of new art forms due to systematic (contextual) thinking[8]. This thinking forecasts, that scientific research and technological development radically transform basic philosophical ideas about the nature and development of the arts. 2. WHAT KIND OF MEDIA? We understand new media as a very inconsistent conglomerate encompassing existing cultural conventions and conventions of software as well. In this sense, they allow access to content anytime and anywhere in space and time using digital devices, while also supporting interactive response (feedback), community participation and joint creation of new, or modifying of existing, media content. New media allow old forms of media to merge with the new and create new ways of interactivity, which is the main characteristic of this new media. In a broader sense we understand new media as information and communication technology based on digital encryption and computer data processing, which have become a natural part of society and it´s organization and self-shaping and framing. There was a huge increase in graphics programs for static graphics, photo editing, animation, 3D animation or live-action videos in the second half of the 1990s. However in this period they used to work in isolation in a task specific manner. According to Manovich however software has now developed into what he terms ‘cultural software’[9]. This more sophisticated software has become more inter compatible and freely available making it possible for users to create, edit and share a variety of media at the same time. This software is creating its own culture and this has "created a new stylized aesthetics similar to the logic of creating new hybrid species in biology."[10] According to L.Manovich new media has five characteristics: numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability and transcoding. The first characteristic numerical representation results in mathematical expression and allows the possibility of further algorithmic manipulation. Take into account the modularity of the media, or the ability to combine various media into larger more complex objects and units without losing their individuality and independence. By integrating these two important characteristics of new media there occurs the technical and conceptual change in the logic of the media, which defines new media hybridity. 3. LIFE AS A MEDIUM? From cold mechanic media let´s move to the opposite, natural, vibrant sphere. Biology, which is the science of living organisms, involves a number of other disciplines, as its name suggests, dedicated to life (bios grec., βιος-life, logos, λογος - word). For the purposes of our consideration let´s accept the claim that life is a certain, very complex and abstract kind of media. It is representative of the distribution and storage of information[11]. Life is a kind of umbrella concept for concrete material living objects. Let´s understand it along the lines of Foucault's Archaeology of knowledge. According to him, in the media history the medium I present not only in material form as an object, device, but also as an object or a discursive construct, which may not necessarily be realized as a mechanism for functional or cultural form, but was raised as a topic, a set of expectations in certain discourses and social practices[12]. Thus, imagine life as some imaginary medium that is defined by certain characteristics[13], and within the ongoing continuous processes take place at constant conversion and manifests certain behaviors. Also Aristotle´s hylomorphism becomes the starting point for understanding living through passive movement of substance[14]. According to Maturana and Varela[15] the main characteristic of living systems (networks) is constant self-replication, autopoiesis or self-formation. It is a way of organization, in which each part is active in the production and transformation of other components of the network and thus the network is constantly creating itself. Life is therefore constant movement, constant change and flux, which is also able to self-shape and Artificial Life (AL) attempts to model this. We can understand this as a remediation of life, simulating elementary functions and principles of life. 4. ARTIFICIAL LIFE: REMEDIATION OF LIFE In the current postmedia and postdigital situation we´re witnessing not only the networking of media into new hybrid units, but the same "hybridization" or transdisciplinarity is also reflected in the dynamic relationship of digital, biological and cultural systems. AL simulates and experimentally examines the phenomena of real life with its models in the non-living environment of digital media. The scientific discipline of artificial life, which was founded in the late 80's, can be perceived as the remediation of the main principles of living phenomena in non-living medium. This way of expansion of digital media art connects them with the concept of biology at the level of software. Artificial life art follows the scientific discipline of artificial life (artificial life, AL). Within the strategies and approaches of Artificial Life this art of creates simulated worlds of digital organisms. This creates works simulating certain physiological characteristics of living organisms, mapping statistical information on biological and geographical data, processing and visualizing them into new datascapes. In the environment of a particular program of artificial life there is a digital universe[16], which is governed by similar