Vita Kari: On Virality as Art
Episode 03 of What the Discourse?! — a conversation with LA artist Vita Kari on Virality as a medium, and publicity tips from an artist who's perfecting the form.
Originally published onSpace on Space SubstackOriginally published on Space On Space — July 1, 2026. By Emily Elizabeth Logan.
Vita Kari (they/them) is a visual artist from Los Angeles investigating Virality through textiles, performance, and video. Kari focuses on the relationship between internet culture, diaspora, and public space through their lens of being a deaf/Hard of Hearing (HOH) artist. Their figurative tapestries — inspired by their grandmother's rugs — often feature unweaving that obscures the image, like missing dialogue without captions. Kari's continuous video series Virality as Form: The Craziest Thing About Being Creative examines the spectacle of digital attention and the loss of personhood online.
Space On Space: A lot of things go viral by accident, but every aspect of your work feels deliberate and strategic. What distinguishes Virality-as-medium from virality as an accident?
Vita Kari: In content creation, Virality is more of a vague goal that lowkey haunts every social media user alive. For my practice, it functions as a literal material — like how some artists use paint. It literally is the material to work with, like a textile, but in this case, it's a participatory, ephemeral medium.