Our contemporary theoretical and critical vocabularies in cultural theory are inadequate to the mediatic ontologies of the algorithm dispositif. The reason is quite straight forward: algorithms are not mimetic media whereas our aesthetic and political traditions of criticism are rooted in judgments of and about representations. This means that attempts to develop critiques of the algorithm dispositif are both misinformed and misguided if they assume that the dilemmas arising from algorithmic intermediality may be adequately managed with critical theories of judgment rooted in mimesis.

By unpacking the above thesis statement, this talk seeks to outline how and why this dilemma matters to our cultural thinking and to the teaching of, and about, algorithms in cultural studies. In doing so the talk elaborates the possibility of new forms of critical thinking that attend to the dispositional powers of the algorithm.