rules that exist in the real, natural world, with the difference that there is no inherent form[17]. It is a natural synthesizing of models through digital media and creating the artificial models. AL works with digital data, algorithms, which then generate different patterns of life, as it could be[18]. The principle of reproduction constitutes an important element, which is simulated in the AL, while reproduction forms the base of biological evolutionary theory. According to this theory all current biodiversity was created from gradual distribution of species into a number of new species over time from generation to generation. The very broad interdisciplinary field of synthesizing biology has been formed, which includes a vast array of developed disciplines. Evolutionary Biology[19] integrates the knowledge of all the special biological disciplines, including ecology, taxonomy, population biology, ethology and sociobiology, which study the evolutionary process and characteristics of whole populations and communities of organisms. Research of artificial life use programs that simulate life. These programs generate digital organisms which, at least in the metaphorical sense, can be considered alive. Examples include Conway's Game of Life or organisms of Thomas Ray´s program called TIERRA. As organic life obtains its energy from the sun, artificial life works on a "food chain", where food becomes a computer processor (CPU). CPU is usually used for some time for the organization of memory. Machine code is a basic package of instructions of a computer, in which is contained instruction consisting of binary code (010111000). This is a kind of a parallel to the atom in the molecule DNA, which uses a sequence of keys (A, C, G, T). If we look at life as a process, then the machine instructions of a computer can be seen as a form of artificial chemistry. These instructions can be regarded as "chemically" active since they manipulate bits, bytes, CPU registers, etc. ... Computer simulations of life and other model experiments are elementary tools for the study of nonlinear dynamics of biological life, but also the functioning of human society. Many critics argue that the field of evolutionary algorithmic programs, or units simulating life in the AL forms establish the metaphor of evolution. Mitchell Whitelaw, however, counters that: "AL includes detailed processes and structures and their transfer to the technological media - the structure of the code. [... ] If living things represent organized matter, therefore, are "complex biochemical machines" and their dynamic structure determines the typical characteristics of living things, then the structure inside the computer with the same dynamic structure is actually artificial life[20]. Many authors of artificial life programs (called strong alifers) are interested in the formation of the digital organisms, which is a so called embodied view, which looks at life as a process that can be separated from any media. Thomas Ray argues that computer code is becoming a natural form of life, only the medium remains artificial. Thus Tierra computer program does not simulate life, but synthesizes it. We would be able to disprove this avid view from a point of the theory of new media, using our assumption that life is understood as a kind of media. AL and artificial life art using algorithms and generative software receive data and process the attributes that define life and thus they remediate it. Using algorithms and generative software these media remediate life. The authors even whilst entering the input parameters can reorganize its conditions (they can specify the number of individuals in a given environment, they designate the primary qualities, determine the amount of food in its territory, determine the number of predators, etc.). As a reactive environment, augmented AL, "bioartificial" ecosystem visual system, evolutionary computation, evolving interface, organic computing or surround sound system[21] was an evaluated project Augmented Ecology. Responsive Environments (2010) by Fran Castillo. Augmented Ecologies (AE) is a hybrid bioartificial ecosystem, which examines aspects of life through technological installations and assemblages of organic and synthetic. This simulation software is an analytical visualization of the aquatic environment, which evaluates the information and data received from ecological systems. The organic component is represented here by an aquatic environment and synthetic parts are sensors and simulation software analyzing and vizualizing this environment. Using the sensors, processes are transmitted to the numerical simulation of the ecosystem as input parameters. AE appears widespread artificial life and dynamic interactions between systems lead to discovering, respectively, the births of emergence of new organisms. Analysis and management of the environment based on the evolutionary principles offers self-reorganizing relation to the data flow, which causes the evolution of this ecosystem. This software also integrates SoundSpace System, which transforms the parameters of a bioartificial system to spatial dimensions. The benefit of this project is redefining of human interaction with their natural environment. This tool, which is an advanced technology with biological context, facilitates new forms of understanding this relationship through access to information and their subsequent visualization. 