alterR (凹凸现实) is a design innovation studio dedicated to speculating and prototyping possible futures. We use experimental artifacts and experiences as the medium to frame our preferable long-term futures, helping humanity to manage the disruptive forces of emerging technological, ongoing environmental and cultural changes, and plan our next evolution.
We are based in San Francisco & Tokyo. Feel free to check out our ︎Services and ︎ Say Hi as we are always excited for collaborations and commissions 🙌🏻
Shihan Zhang 张诗涵 is an interdisciplinary designer whose passion lies in challenging cultural stereotypes and social preconceptions through building experiences of future-present intersections. Her works are expanding technologies’ possibilities and extrapolating world conditions to address anthropocene challenges. Through a systematic and cultural lens, her works inspire conversation and empower her audience to reflect.
Her works have been humbly recognized by FastCo. World Changing Ideas, WIRED Creative Hack Award (Japan), International Design Excellence Awards, 100 Design of the Year 2019 by Award360 (Asian), and etc. She also gave talks and exhibited works worldwide in Dutch Design Week, Toronto Design Week, IFTF 10 Year Forecast Summit, Stanford Foodinno Conference, Chengdu Design Week, Gray Area Art and Technology and etc.
She is the co-founder of alterR.studio, the Exhibition Chair of PRIMER Conferences, the Design Director of SF Design Week Award Exhibitions.
Her works have been humbly recognized by FastCo. World Changing Ideas, WIRED Creative Hack Award (Japan), International Design Excellence Awards, 100 Design of the Year 2019 by Award360 (Asian), and etc. She also gave talks and exhibited works worldwide in Dutch Design Week, Toronto Design Week, IFTF 10 Year Forecast Summit, Stanford Foodinno Conference, Chengdu Design Week, Gray Area Art and Technology and etc.
She is the co-founder of alterR.studio, the Exhibition Chair of PRIMER Conferences, the Design Director of SF Design Week Award Exhibitions.
Qinqin Yang 杨沁沁 is a creative planner and experiential futurist with a multidisciplinary background in speculative design, experience design and emerging technology. Most of her work is research-based, in between reality and fiction. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Design and Technology from Parsons the New School of Design and Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Art History from the University of California - Los Angeles. She holds several individual patents for innovative designs and her work has been exhibited and recognized worldwide such as Lumin Prize and Core77. After graduation, she worked for J.P Morgan Chase mobile innovation team and was a senior creative planner in charge of curating for Tencent Technology Museum, brand communication for Burberry, immersive exhibition for the Palace Museum, project planning for LVMH etc.
As the co-founder and creative director of alterR.studio, she takes design as a tool and method to question the cultural, social, and ethical implications of emerging technologies to envision the future and reflect on its impact at a system level.
As the co-founder and creative director of alterR.studio, she takes design as a tool and method to question the cultural, social, and ethical implications of emerging technologies to envision the future and reflect on its impact at a system level.
Collective Team
Haodong Zhang(Chou Koutou) is a digital designer focusing on the multimedia art and science fiction. He is interested in exploring the future relationship between human, nature and technology acrossing multi-cultures. He is also professional at branding communication and has been the design lead for more than 40 commercial projects for clients such as LVMH, Hajime Sorayama, Universal Studios, Xiaomi, Tencent, Wanke etc.
Jiajun Liu is a visual artist and film director based in Shanghai. He received his BFA from Central Academy of Fine Arts and MFA from Pratt Institute. He creates images and virtually rendered scenes that are extracted and reconstructed from reality through photography and digital imaging. He mines the possibilities of technologies that are widely used and accessible to people, such as digital photography, scanning, and computer 3D modeling. His work reflects the distortions that occur during the conversions between machine-generated representations and the physical world.
Yangyifan Dong is a graphic designer and researcher who is passionate about transmedia typography and philosophy. She is interested in creating discursive design exploring speculative future, urban landscape, human and machine, nature and culture.
Ke Ding is a mixed reality designer and researcher that specializes in human interfaces and interactions. He studied Psychology and received his BA from the University of Connecticut and later on graduated from Parsons the New School with a MFA in Design and Technology. Ke studied and reflected intensively on Mixed Reality as a new medium, intending to tame it for the application in the real world. As a researcher, Ke is one of the early founding members of the Mixed Reality Collaboratory at Cornell University, experimenting with innovative interactions and teaching a course about VR & AR for CS students. As a designer, he works with various clients in the past few years, including Google and IKEA.
Bo Fone is a film director and has worked in the field of interactivity design and virtual environments for the past three years, with a specific focus in film and moving images. He is passionate about contemporary scientific discoveries in the fields of physics and astronomy, and his work aims to step beyond the ordinary scope of art and virtual experience. His creativity aspires to expand and innovate compelling live-storytelling for the Mixed Reality generation.