This course investigates the increasingly important role that concepts fromthe field of artificial life are playing across the breadth of computer graphics, including image synthesis, modeling, animation, multimedia, and virtual reality. Attendees will be systematically introduced to techniques for realistically modeling and animating objects that are alive. They will also explore graphics techniques that emulate phenomena fundamental to biological organisms, such as biomechanics, behavior, growth, and evolution. The challenge is to develop sophisticated graphics models that are self-creating, self-evolving, self-controlling, and/or self-animating, by simulating the natural mechanisms of life.