5. BIOLOGIZing FEATURES in Digital Media: BIOLOGICAL TERMINOLOGY Computer science and theory of new media finds inspiration in biology and uses a variety of linguistic metaphors, taken from biological terminology. For example, the descriptions of the functioning of artificial life encounter with the concepts describing the action as reproduction, crossover, inheritance, birth, death, survival of the stronger individual and the struggle for food. For a description of the entities involved in these processes are the ancestors, descendants, parental organisms, virus infection, parasite, mutant etc. Since the onset of the World Wide Web it has been popular to talk using biological analogies. Douglas Rushkoff at the time claimed that the naming of biological dictionary is much more appropriate to capture the way in which cyberculture is growing and changing. "Think about cyberspace as a social petri dish, the agar as the Internet and virtual communities in all their diversity as colonies of microorganisms that grow in a petri dish." [22] Ultimately, as the first digital organisms are considered computer viruses that have the ability to self-reproduce and multiply[23]. According to these influences and events the attention of authors is also gradually turning to the issue of the link between organic life and inorganic environment of digital media. David Ackley speaks in this context of software genetics and living computing. He concludes that the software development process resembles the embryonic development of an organism. According to him it is possible to apply the principles of living systems in the structure of a computer network. [24] Media theorists reveal relevant parallels and similarities of living systems and the evolution in network systems. For example, the current Finnish media theorist and professor of digital culture theory Jussi Parikka[25] deals with the relationship of insects and machines in the unique history of insects as technological models. He looks at insects as a model for contemporary practice of progression of the media, examines the parasitic manifestations and options of software. In this way it is possible to reveal the basic features of techno-cultural logic that characterizes contemporary network culture. Parikka contributes to our discussion by saying that we should not understand the relationship of computer culture and biology as a metaphorical relationship, but it is meaningful and strategic to understand computers as biological organisms, network as an ecological platform and digital culture as a living organic process. Parikka thus promotes understanding of digital creation as a generative process similar to natural processes in living organisms and in nature. 6. MOISTMEDIA Another way of expansion or extension of the conceptual framework of digital media art on biological aspects is the link of infotechnologies with increasingly emerging biotechnologies. In these cases, there is no longer metaphorical parallel, where the organic process is taken as a concept, but this kind of expansion has already been done at the level of living medium. This progress in the arts, which integrates scientific methods, strategies and technologies, was defined by British artist Roy Ascott in 2000. He published his "wet manifesto". He explained the process of transformation or even mutation of the structure of artistic media. He suggested the increasing number of links between a "silicon-dry" digital media and a wet biological system, which he termed "moistmedia". “It is with the coming together of the silicon dry world of interactive media with the wet biology of living systems, that the emergence of a new substrate and vehicle for art can be detected, which may lead to the evolution of a moist art. Moistmedia involves bits, atoms, neurons and genes (the big B.A.N.G) co-existing in new configurations of form and meaning”[26]. These parts - bits, atoms, neurons and genes form a new substrate, thus moistmedia, which contemporary art builds on. The shift towards moistmedia art is radical. This is a shift from predominantly non-material art from a screen-based culture to re-materialization of art in moistmedia. From the artistic point in these works is a tendency to focus on the philosophical aspect instead of aesthetic and visual aspects. "The digital part (pixels and telematic networks) will interact and communicate with molecules in the biological structure of the work." [27] 6.1. The story of the emergence of moistmedia Moistmedia is a new hybrid which emerged in the process of symbiosis of two fields: biotechnology and infotechnology. But how did this hybrid actually emerge? It was emerging gradually and the gradual development might be called parallel co-evolution of living and artificial systems. This co-evolution poses no novelty in the 21st century. Media studies like biology offer evolutionary developmental theories. At the first glance these two areas of the living and non-living are at the other ends of the imaginary line. But the common denominator of artificial system and the living system as well is cybernetic principle. Cybernetics is the connecting link, why we understand digital technologies and new media arts with their machine nature simultaneously to natural, naturally arising systems (living organisms, life). In the 1950s mathematician Norbert Wiener[28] established the scientific discipline - cybernetics, which is the link between living organisms and machines in their common principle: the control and communication. Since