Yang Wang 汪洋 (b. 1989, Zibo, China) is an artist, writer, researcher, and coder based in New York, where he has lived and worked since 2012. His practice operates at the intersection of continental philosophy, experimental engineering, design, and media art. Formally trained as a designer and professionally shaped by software engineering, he uses computation as both a creative medium and a critical subject, building simulated environments and inscriptive systems that examine how technical systems shape the conditions under which human beings perceive, remember, judge, dwell, speak, and act. Drawing on phenomenology, critical theory, and speculative inquiry, his writing and projects investigate computational modernity — how software, AI, media, and technical infrastructures reorganize world, memory, judgment, and subjectivity. Through zzyw, a collective co-founded with Zhenzhen Qi, Wang challenges dominant technological constructs through software prototyping, interactive systems, philosophical writing, and teaching. He describes his ongoing body of work as Autonomous Practice and Critical Experiments.
Wang’s creative and critical work has been presented at institutions including New Museum affiliate Rhizome (New York), Ars Electronica (Linz), HEK (House of Electronic Arts, Basel), Power Station of Art (Shanghai), the Onassis Foundation, Guangdong Times Museum, National Museum of China, Today Art Museum, Museum MACAN, and HOW Art Museum. He has held residencies and fellowships with the Rhizome × Mozilla Foundation Counterstructural Commons, Eyebeam’s VH AWARD, Pioneer Works, BabyCastles, and NEW INC, the New Museum’s art-and-technology incubator; he was also shortlisted for the Lumen Prize for Art and Technology. He has taught at the China Academy of Art and The Cooper Union and serves as an external reviewer for SIGGRAPH Asia 2026 Art Papers. He has presented at the College Art Association (CAA) Annual Conference, and his paper has been accepted for the 2026 Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) Annual Meeting in Toronto. His writing has appeared in Rhizome, LEAP, The Thinker Weekly (信睿周报), Beijing Literature and Art Review (北京文艺评论), and ESP Cultural Magazine, with new work forthcoming in Artforum Chinese. His writing has also been included in the Onassis Foundation publication Chimeras: Inventory of Synthetic Cognition.
Wang has developed and taught courses on technology critique, experimental computing, worldbuilding, interactive art, and media art at Cooper Union, China Academy of Art, and Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. His pedagogy combines neural network building with phenomenological inquiry, establishing computation as a medium for collaborative creation and critical reflection. He maintains an industry presence to sharpen his critical inquiry into emerging technology — previously as a senior software engineer at Snap Inc., working on creative and engineering challenges in augmented and virtual reality; as a senior creative technologist at Rockwell Group’s LAB; as an interactive designer at Potion; and through freelance technical roles in New York’s creative technology sector. He holds an MPS from NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (2014).
Wang previously used the alias 黄瓜 (huáng guā, “cucumber”), a name that originated during his teenage years playing strategy games online in the early 2000s, and now uses his formal name exclusively. Outside institutional and project contexts, he is open to writing and teaching engagements around critical computing, creative technology, and the culture of computation from technical, computer-science-oriented, and philosophical perspectives.