The cultural fascination with ruins is nothing new. Architects, poets and commentators like Rose Macaulay (1953), Christopher Woodward (2002) and Robert Ginsberg (2004) have extensively and critically investigated the significations of ruins in Western culture. In our lived environments, our media landscapes, and our social media feeds, we are surrounded by ruination: the ruins of war, ecological disaster, post-industrial decline, austerity, social collapse, and infrastructural decline. This issue of Digital Culture & Society addresses the complex thematic field of ruination and decay in contemporary culture.