in the living entities, as well as in non-living systems, there is the principle of homeostasis. This principle can be seen as a prerequisite for their perception as related phenomena. Especially during the first wave of cybernetics (1940-1960) the principle of homeostasis (homeo – constant, stasis - immobility) is a central topic. This term was established by the American physiologist Walter Bradford Cannon, who described it as "a set of physiological mechanisms designed to restore the normal state of the internal environment after its disruption.” [29] 6.2. CYBernetic tradition In the cybernetic tradition we encounter the human desire to revive the dead matter, or the machine. We encounter attempts to integrate kinetic principles throughout the whole of human history. Such attempts occur in two ways. The first is the mythological and literary and the other is the technological trajectory. These traditions are based on ideas of plotting artificial creatures, such as the legendary Greek Galatea statue brought to life by the goddess Aphrodite, or the legend of the Golem, a sculpture of man created from clay. In the literature there is the famous story written by Mary Shelley, considered the first science fiction novel, about a scientist Frankenstein who created a being similar to humans (1818). The iconic[30] film Metropolis in 1927 by German expressionist filmmaker Fritz Lang has a character called Mary who is transformed into a robot. In contrast, technological developments relate to the history of machines. This history is mapped by the authors of the publication New Media: A Critical Introduction[31] since the 1st century. Master of Alexandria constructed the fountain machine employing pneumatic pressure to direct the water. Later during 17th – 18th century mechanical models imitated the functioning of the human body. For example, a French inventor Jacques de Vaucanson constructed mechanical flute players. These android objects could play a few songs on the flute. An even better known device is Vaucanson´s duck which consisted of about 4000 parts. This mechanism was able to walk, swim, peck grain, digest with chemicals and excrete it from the body. Other important mechanical invention is the Turk by the Hungarian inventor Wolfgang von Kempelen, who was the inventor of the time-keeper or automatic dolls able to write, read, draw or play a musical instrument by Pierre Jaquet Droz built around 1770. ... Until now we have been moving between the two diametrically opposed realms in our consideration: in the world of inanimate machines and its opposite biological counter- natural life. We are interested in these phenomenon in the development of contemporary digital art, which clearly deals with the issues of technosphere (from which new media comes out) and biosphere (which is from the point of critical evolutionary ontology in opposition to the development of unnatural machine systems). From these view points, we try to inspect new media art, which go hand in hand with advanced communications technologies that surround us, in the context of interconnection with natural phenomena and living media. We rethink previous thinking on human-machine connections, and generally living and non-living relationships in the context of cybernetics. But why should we combine these two contradictory instances? From a systematic point of view this enables a complex understanding of these phenomena. 7. TURNOVER Mechanics and later robotics have been concentrating on the issue of implementing biological dimensions and cognition into the interactive technologies. Engineers, inventors and scientists devote their skills to "revive the machine" by giving it certain life-like attributes. Whether movement (e.g. simulations of birds flocking), or a specific form of behavior (behavior in a competitive environment of the fittest individuals), humanoid appearance, or implementation of the principles of human cognition. Using various sensors, the machine is equipped with a system that is fundamentally similar to human motion and nervous system. Hardware development implements principles of living processes into non-living entities, resulting in various "autonomous robots, multi-motion robots, neuromorph analog devices and self-configurable robots"[32]. Studying moistmedia we recognize an explicit difference opposite to cybernetic traditions. In the era of biotechnology turnover occurs. There are implemented technological elements into a living system in the body. Life is genetically modified or otherwise transformed by integrating technology and thus living systems are modified to a new level of hybridity. An important phenomenon is the fact that living in symbiosis with the artificial links without the need of hierarchy between them. These two components are equal partners in a new hybrid system. Project Autoinducer_Ph-1 (cross cultural chemistry) by Andy Gracie contextualy follows the research in bacteriology and botany. It is a bioartificial ecosystem for growing rice. The installation consists of lakes, electronic robotic arms and rice plants. Autoinducer uses traditional techniques of cultivation of rice, which are used in Southeast Asia. It is a natural symbiosis between Azolla, a type of fern with Anabaena, which is cyanobacteria. This relationship is enriched with the new parameters: the new relationship between cyanobacteria and virtual colonies of bacteria. The system explores the possibility of extending the organic material and integrates data into the synthetic bacteria. In this system there is a complete virtual environment into which flows data obtained from the current state of cyanobacteria – Anabaena. The way this system responds to inputs affects the behavior of the new generation of code, which will determine the airflow, heat and light provided, to form an organic-rice. So both parts of this relationship - organic and synthetic - are interdependent due to production of "life-giving" information. There is a symbiosis of living and artificial systems in a common hybrid ecosystem. 