Metamechanics has a specific meaning in relation to art history

Art history

Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

, as a description of the kinetic sculpture machine

Machine

A machine manages power to accomplish a task, examples include, a mechanical system, a computing system, an electronic system, and a molecular machine. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work...

s of Jean Tinguely

Jean Tinguely

Jean Tinguely was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics...

. It is also applied to, and may have its origins in, earlier work of the Dada

Dada

Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...

 art movement.

Metamechanics or meta-mechanics is applied in other contexts as a descriptive term for a meta-level or abstract discussion of the mechanics of some application or area. For example, in discussing game design

Game design

Game design, a subset of game development, is the process of designing the content and rules of a game in the pre-production stage and design of gameplay, environment, storyline, and characters during production stage. The term is also used to describe both the game design embodied in a game as...

, a given game has its level of mechanics of manipulation of pieces, dice, cards and so on subject to rules; the meta-mechanics might be discussion of types of pieces, or types of rules.