Ambiguationist

Names

• Ambiguationist
• Post-Algorithmic, Post Algorithmic
• Post-Algorithm, Post Algorithm
• Algorithm Aware
• Algorithmically Conscious

Origin

• Coined by artist Kai (Kari) Altmann in 2015 via an essay collaboration with art historian Cadence Kinsey Link.

• Kai uses Ambiguation in place of Abstraction, as a new kind of "Meta Abstraction" in relation to the "Meta" evolution of culture, technology and more since the 2010s. It ties into her other writings about "Meta Images" and "Metta Images". She also relates it to "Post-Algorithmic", "Algopunk" or "Algorithmically Infused" understandings, with sensitivities toward encryption, codes and genres, as well as a momentum toward meta-algorithms and AI.

• Kai also describes this essay and the term in an interview by Harry Burke for Rhizome in 2015, Link, and in an essay for the book, Representing and Interpreting Abstraction Today, Link.

• Kai (Kari) Altmann uses the term for some of her own works and parts of her practice, as well as some of her surrounding peers.

Definitions and Descriptions

• Creative practices or works which have a kind of meta awareness of codes, cultures, identities, platforms, genres and templates at play both in the creation of the work and in its online/audience distribution. These practices and projects can take an almost algorithmic or pseudo-algorithimc approach, in a way that may hack the systems of cultural production and their algorithmic, post-internet dissemination while also, possibly, embracing them. They may also act as a kind of parody, meme or hybrid of certain genres and tropes, revealing the boundaries around groups of content, aesthetic languages or areas of knowledge.

• Creative practices or works which function beyond a single image or a single work, usually operating in networks of content which are simultaneously dispersed across various kinds of hosts. Hosts include social media, publishing platforms, galleries and other spaces. The artist can be involved in this process as well, using and playing with dissemination as part of the work. Each appearance of the work on a screen or in a space can be altered and evolve, creating a cloud of different impressions over time.

• Kai sometimes uses Ambiguationist interchangeably with Meta Abstraction, Algopunk and Post-Algorithmic.

• In some of her own projects Kai "performs as a type of algorithm" or a "type of AI", or in a way that is against different types of imposed algorithmic logic.

• Kai views this term as an offshoot from Post-Internet and part of it. She also views it as a pre-cursor or separate to her term, New World, which encompasses all of these and more in a wider umbrella more focused on cultural networks. It relates to her other writing around what she calls "Meta Images", where algorithms, genres, platforms and things like branding and cultural identity are all intertwined.

• This also relates to James Bridle's New Aesthetic, Hito Steyerl's Circulationism, Nicolas Bourriad's Post Production and Relational Aesthetics, Seth Price's Dispersion, Artie Vierkant's Image Object and others.

• This can apply to many artists using social media platforms like Tumblr, Instagram and personal websites. It can also apply to artists with a high familiarity with hashtags, tropes and memes.

Artists & Creators

• Kai (Kari) Altmann aka Hitashya
• Iain Ball
• Lauren DeVine
• Dis Magazine
• Matteo Giordano aka X2MX
• Emily Jones
• Nick Newlin aka YenTech
• Sebastian Moyano aka Dateismo
• Katja Novitskova
• Seth Price
• Hito Steyerl
• Brad Troemel
• Harm Van den Dorpel

Exhibitions

2012

• Motion, Seventeen Gallery, London, 17 May-23 June, 2012. Works by Kai (Kari) Altmann, Merce Cunningham, Harm van den Dorpel, Michael Guidetti, Oliver Laric, Mark Leckey, Sean Raspet, Emanuel Rossetti, Hito Steyerl, Artie Vierkant. Curated by Ceci Moss and Tim Steer. "The object that exists in motion spans different points, relations and existences but always remains the same thing. Like the digital file, the bootlegged copy, the icon, or Capital it reproduces, travels and accelerates, constantly negotiating the different supports that enable its movement."

2015

• Inflected Objects #1: Abstraction - Rising Automated Reasoning, Istituto Svizzero, Milan, 15 May-13 Jun 2015. Works by Philippe Decrauzat, Harm van den Dorpel, Katharina Fengler, Femke Herregraven, Lars Holdhus, Pierre Lumineau, Jenna Sutela and Sophie Jung. Curated by Melanie Bühler and Valerio Mannucci.

