Be Online. Be Present. Be Okay.
Yehwan Song
What do our lives look like online?
Our digital selves are carefully curated. We set profiles, choose usernames, and post photos to build an image of ourselves that seems present and okay. But behind the polished surfaces, things are much more messy. We are multi-faceted individuals that can’t be flattened. We exist in a tangible world, made for friction, feeling and physicality. How can we truly be ourselves online, amidst the constant pressure to show up, smile and stay visible? Watch pop-up windows float across the screens, gently held by the artist’s fingers. Our bodies are real, they’re calling out to us, and this is your gentle reminder to check in.
Can we ever just… log off?
Is This Really Me?
Do you recognise your online past?
Step in front of the camera and enter a haunted, digital dream-house. We are constantly leaving traces behind us online - old accounts, photos and comments. Versions of our past selves are condemned to stay permanently etched into the never-ending and immaterial fabric of the internet. Our digital history creates spectres, built by us but no longer quite ours. Lingering in the dusty corners of the web, uncovering your own digital past could come with a few surprises. Peek through the windows of the haunted house. When you open your mouth, the virtual remnants of a past life might come pouring out.
What does our internet history reveal about us?
BIOGRAPHY
Yehwan Song (KR) is a Korean-born artist, graphic designer, and web developer. She designs and develops experimental websites and interactive graphics driven by content structure instead of static templates and web design conventions. Through her projects, she tries to flip the general understanding of web design and subvert common user-experience behaviours, which oversimplify users' behaviour. She pursues diversity above consistency and efficiency.
Her ongoing project, Anti User-friendly, challenges the concept of user-friendliness by creating a situation in which users need to learn, explore, understand and become conscious before they can use it, instead of repeating the same behaviour they've been trained to do, as a form of self-care.