Sarah Kember – författare

Cyberfeminism and Artificial Life examines the construction, manipulation and re-definition of life in contemporary technoscientific culture. It takes a critical political view of the concept of life as information, tracing this through the new biology and the discourse of genomics as well as through the changing discipline of artificial life and its manifestation in art, language, literature, commerce and entertainment. From cloning to computer games, and incorporating an analysis of hardware, software and ''wetware'', Sarah Kember extends current understanding by demonstrating the ways in which this relatively marginal field connects with, and connects up global networks of information systems.Ultimately, this book aims to re-focus concern on the ethics rather than on the ''nature'' of life-as-it-could-be.

Cyberfeminism and Artificial Life examines the construction, manipulation and re-definition of life in contemporary technoscientific culture. It takes a critical political view of the concept of life as information, tracing this through the new biology and the discourse of genomics as well as through the changing discipline of artificial life and its manifestation in art, language, literature, commerce and entertainment. From cloning to computer games, and incorporating an analysis of hardware, software and ''wetware'', Sarah Kember extends current understanding by demonstrating the ways in which this relatively marginal field connects with, and connects up global networks of information systems.Ultimately, this book aims to re-focus concern on the ethics rather than on the ''nature'' of life-as-it-could-be.

What can queer feminist writing strategies such as parody and irony do to outsmart the sexism of smart objects, environments and materials and open out the new dialecticism of structure and scale, critique and creativity? Drawing on science and technology studies and feminist theory, this book examines the gendering of current and future media technologies such as smart phones, Google glass, robot nurses, tablets and face recognition. Kember argues that there is a tendency to affirm and celebrate the existence of smart and often sexist objects, environments and materials in themselves; to elide writing and other forms of mediation; and to engage in disembodied knowledge practices. Disembodied knowledge practices tend towards a scientism that currently includes physics envy and are also masculinist. Where there is some degree of convergence between masculinist and feminist thinking about objects, environments and materials, there is also divergence, conflict and the possibleopening towards a politics of imedia. Presenting a lively manifesto for refiguring imedia, this book forms an often neglected gender critique of developments in smart technologies and will be essential reading for scholars in Communication Studies, Cultural and Media, Science and Technology and Feminism.