What does it mean to be a designer in the digital age? Today’s computers process data at incredibly high speeds, while algorithms automatically filter and analyse information and software generates images from code. Images are no longer fixed, well-defined artefacts. Instead, they are increasingly automatically generated, interactive and fluid entities that are less directly the product of human handwork and more the result of complex machines and computer programs.

In this richly illustrated book, Marijke Goeting examines the nature and cultural effects of media and technologies that are crucial for the design of visual communication today: digital imaging, algorithms, computer vision, big data and high-speed computation. She analyses how contemporary works of art and design have reflected on, experimented with and imagined different ways of dealing with these technologies. Goeting identifies different approaches that artists and designers can take to engage critically, thoughtfully and alternatively with the digital tools at hand.