As arguably the most talked-about technological developments at present, AI systems are having a major impact on artistic practices and have been increasingly utilised, reflected upon and criticised in contemporary art in recent years. At the same time, numerous artistic works are turning to the magical in search of a possible counterpoint to technocratic co-optation and a binding force to reunite a present that has apparently become fractured in the face of multiple crises. Building on this, Michael Klipphahn-Karge examines in ‘AI and Magic: The Spiritualisation of Computational Systems in Contemporary Art’ examines, through specific examples, how these two seemingly contradictory phenomena – AI and magic – intersect and interpenetrate in the art of the 2010s. Drawing on key works by Jordan Wolfson, Agnieszka Polska and Hito Steyerl, he demonstrates how, on the one hand, post-digital art becomes a vehicle for magical worldviews and, on the other, how artists are re-exploring the intersections of technology and spirituality: as a reflection on social fractures, a challenge to neo-reactionary dynamics, and a strategy of artistic self-mythologisation.
Dr Michael Klipphahn-Karge is a visual studies scholar and art historian. Since October 2025, he has headed the research focus ‘History and Theory of Art and Design’ at HGB Leipzig. He is also, amongst other roles, an associate researcher at the Central Institute for Art History in Munich, where he previously worked as a research assistant in the ‘Art, Environment, Ecology’ research group. He completed his PhD in art history as a fellow at the Schaufler Lab at Dresden University of Technology.
AI and Magic: The Spiritualisation of Computational Systems in Contemporary Art
2026, 304 pages, softback with flaps, 139 illustrations
Design: Erik Schöfer
ISBN: 978-3-88960-262-61
Price: €36.00
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