Altar-n8 Realm

“Purple Portals: an offering to our childhood” is a collaborative augmented reality altar between artist Robin “Birdd” David and Little Paris cafe in San Francisco Chinatown. The altar transports the viewer through purple portals with large offerings of freshly baked Bánh mì bread and pho noodles. Overlaying the altar is audio of the owner, Becky Ng, sharing memories of her youth. As a child, during Qingming, Becky’s family would bring ancestral offerings to the mountains. In the ’80s and ’90s, Little Paris was the cool place to be after school. She remembers going to Little Paris with her friends and roaming around Chinatown before Chinese School. Today, Chinatown is changing, and she rarely sees kids walking around the neighborhood anymore. The color purple is used throughout the altar as a symbol of immortality and divinity. Through purple mountains and archways, the altar transports us to our childhood, paying tribute to the freedom of play and imagination. The altar takes up space, reclaiming youth spaces in a city that often prioritizes tech and big businesses. 

Entangled is a collaborative altar, created between Chinese artist Qianqian Ye and Li Ly’s Hair Salon in San Francisco Chinatown. This piece entangles a fading custom of Chinese women's liberation and immigrant stories with hair.

This project pays homage to 'Self-Comb Women' (自梳女, ZìShūNǚ), a tribe of women who vowed to choose independence over marriage by rolling their braids into a chignon (a married women's hairstyle) on their own. The now vanishing self-comb women culture was a proto-feminist act of protest against oppressive feudal system originating from the Pearl River Delta, where Li Ly is also from.

In this altar, braids and hair buns flourish on a tree like living organisms, with Cantonese opera playing in the background. A comb and a silver hairpin (银钗, YínChā, name of the artist’s grandmother) are embedded in the hair. The flowers blooming in between are textured with a historical silver letter (银信, YínXìn), a combination of remittance certificate (‘silver’) and family letter (‘letter’). The silver letter was sent in 1928 by an immigrant from an address at the same street as the current Li Ly’s Hair salon, to their shared hometown Taishan, one of the biggest and the earliest emigrant hubs in China.

“Gong-Fu Tea” is a tea ceremony involving a series of steps that are ritualistic by nature. The way you clean the utensils and pour the tea is particular and purposeful. Every movement has intention. Gong-Fu Tea House is an augmented offering to the community altar for our ancestors. The idea behind this augmentation of a traditional tea ceremony using technology creates a dialogue between the old and the new. In the western world, we are often detached from our ancestral lineages. Our modern age traditions are slowly fading away, possibly due to the oversaturation of information our technological age provides. Change is happening fast, and it’s hard to keep up with the new, let alone keep up with traditions. So is technology killing tradition? Or can it survive through the adaptation of our modern, technological age? “Gong-Fu Tea House” creates new rituals that pay homage to our ancestry through intergenerational wisdom.

Guanyin is the Buddhist bodhisattva associated with compassion. She is known as the one who "Perceives the Sounds of the World." “Music as Meditation” draws inspiration for that idea. Guanyin stands in front of turntables as an offering for our ancestors. Building off of old traditions such as burning joss paper, in the form of hell money, Mercedes Benz automobiles, and iPhones, new practices are born through offering experiences through the augmented realm. As a lover of music, I've realized at an early age that it has the power to bring people to a meditative state. The music DJ Guynyin is slappin' is a deconstructed club track looped right before and after the drop in classic rave format. The juxtaposition of this intense style of music with meditative sounds of a chanting monk repeating the mantra of Guanyin lends itself to two forms of meditation married into one medium. As a child, I would recite this mantra with my mother. I would later find out in my adult life the necessity of meditation through repetition. “Music as Meditation” explores the conventional and nonconventional methodologies to spiritual awareness through the augmentation of ourselves.

Beyond The Gated Mountain is a digital altar created in collaboration between 1st-generation Chinese-American artist Dominic Cheng and the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory. Founded in 1962, the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory was one of many Chinese-owned businesses that remained resilient during times of racial tensions and socio-political unrest. During this period of time, two pieces of legislation were signed into existence, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, which opened up doors for a generation of migrant Chinese communities in the “Gam Saan.”

With respect to the ongoing fight against racism, violence, and hate, this altar pays homage to the legacy of grassroots community organizing, activism, and movement-building work in caring for Chinese communities, as well as other oppressed communities of color. Beyond The Gated Mountain draws attention to the countless gates that cover businesses, homes, and public spaces across Chinatown. When closed, gates served as a form of protection and security. When opened, gates welcome the community into spaces. The functionality of gates for Chinese business owners has fluctuated throughout the history of migration. Forged in luck, this golden altar brings life and movement back into businesses in our community.

The Altar-n8 Realm Project was an outdoor augmented reality (AR) art exhibition in support of small businesses in San Francisco’s Chinatown, honoring our ancestors through virtual offerings of food, prayer, and reflection. Viewers were welcome to experience the exhibition as an interactive walking art tour of SF Chinatown using smartphones. In response to the global pandemic and the current hate crimes against Asian Americans, Altar-n8 Realm fostered recovery, resilience, and regeneration in the Chinatown community, by utilizing interactive technology as a form of storytelling, uplifting Chinatown voices in support of small businesses. Inspired by the Qingming Festival traditions, Altar-n8 Realm poses the question, “how can offerings form a spiritual bond between our ancestors and our present self?”


The Altar-n8 Realm Project debuted at the 24th Annual United States of Asia America Festival: Forging Our Futures, presented in partnership with the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center in 2021. This project featured conversational interviews with five Chinatown-based small businesses, Chinatown Kite Shop, Li Ly’s Hair Salon, Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, Little Paris, and Washington Bakery and Restaurant.

Macro Waves members, Anum Awan, Dominic Cheng, Robin Birdd David, and Jeffrey Yip, in collaboration with artists Alice Yuan Zhang and Qianqian Ye created AR art altar installations inspired by conversations with each business owner. In collaboration with Broad Target, The Altar-n8 Realm Project released a mini-documentary series examining the diverse lived experiences of these five Chinatown business owners and their journey before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.