Yehwan Song

February 11, 2026

Yehwan Song (b. 1995, Suwon, South Korea) is a web artist based in New York, NY. She received her BA from the School of Art at Hongik University, Seoul, in 2020. Her work has been presented at institutions and events including Pioneer Works, New York; the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA), Seoul; the Asian Art Biennial, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, Taichung; Tate Britain, London; the 17th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul; and the Helsinki Biennial, HAM Museum, Helsinki. Song has participated in residencies and fellowships at Pioneer Works (New York), Edith Russ Haus (Oldenburg), La Becque (Switzerland), and NewINC (New York), among others.

Can you tell me about what you’re working on in the studio right now?

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how users in digital spaces are turned into a kind of free labor — generating data, engagement, and content that fuel systems without receiving anything in return. I’m exploring this idea through semi-wearable and robotic sculptures that position the user as part of the machine itself, almost like Charlie Chaplin caught in the gears of a conveyor belt. These works translate the invisible mechanics of digital labor into physical form, showing how participation in technology can blur into exploitation.

Alongside this, I’m preparing for upcoming exhibitions over the next few months at the Museum of the Moving Image (New York), the Seoul Museum of Art (Seoul), and Office Impart (Berlin).

Can you tell us more about your practice of the “anti-user-friendly”? What does that mean to you?

For me, “user-friendliness” is all about making things easy and efficient — it removes friction so users don’t have to think or learn anything new. Most websites or apps follow the same design patterns so that everything feels familiar. But when interaction becomes automatic like that, people stop noticing what they’re actually doing.

With Anti-User-Friendly, I try to push against that. I build interfaces that are intentionally awkward or confusing — not to frustrate, but to make people slow down, explore, and really pay attention again. I want to bring awareness back into the act of using something.

I also find the word friendliness kind of ironic. It sounds warm and caring, but it’s often used as a marketing trick to make technology feel more human. When “users” are being used, that friendliness starts to feel a bit manipulative. My work tries to make that contradiction visible.

You’ve spoken about coding languages and how we might make those more diverse. Does that inform your underlying choices in what coding languages you use to make work?

Unfortunately, not directly — and that’s part of the problem. As with many things in the tech era, there isn’t much real choice when it comes to programming languages, especially for web-based work. The practical options are limited, and almost all major languages that can effectively communicate with current systems are written in English. So even though I’m critical of that dominance, my work still has to exist within it.

There have been efforts to create programming languages in other languages — such as Tamil, Arabic, and Chinese — but they remain niche. English remains the default in mainstream programming, showing how deeply it is embedded in the digital and technological landscape.

Tell me a little more about the structures you’ve been building for your larger-scale works. Where do those forms come from? Why use cardboard?

I wanted to experiment with a cheap, lightweight material in contrast to what’s usually seen in “tech art,” which often relies on expensive, high-end technologies. I love how technology — something usually hidden beneath — is often dressed up by marketing and commercialization, especially when it becomes popular or personalized. Using cardboard allows me to play with that tension. It’s fragile, temporary, and modest, yet it holds complex systems underneath.

The forms mostly come from the concept of each work. For the piece at Pioneer Works, the theme of the show was about a drowning surfer — the circular shapes were inspired by whirlpools and barnacles. For the work at the Asian Art Biennale, which dealt with the disappearance of the Korean language on the internet, I used a keyboard as the central form. These structures often evolve as I build them, adapting to the limitations and qualities of cardboard itself.

You mention that your projects aim to “highlight how design often erases cultural, political, and linguistic complexity in favor of universality.” – Can you tell us more about how you see that being the case?

I grew up in South Korea, where it was very clear that computing is heavily dominated by English. Most programming languages are written in English, and even things like domain names or account usernames follow that linguistic norm. When I moved to New York and studied at the School for Poetic Computation, I was struck by how many native English speakers described code as something poetic. For them, the language of code could feel expressive or lyrical. For me, as someone who learned English as a second language, it didn’t feel that way — it felt distant, functional.

That experience made me think more deeply about diversity in digital spaces and why it seems so absent. It’s not only the dominance of English — it’s also the repetition of the same gestures, the same interfaces, the same ways of clicking, swiping, or reacting. Design trains people to behave in similar ways, making interaction itself feel standardized. My projects question that — they look for ways to reveal and challenge how design defines “normal,” flattening cultural, political, and bodily differences in the process.

The internet often promotes an idea of “universality” — a simplified sameness that’s easy to distribute and manage. But what’s called “universal” often gives users no real choice; it turns a particular cultural or linguistic standard into a norm everyone must follow. And yet, we call that the “World Wide Web.”

Where does the work begin for you? Is it a question, a piece of code, a sketch, or something else?

I often say that my work and the tech industry have a relationship like Batman and the Joker. I criticize technology, yet my work can only exist because of it — especially the gaps, failures, and excesses that high-end tech creates. That’s usually where my process begins. I observe what’s happening in the tech world, follow new developments, and start to question or challenge them through functionality and concept. From there, I move into sketches and eventually into installation or physical realization.

Yehwan Song

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