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 exhibited at institutions including the New Museum/Rhizome (New York), Ars Electronica (Linz), Haus der Elektronischen Künste (Basel), Elektra (Montreal), Power Station of Art (Shanghai), National Museum of China (Beijing), Times Museum (Guangzhou), Today Art Museum (Beijing), Museum MACAN (Jakarta), and HOW Art Museum (Shanghai), among others. He has held residencies at Eyebeam, Pioneer Works, BabyCastles, NEW INC, the New Museum’s art-and-technology incubator, and the Counterstructural Commons Residency, organized by Rhizome and the Mozilla Foundation. He has presented at academic conferences including the College Art Association Annual Conference (2025) and the Hong Kong Association for Digital Humanities Conference (HKADH, 2026), and has given talks and lectures at institutions such as Duke Kunshan University, Hong Kong Baptist University, Times Museum, and the Central Academy of Fine Arts. His essays and criticism have appeared in LEAP, Rhizome, The Thinker Weekly (信睿周报), Beijing Literature and Art Review (北京文艺评论), and ESP Cultural Magazine, and his writing has 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.