Species series is an ongoing body of work that examines the boundaries through which life is recognized, classified, and understood. The project introduces unknown beings into urbanized environments, where they move through streets, buildings, infrastructure, and other spaces shaped by human activity.
Working across moving image, sculpture, drawing, and specimen-like presentation, the series adopts and reconfigures conventions associated with natural history, scientific observation, documentary practices, and biological classification. The Species are physically constructed and situated within real environments, where their behaviors and interactions are observed and documented. In some works, they are released into these environments and allowed to continue their existence beyond the artist’s direct intervention.
Situated between the biological, mechanical, and artificial, the Species resist stable categorization. Through their ambiguous status, the project considers how distinctions between living and nonliving, natural and artificial, organism and machine are produced, and how established systems of knowledge shape our understanding of what may constitute life.
New Romance – Art and the Posthuman, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, Australia, June–September 2016.
New Romance, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Seoul, South Korea, September 2015 – January 2016.
Robot Party, SKT UX HCI Lab (Tazak Madang) / Art Center Nabi, Seoul, South Korea, December 2015 – January 2016.
The 16th Japan Media Arts Festival, Exhibition of Award-Winning Works, The National Art Center, Tokyo, Japan, February 2013.
Ki-Woong Park, Commentary on Wonbin Yang’s Recent Work, 2025
Madeline Schwartzman, Alive: Synthetic Cells, Feral Robots, Rebellious AI, and the Design of Radical Life. Thames & Hudson, 2025.
Anna Davis and Lizzie Muller, “Troublemakers in the Museum: Robots, Romance and the Performance of Liveliness.” In Curating Lively Objects: Exhibitions Beyond Disciplines. Routledge, 2021.
Małgorzata Sugiera, “Reel Nature: Speculative Gardens of Eden.” In Emerging Affinities: Possible Futures of Performative Arts, edited by Mateusz Borowski, Mateusz Chaberski, and Małgorzata Sugiera. transcript Verlag, 2019.
Species series featured on NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), ETV program 2355. (2014)
Certain works may employ documentary formats, biological terminology, found materials, or forms that resemble living organisms or scientific records. These representations are artistic constructions and should be understood within the context of creative practice. They are not intended as factual biological documentation.
Apparent species, classifications, behaviors, or research frameworks may function as conceptual or poetic devices rather than descriptions of actual entities or events. The works are not intended to depict or involve the modification, attachment, or manipulation of living organisms or biological entities. Entities presented within the Species series are entirely artificial constructions composed of non-living materials and, where applicable, mechanical or electronic components.
For additional information, please refer to the disclaimer.