7.1. Ascending of system thinking / paradigm shift A cybernetic system and a living organism, like life itself, is always something more than the mere sum of the individual parts that make it up. They can be well understood as operating systems. The principles of cybernetics can be found in a living cell (microlevel[33]), but also on the total macrolevel like the earth. James Lovelock in this context refers to the earth - Gaia as a self-regulatory system[34]. Perception of things as units from the 'micro' level, from single cell, organism, through ecosystems to the planet as a place of our being becomes holistic. System thinking shows that living systems cannot be understood by the analysis of their separate parts. System thinking is contextual thinking, because to explain things in the context means to explain them in their environment, therefore the whole system thinking is environmental thinking. We note here a paradigm shift. There has been a shift from Descartes and Newton's mechanistic view of the world, to our terms of a holistic view. Changes in scientific paradigms[35] do not progress smoothly, but through revolutionary breaks which Kuhn called "paradigm shifts". Such changes can be certainly detected in the emergence of the third culture, which arose from the extension of (bio) technology and also due to the popularization of science. This leads to an expansion of a new culture at the intersection of humanities and natural sciences in which scientists and artists with a scientific background communicate directly with the audience through the works beyond digital media and expanding into the biological sphere. In this connection there is a new context or system thinking of artists, namely symbiosis of different hybrids of new media and ICT with living entities and nature. The interconnection of hardware and biology could be explicit, even poetic. The Biogenic Stamp is a project, where the electronic components are exposed to genetically modified cyanobacteria, as the most primitive form of life, which is able to perform photosynthesis and depends on light energy. Bacteria change the activity and composition of silicon, gold and iron on computer hardware and its growth is changing the logic of these man-made electronic circuits. The expanding of biotechnology has transformed the structure of artwork that connects digital media with genes, cells and tissues, just as in living media. The resulting art projects embody advanced computer technology exceeding the digital sphere and influencing of events "in vivo" or "in vitro". They are so called moistmedia that have the potential to create a new mode of coexistence[36] of nature and technology, which has been greatly disturbed since the Industrial Revolution. 7.2. COntruction of life: hypermediation of living medium „Life is becoming raw material, waiting to be engineered“ [37]. The progressive results of synthetic biology encourage the sphere of art as well. It is a new constructional approach to biology, which actually uses nature as a source of constructing components and newly forming organisms of different pieces of DNA (biobricks). It also designs and constructs new biological parts or systems, or transforms existing natural biological systems for different purposes. It is the upward design of genetic material through the code, so firstly the appropriate specification of the genetic sequence was proposed which is then carried out in practice. This scientific field has been followed by artistic activities. Synthetic Aesthetics project brings together scientists, engineers, artists and designers working in collaborative projects with biological design. Teams of scientists and designers are currently working on the development of E. coli, which can be left to grow into a variety of desired objects such as coffee cups. This process can be compared to 3D printing, the bacteria grows into a certain shape. The programming creates new objects called new growing media. This project is based on science, but will be used in a way that causes people to think about nature and micro-organisms in a new way. There are artistic activities, particularly in bioart, that focus on synthetic creation of new entities. It is the creation of new objects by cultivation of living cells derived from a particular organism, or by a combination of tissue of more individuals. These entities are obviously living in a certain perspective, able to metabolize, grow and reproduce. There are two current projects of this nature created by the Australian laboratory SymbioticA. Victimless Leather[38] is an engineered tissue cultured in a bioreactor into the desired form of jacket. Semi-Living Worry Dolls (2000) are small doll-like objects designed from a cell-based polymer. This material was sterilized and inoculated muscle and skin cells that have grown through the polymer structure, which in the course of tissue growth gradually degraded. This