01 AFTMs
It starts at an AFTM: an Automated Fortune-Telling Machine, built from a repurposed ATM.
It asks you a few questions about yourself. Answer on instinct. Your answers become a paisley, a portrait of your energy.
Installation components
AFTMs, tickets, aquarium
02 Tickets
When you finish, the AFTM prints your fortune on a ticket, read from numerology, soul age, and chakra theory. It’s yours to keep.
Curious about soul age? Pick 2 words and find yours.
03 Aquarium
It ends at the aquarium projection, where your paisley swims with everyone else’s. Watch it long enough and it starts to look like the crowd standing around you.
About Paisley ID
The Timeless Symbol of Paisley
Paisley started as the Buta, a teardrop that has stood for life and eternity for centuries. Like drops of water, no two are alike.
That’s the whole idea here. Every person holds something infinite, and every person is part of the whole.
“You’re not a drop in the ocean but the ocean in a drop.”
How it works
Crafting Your Unique Paisley
Your paisley is a portrait of your energy. You answer a few questions on instinct. Numerology, Soul Age and Chakra theory sort the answers, and a generative art algorithm draws the result.
Then people start comparing. Paisleys, tickets, what the fortune got right. Strangers end up talking about growth, about each other, about how connected everyone is.
Abstract spiritual ideas become something you can hold and point at. Everyone’s unique, and everyone’s a thread in the same fabric.
Now · Los Angeles
Find the AFTMs at Bu Tea Den
After a couple years of festivals, street fairs, and events, the AFTMs moved in for good at Bu Tea Den, the alcohol-free tea speakeasy in Historic South Central LA.
RSVP for a night at the Den, get your fortune, find your paisley in the Aquarium.
What people say
Notes from the field
Organizers, strangers on the internet, and people who found their friends in the projection.
“This installation was one of my absolute favorites! … I literally stood at your art for a long while stopping people and explaining what it was because I was so enamored and impressed by the project!”
“I stopped and watched for a bit. Everyone left the fortune machines with a big smile. Kudos to the install team!”
“Our group stumbled upon this late Friday night, and it was so much fun! Loved the printout keepsake, and we had fun locating our friends' paisley in the projection. Thanks for your art ❤️.”
“This was such an awesome installation. Thank you for bringing the AFTMs out to Decom this year!”
“I really liked it a lot! As a matter of fact, my printout is on my mirror!”
“Your AFTMs were delightful and a pleasure to engage with - thanks so much for bringing them up to SF all the way from LA.”
“I saw this and totally thought they were just actual atms hahaa”
“I got my Lil printout paisley it was a really cool machine I just happened to stumble upon”
“This is super cool! Thank you for making this clever dopeness”