In today's world we find ourselves repeatedly evaluating whether things are real or “fake” in ways that often depend on the distinction between that which is living and that which merely appears to be so. And this question seems to require continuous revaluation with each major technological shift. …

This book is concerned with the aesthetic facets of “artificial life”. It argues that the boundary between the living and the non-living, the real and the fake, the natural and the artificial, are continuously constructed and re-constructed via aesthetic means. These boundaries determine the content of the category of “life”, and it is the realm of the aesthetic that determines our understanding of these boundaries.