Interview with Spencer Chang
Scribble
Interview with Spencer Chang
August 13, 2026
Hi Spencer! Can you introduce yourself & what you make?
Hi :) I’m an artist and technologist based in San Francisco. I like to say I make software you can touch — systems, sculptures, and environments that use technology to help us create, connect, and care for each other in more playful and empowering ways. Sometimes these are tools for creating tiny social networks, websites with poems made by internet strangers, or boulders that transform our phones into portals for local connection. Ultimately, I believe technology is meaningless without us, so it should amplify the best parts of our humanity.
Your work reminds me that technology can feel like magic, as in Computing Shrines, Web Stones, or even turning on/off the lamp on your homepage. What ingredients do you need for technology to feel magical?
I think technology feels most magical when it opens our capacity for possibility & dreaming by turning something new and wonderful into an everyday experience. All of these creations show us a new way of thinking about technology — that our phones can be portals for local connection, stones can be computers, and a website can come to life with the actions of its visitors. I hope these inspire others to invent new forms of life, connection, and creation through our devices and digital spaces. Another big part of the magic is the playful nature of the interactions. I think play is fundamental to our ability to dream & the magic comes through when we see that idea come to life.
What can happen when the internet (to borrow your words) is not lonely, but becomes a public space that we share with others?
I think a big reason the internet doesn’t feel inhabited now is because we can lurk & be invisible to each other. What I love about cities & neighborhoods is that you can be alone but together: journaling quietly on a bench as so much life unfolds around you. I want the internet to feel like this because I think it helps us feel more connected to each other, the places we visit, and allows for those spontaneous encounters that stay with us for a lifetime. Public space also gives us permission to shape it! And I dream of a future of millions of tiny internet spaces, each personal, expressive, and full of life, rather than the handful of large platforms we rely on today.
Both playhtml and we were online turn the internet into worlds for collective play. What have you learned from making tools & infrastructure? What has surprised you about how people use them?
The hardest part of making infrastructure & tools is choosing the right constraints. I used to have a tendency to make anything possible, but I realized that being able to do anything actually makes it harder to do something. The trick is to find the right balance where the structure provides a base for inspiration while allowing for strange emergent behavior. When people do this, they feel so rewarded for their creativity, too. I’ve been surprised at just how kind, creative, and playful internet stranges can be in these spaces — from creating weird new ways to feel the person through the screen to leaving a trail across websites for people to follow.
What do you dream about making next?
Honestly, I find myself still dreaming about & working towards the fullest expressions of the projects we’ve talked about already. I dream of changing how we browse the web & our relationship to creating on top of it with a new “browser” → one focused on actually connecting us & nourishing meaningful encounters and relationships. I dream of creating alternative devices: sculptural phones & public computers.
I want to make things that inspire us to believe in the internet, technology, and each other and push us to subvert, build, and imagine how our systems can support us in doing so.
Draw something that represents your creative process.
Spencer Chang is an artist and toymaker who makes software you can touch. Working across internet spaces, interactive sculpture, and creative infrastructure, he activates the care, creativity, and intimacy in our everyday interactions with and through technology. These works leverage subversive play to interrogate our systems, invite different imaginations, and provide the means to reinvent them. He is interested in how we inspire new forms of technology and how these inspire us to discover new versions of ourselves. Spencer is the creator of playhtml, an open-source platform for creating communal websites, and Computing Shrines, a public art installation protocol.
Spencer's work has been showcased by Gray Area & the de Young Museum (SF, US), Tokyo University of the Arts (JP), Museum of the Moving Image (NY, US), Ars Electronica (AUT), and the National Communication Museum (AUS). They have created commissions for Hyundai Artlab, Alserkal Avenue, the Internet Archive, and Wikipedia and been supported by the San Francisco Arts Commission and Rhizome. A NEW INC Y11 member, their projects have been featured in MIT Tech Review, The Cut, It's Nice That, and Frieze.
spencer.place