was subsequently developed in a special incubator for 21 days at 37 ° C and 5% CO 2 concentration. For gallery use these cultured pieces were placed in a rotating bioreactor, which kept alive their semi-state (the authors used the term "still alive"). The authors examine this project and push the boundaries of our perception of semi-living material as new hybrid forms of being. These complex parts of organisms always keep "alive" outside the body, namely in vitro. They are like new semi-living bodies created by man. While a biological organism can´t survive without organs and cells, scientific and technological bodies are a construct that somehow survive[39] fragmented and separated from the biological body. It is a laboratory constructed biological entity. It is a kind of a "remix", where the genes and cellular tissues derived from different individuals combine, thereby merging foreign genes and tissue, forming new types of chimeras, such as between human and plant[40]. It is the integration of technological systems integrated into the living and thereby these modified living systems attain a level of hybridity. The hybrid nature can be seen in the Bacterial radio. It´s author, an American artist and researcher Joe Davis, took the Golden Nica prize at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, 2012. Davis has created different types of electrical signals by bacteria, and radio circuits are occupied by bacteria with different cloned genes in marine sponges (Tethya aurantia). Human understanding of nature and life was of a technological nature for several centuries. In the current technological and biological art that has been discussed, there is a greater biological and ontological understanding. 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WIENER, Norbert. Kybernetika a společnost. Praha:Nakladatelství ČSAV, 1963, s.183 WIENER, Norbert. Můj život. 1.vyd. Praha : Mladá fronta, 1970. 242 s. ZRZAVÝ, J.; STORCH, D.; MIHULKA, S.: Jak se dělá evoluce : od sobeckého genu k rozmanitosti života. Praha: Paseka, 2004. ________________________________ [1] Evolutionary Ontology is not physical or biological, but cultural feature topic, as being within the scope includes cultural being. Distinguishes between the Order of nature and culture. More: ŠMAJS, Josef: Philosophy-turn to earth. Evolutionary ontological reflection of nature, culture, technology and human knowledge. Prague Academy. Galileo. , 2008. [2] About postmedia periond in the context of new media read also: Weibel, Peter. A Genealogy of Media Art. In Synthetic Times. Fan Di’an – Zhang Ga (eds.), The Art Museum of China : The MIT Press, 2008, s. 112–142. [3] Horáková, Jana: Konec dějin nových médií: Softwarová studia, in:Martin Flašar-Jana Horáková-Petr Macek a kol.: Umění a nová média. Vyd. 1. Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 2011. 188s. ISBN 978-80-510-5639-8. [4] Krauss, Rosalind: A Voyage on the North Sea: Art in the Age of the Post-Medium Condition. London: Thames&Hudon, 1999. [5] Lyotard, Jean-François. 1993. O postmodernismu. Postmoderno vysvětlované dětem. [1986]. Postmoderní situace. [1979]. Praha: Filosofický ústav AV ČR. [6] Manovich, Lev. Post-media Aesthetics. Available on-line: < htp://www.alice.id.tue.nl/references/manovich-2005.pdf > (rev. 15.6. 2013). [7] Alexenberg, Mel: The Future of Art in a Postdigital Age. Intellect Books/University of Chicago Press, 2011) [8] More about system thinking in the chapter 7.1. [9] See: Manovich, Lev: Cultural Software . Available at: http://manovich.net/DOCS/Manoich.Cultural_Software.2011.pdf [10] Manovich Lev. Understanding Hybrid Media. In: Betti-Sue Hertz (ed.) Animated Paintings. San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, 2007. Available at: . ^^[11] Information within the meaning of genetic information, or set of genes stored in the structure of the DNA molecule that is found in living organisms see: Crick, F. – Watson J.D.: Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid" in Nature.25.4. 1953, Vol. 171, s. 737–738 [12] Foucault, Michel: Archeologie vědění. Přeložil Čestmír Pelikán. Praha, Herrmann & synové 2002. ^^[13]^ According to physiologist Claude Bernard, there are five general traits that characterize living "things": organization, reproduction, nutrition, development, suggestibility disease and death. Refer Bernard, Claude: Introduction to Experimental Medicine (1865). Biologists define the essential characteristics of life: metabolism , homeostasis, heredity and reproduction, and finally constant evolution, therefore evolution. [14] Immobility thus belongs to dead. See: Herakleitos: Peri fýseós, around 500 b.c. [15] Maturana, Humberto - Varela, Francisco: Autopoiesis and Cognition. D.Riedel, Dordrecht, Holland, 1980. ^^[16]^ See also: Bentley, Peter: Digital Biology: The Creation of Life Inside Computers and How It Will Affect Us. Simon and Schuster, 2002. Bentley argues that natural and digital biology follows the same process in different universes. "Digital universes are not any simulations, because digital entities live and die in the digital world and each of its bits are biological, as well as we do" p. 2 [17] This is a strong AL, which claims that life as a process can be separated from any media. This has led some scientists and artists investigating this issue to believe that it is possible to create a "silicon life." [18] „life as it could be“, term coined by the founder of Artificial Life: Christopher Langton. Viď: