What happened to the 1960s ideas of machine art, cybernetic art, 'algorithmic revolution', and the hopes for a democratization of the art market? How do contemporary art practitioners cope with the political situation and with the attempts of the Silicon Valley giants to appropriate algorithmic generation of art-like artefacts? This issue aims to discuss how the early concept of computer art is now being reframed as digital, post-digital or algorithmic art under the prevailing conditions of big data, smart AI, an almost all-encompassing surveillance technology and the political state of neo-liberalism.

Karin Wenz (Dr.) is an assistant professor of Media Culture at Maastricht University, Netherlands, and director of studies of the MA Media Culture. Mathias Fuchs (Dr.) is an artist, musician and media scholar. He is the director of the Gamification Lab at Leuphana University in Lüneburg. He is a pioneer in the field of game art and is a leading scholar in game studies and directs a project on Gamification that is funded by the German Research Council (2018-2021).