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Ghost orchid in the machine
Tech Close Tech Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Tech Creators Close Creators Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Creators Art Club Close Art Club Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Art Club Ghost orchid in the machine Rachel Youn makes humanlike, kinetic floral sculptures out of used household electronics by Cath Virginia Close Cath Virginia Art Director Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by Cath Virginia Apr 17, 2026, 2:00 PM UTC Link Share Gift Perfect Lovers II | Photo: Nik Massey Cath Virginia Close Cath Virginia Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by Cath Virginia is an art director at The Verge. Vacuum cleaners, personal massagers, electronic baby rockers, and walking pads: These are the secondhand machines Rachel Youn sources to create their kinetic sculptures. Made with artificial flowers, metal hardware, and these used electronic components, each one possesses a humanlike presence. Slow Burn is made from an artificial orchid, a neck massager, bits of metal that clamp the orchids’ petals, and a monitor mount attaching the entire apparatus to a gallery wall. A motor on the massager animates metal rods that force the orchid open and close, a visual that feels caged in its sexuality, a flower forced to furl and unfurl infinitely for the viewer. Its repetitive movements allude to the way a person can become trapped in a comforting loop, endlessly rotating on a circular path of self-destruction. Youn even remarks on the way their sculptures have a lifecycle of their own, with motors burning out and mechanical hardware grinding itself into nothing inside galleries. Often sourcing parts from various used household electronics found on Facebook Marketplace, the artwork elicits affection, sadness, and eroticism in the viewer. The works raise questions about domestic and sexual labor, human comfort, and the relationships we make with the machines we use in our daily lives. We caught up with Youn to tell us more about their anthropomorphic work. How did you learn that you wanted to become an artist? I grew up in a Baptist Christian Korean immigrant household, which had its own set of complications. I think the typical immigrant story is that your parents want you to be a doctor or a lawyer or something. My dad wanted me to go into the Air Force. That was never gonna happen. But, they didn’t really discourage me from doing art. Then I had a scholarship through school, so they weren’t going to protest. The themes of things I experienced growing up have crept into the work in ways that I didn’t really expect. I think about the performance of the self or especially of womanhood, especially in the church, a lot. Being a pastor’s daughter, seeing my mom being a pastor’s wife, how you have to present yourself a certain way, has been in the background of my mind. Fun childhood. I grew up with a lot of shame and Christian guilt. My family said it’s okay for you to do art as long as you spread the word of God through your work. And I was like, yeah, I will certainly do that. Low-key, I’m a closeted atheist. There’s definitely a whole part of my life that my family doesn’t know about. As it should be. Lots of people are spiritual or want something to believe in. And I totally agree with that and feel that the same, but it will not be through organized religion. I’m fighting against it. My hope for the future is that people are mov[ing] away from ideology and more dogmatic spirituality. I guess we’ll see if it stays that way. But I feel that is what people want. Can you explain how your work evolved into what it is today through your practice? I got started with illustration and really loved animation. Was I cut out for it? Probably not. So I ended up studying sculpture in undergrad. I really had no precedent for sculpture. I’d never done anything three-dimensional and working in shops scared me. I was interested in animation and how expressive and identifiable cartoons are. That has a relationship to the work I have now because there’s an anthropomorphic characteristic to the work, even though it’s sculpture, and there’s no faces in it. People see these sculptures doing their weird motions, and they kind of find it funny or pitiful or there’s something to relate to. That’s an amazing thing about animation that you can’t do with live action. Like when Disney started doing everything live action. When something isn’t super specific and hyperrealistic, it allows more people access points in. That’s been my way of expressing themes that I’m interested in without always making it just about myself. My sculptures are gestures of feelings like frustration, and
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