LANGTON, Christopher. Artificial Life: An Overview, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1995, p. ix. [19] Theoretical concepts of evolutionary biology are applied to the process of formation, development and dissemination of basic information and cultural units, memes. Memetics deals with this topic, established by Richard Dawkins in his book: The Selfish Gene (The Selfish Gene 1976). Dawkins introduced the concept of memes, which refers to the equivalent genes to describe how Darwinian principles can be extended and applied to various cultural phenomena in the hypothesis of cultural evolution, analogue to the theory of biological evolution. See also: Blackmore, S.: The meme machine. New York: Oxford University Press 1999. [20]„However a-life art involves far more than a vague organic metaphor: it involves a detailed engagement with particular processes and structures, and their translation into technological media — into structures of code. [... ] If living things are nothing but matter organized just so, if they are as Langton suggests “nothing more than complex biochemical machines”, and if it is their dynamic organization that gives them the distinctive qualities of living things, then a structure inside a computer with the same dynamic organization is truly artificial life.“ (Whitelaw:2001) [21] „Responsive Environments, Augmented A-life, Bioartificial Ecosystem, Visual System, Evolutionary Computation, Evolvable Interface , Organic Computing , Consciousness Evolves, Sound Spatial System“ viď http://research.francastillo.net/index.php?/researchexperiment/augmented-ecologies/ [22]^ Rushkoff, Douglas: Media Virus!, New York: Ballantine Books, 1996, p. 247 [23]^ In 1984 Fred Cohen specified a computer virus: "The virus can spread throughout a computer system or network using the authorizations of every user in order to infect the program. Every infected program can act as a virus, thereby increasing infection. Fred Cohen. "Computer Viruses - Theory and Experiments". DOD/NBS 7th Conference on Computer Security, originally appearing in IFIP-sec, 1984, Online: http://www.all.net/books/virus/index.html. [24] Ackley, David: Real Artificial Life: Where We May Be. In Bedau, Mark et al (eds.): Artificial Life VII, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000, s.487-496. [25] Parikka , Jussi: Insect Media. University of Minnesota Press, 2010. [26] Ascott, Roy: The Moistmedia Manifesto. Installation, gr2000az. Graz, Austria, 2000. Available online: http://biomediale.ncca-kaliningrad.ru/?blang=eng&author=ascott [27] ibid [28] Norbert Wiener: Kybernetika aneb Řízení a sdělování u organismů a strojů. 1948 [29] Trivial example of a self-regulatory system of communication and control in a living organism is to maintain the body cool, when we are hot, the body starts to sweat through cooling. In: Cannon, Walter Bradford: Homeostasis. The Wisdom of the Body. 1932. [30] Or CULT –because it influenced many others movies as Blade Runner, The Fifth Element, AI: Artificial Intelligence (creating robots with human form), or Equilibrium. [31] Lister, Martin et. al: New Media: A Critical Introduction, Routledge 2003, ISBN 0-203-88482-5, cap. 5 Cyberculture: Technology, Nature and Culture, s. 317 - ^^[32]^ ADAMATZKY, Andrew -KOMOSINSKI, Maciej (2009). Artificial Life Models in Hardware. London: Springer Verlag. [33] About the cybernetic principle at the cellular level Jacques Monod wrote. According to him, it is the functional coherence of cell system: "In each cell cybernetic function ensures almost the same complex functional connectivity of intracellular machinery" in: MONOD, Jacques: Náhoda a nutnost. V zrcadle dnešní doby. Pojednání o přírodní filosofií moderní biologií .Ed. Anton Markoš,Pavel Mervart 2008. [34] Along with Lynn Margulis he defined Gaia as a complex entity forming the feedback, which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet. Although we do not accept Lovelock´s G aia, which already is starting to be accepted by the academic community, one part of Gaia - Biosphere shows signs of homeostasis. The biosphere is characterized by self-regulation, self-renewal, circulation of matter and energy flow. Thus, it works on the principle of homeostasis as well. ^^[35] The scientific paradigm as a "set of successful solutions and results shared by the scientific community and used by the community for the definition of legitimate problems and ways to solve them. See: Kuhn, Thomas: The Structure of Scientific Revolution, 1962. [36] Jussi Parikka a Tony D. Samson argue that the relationship of computer culture with biology we should not only understand as a metaphorical relationship, but understand computers as biological organisms. Network in their perception is an alternative ecological platform and digital culture is synonymous with vibrant organic process. See: Jussi Parikka and Tony D. Sampson: The Spam Book: On Viruses, Porn and Other Anomalies From the Dark Side of Digital Culture. Hampton Press, 2009. [37]Partial Life, edited by Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr, ISBN: 978-1-60785-269-8. Available at: http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Partial_Life [38] http://www.tca.uwa.edu.au/vl/vl.html [39] Growing, [40] Kac, Eduardo: Natural History of the Enigma: The Edunia (2003-2008). Edunia je geneticky upravená rastlina, do ktorej Eduardo Kac vimplantoval svoje vlastné DNA. [41] Capra, F.: Tkáň života. Nová syntéza mysli a hmoty. Praha, Academia 2004, s. 25