The new interdisciplinary science of ALife has had a connection with the arts from its inception. This paper provides an overview of ALife, reviews its key scientific challenges and discusses its philosophical implications. It ends with a few words about the implications of ALife for the arts.

This paper discusses the aims and goals of artificial evolution in relation to two of the founding features of A-Life: how to characterize the domain of the possible and the criterion of lifelikeness. It is argued that artificial evolution should aim to understand the evolution of organizations and that this will bring about a better understanding of possible evolutions that could have taken place on Earth.

Progress in the scientific understanding and simulation of natural evolutionary mechanisms may be creating the basis for a new stage in evolution: the coming of artificial beings and artificial societies. Culture itself, aesthetics and intelligence are coming to be seen as the emergent, self-organizing qualities of a collectivity, evolved over time through both genetic and linguistic evolution. This paper sketches the development of hybrid digital worlds, in which artificial beings are able to evolve their own cultures, languages and aesthetics. Finally, the authors discuss their interactive audio-visual art installation Relazioni Emergenti, based on artificial-life environments. In this work, digital beings can interact, reproduce and evolve through the mechanisms of genetic mutation. People can interact with these artificial beings, creating hybrid ecosystems.