2023

• Poetics of Encryption, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2023-2024. Curated by Nadim Samman.

Discussions

• Blame it on the Algorithm, Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, 4 April 2015. Speakers: Kai (Kari) Altmann, David Wightman, Dr. Bettina Speckman. Curated by Kai (Kari) Altmann, Rijksakademie and Melanie Bühler. Moderated by Melanie Bühler. “Blame it on the Algorithm” focused on the relationship between a post internet art world, meta images and algorithmic mindsets, led by artist Kari Altmann in discussion of her own practice and experiences, in collaboration with an algorithmic scientist, Dr. Bettina Speckman, and a mash-up musician and app developer with a PhD in composition, David Wightman. Curator and moderator Melanie Bühler has been interacting with Kari's work for many years and also works in the wider post internet field as one of its primary discussion moderators, curators and publishers.

• How Algorithms Make Everything the Same, Online, May 09 2025. Speakers: Carole Cadwalladr, Kyle Chayka & Yancey Strickler.

Videos & Podcasts

• Mina Le, "Why is Social Media Not Fun Anymore?", Youtube.com, February 19 2025.

Books and Journals

• Patricia De Vries, Algorithmic Anxiety in Contemporary Art: A Kierkegaardian Inquiry Into the Imaginary of Possibility, Institute of Network Cultures: Theory on Demand, Issue #33, Amsterdam, 2019.

Essays, Articles, Book Chapters

• Harry Burke, Kai (Kari) Altmann, "Artist Profile: Kari Altmann", Rhizome at the New Museum, New York, 25 Mar 2015.

• Kai (Kari) Altmann, "Ambiguationist Bullets Preface", 2020.

• Kai (Kari) Altmann, Cadence Kinsey, "The Meta Image: Ambiguationist Bullets, Visual Culture in a Post-Western, Post-Production, Pan-Optic World", [2015] 2020.

• Joseph Nechvatal, "From Viruses to Algorithms, We Are Always Under Threat", Hyperallergic, April 19 2020.

• Luiza Futuro, "Anti-Algorithm", News From Futuro, Medium.com, November 08 2020.

• Kyle Chayka, "The Age of Algorithmic Anxiety", The New Yorker, July 25 2022.

• Kyle Chayka, "On algorithmic anxiety", Substack, July 27 2022.

• Kai (Kari) Altmann, "Ambiguations and Meta Abstractions of The New World (An Abstract!)", essay for Representing and Understanding Abstraction Today, Magutt Publishing, [2023] 2024. Edited by Alessandro Ferraro.

• David T. Pennington, "Anti Algorithmic", June 07 2024.

• Simon Burton-Jones, "Filterworld: algorithmic anxiety is flattening our culture", Seen & Unseen, September 24 2024.

• "The Echoes of Algorithm & Anxiety", Digital Media, Society and Culture class blog, October 28 2024.

• Hui Yang, Dan Li, Peng Hu, "Decoding algorithm fatigue: The role of algorithmic literacy, information cocoons, and algorithmic opacity", Technology in Society, Volume 79, December 2024.

• Maria Dragoi, "Algorithmic Historicity: The past is being reprogrammed, and we’re all doom-scrolling through it", Dazed MENA, April 28 2025.

• Ling Ling Huang "Against Algorithms: Why Tuning Out is an Essential Part of the Creative Process", Literary Hub, May 14 2025.

• "The Next Social Media Wave: Why ‘Anti-Algorithm’ Platforms Are Growing", Solsity, May 28 2025.

Theses

• Anna Woorim Chung, "Subverting the algorithm : examining anti-algorithmic tactics on social media", Thesis for S.M. in Comparative Media Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Comparative Media Studies/Writing, May 2020.

See Also

Meta, Meta Art, Meta Abstraction, Algorithmic Abstraction, Algorithm Anxiety, Algorithm Fatigue, Algorithm Pandering, Algorithmic Culture, Dead Internet Theory, Quantum Culture, Emergence, Post-Conceptual, Post-Platform, Dark Forest, Algorithmic, Algorithms, Pseudo-Algorithmic, Post-Algorithmic, Abstraction, Post-Internet Art, Post-Internet Music, Post-Production, New Aesthetic, Circulationism, New Materialisms, New World, Meta Images, Pan-Optic, Hashtags, Troping, Memes, Trends, Viral, Tropes, Microcultural, Transcultural, Intercultural