Song Ye-hwan's "The Barnacles" (2025) / Courtesy of G Gallery

Since the advent of the internet, its intangible and limitless nature has often been compared to a free-flowing body of water — where we "surf" the net, "stream" its content, and "dive into" the depths of the Deep Web.

To many, it feels like a high-speed, freewheeling aqueous utopia, where an endless sea of information is readily available at the click of a button.

Web artist Song Ye-hwan disrupts this illusion of digital utopianism. While skepticism about the internet's idealistic image is nothing new, her approach to expressing it is refreshingly unique.

Through “anti-user-friendly” websites and 3D projection mapping on organic cardboard constructions, Song reimagines web surfers not as autonomous navigators but as swimmers trapped in a relentless whirlpool — or even as unmoving barnacles, passively feeding on the curated tides of algorithms.

“I wanted to visualize in a tangible way how the internet, once celebrated as a haven for free-roaming web surfers, has transformed into an environment where such freedom is no longer possible,” she told The Korea Times at G Gallery in southern Seoul, where her latest solo exhibition, “The Internet Barnacles,” is on view.

“The users resemble barnacles, clustering together and motionless. In reality, they are not navigating at all, yet they remain trapped in the illusion of sailing.”

The standardized web interfaces and hidden surveillance mechanisms, designed to offer easy, streamlined access, are, in fact, what shapes and controls the digital experience from beginning to end, she suggests.

Song Ye-hwan's "The Surfers' Suspicion" (2025) / Courtesy of the artist

Song's critique arises from her own experience as a user experience and user interface (UX/UI) designer. It was through her day job that a persistent question began to take shape: Why does UX/UI design often feel so standardized, and what does “user-friendly” truly mean?

“My whole work revolved around creating easy-to-access designs, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was really about steering people to get hooked on the platform, essentially addicting them,” she noted. “It struck me that as the online environment grew more advanced, it increasingly felt like a structure designed to devour its users.”

The artist's “anti-user-friendly” websites yield a cascade of counterintuitive results, where familiar actions like clicking, dragging, scrolling and swiping trigger entirely unexpected outcomes. This deliberate disruption is meant to defamiliarize the user experience we so often take for granted.

Song Ye-hwan's "The Whirlpool" (2025) / Courtesy of G Gallery

Yet, perhaps the most eye-catching gem in her practice — and the centerpiece of her G Gallery show — is her architectural installations. In “The Barnacles” and “The Whirlpool,” moving images and icons are projection-mapped onto towering cardboard lattices.

The clips, either sourced from the internet or crafted by her own hands, are bounded by rectangular surfaces, suggesting how every act of surfing the web is tightly controlled and regulated, unable to break free from its algorithmic confines.

As her works continue to gain recognition and appear in biennales worldwide, Song shared plans to further explore the geographically bound nature of the internet in her upcoming projects.

“Although the internet feels ubiquitous, online realms are inherently shaped by the regulations of individual countries," she said. "The types of content that are censored vary by nation; for instance, in South Korea, access to any North Korean websites is strictly prohibited.”

“The Internet Barnacles” runs through Feb. 15 at G Gallery. In May, Song will be featured at the gallery's solo booth at the Frieze New York art fair.

In addition to her solo endeavors, she was selected as one of the 15 “Young Korean Artists 2025,” the flagship group exhibition hosted by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA).