Faces flicker across screens, disembodied hands multiply in endless digital loops, and human forms disintegrate into pixelated data flows—scenes that call to mind the sci-fi dreamworlds of Blade Runner (1982) or Ghost in the Shell (1995) pervade Yehwan Song’s multimedia oeuvre. The Korean-born artist, who recently exhibited at Pioneer Works in New York and G Gallery in Seoul, questions the purported technological utopianism of our information age through non-user-centric websites, videos, and immersive installations. For Song, the internet’s glossy promises of freedom, anonymity, and connection belie a reality where our fantasy of digital liberation has succumbed to hegemonic algorithms that dictate the content we consume.

The Barnacles (2025), for example—a towering installation of modular cardboards supported by a metal framework—offers a dystopian vision of our virtual present. Through projection mapping, the segmented cardboards act as screens, showing videos of human hands in motion as well as the titular crustaceans, seemingly trapped beneath the faux graphical interface. Although the title invokes the once-optimistic metaphor of the internet as a “sea of information” that people can “surf” freely, Song gives a sardonic assessment, suggesting that we have become like barnacles—sessile, adaptive organisms attached to various surfaces and passively filter-feeding on computerized currents that gradually reshape our perceptions and behaviors.