A sequence of pieces going back through time exploring lineage, ancestors, history, memory, remembrance, and loss.

It begins in the present day with me, as one piece in a portrait series spanning three generations of women in my family.

1. "Me / 2020"

2. "Mother / 1994"

3. "Grandmother / Before I Even Was on This Earth"

4. "49 Days". When we arrive at my grandmother, we see her recent journey to the afterlife in the video piece <a href="https://www.altsalt.com/movie/49-days/1">49 Days</a>.

5. "The Time Before-" 

The last piece in the series, a generation from a neural network of a Chinese papercut, represents the imperfection of memory & dissolution of generational history, as time inexorably marches on 

I've been thinking about memory, history that is relayed and recounted by family members through the foggy lens peering through generations past. And why I use AI in my work... As an artist using AI, you experience an extreme loss of control when you put several hundred ""representative"" images of a subject or theme into a neural network. 

The process often goes like: You put in what fragments of an idea or theme you can scrape together, something unexpected always comes out of the machine, and you try to piece it all together. Sometimes it makes sense, often it doesn't. 

It's a similar feeling to when you're grasping for a stable story about generations past, and you're left with a feeling of loss and unrecoverable truth.

Generations

A woman with her eyes closed and a contemplative expression

A spectacled woman holding a baby; they are both laughing and happy

A woman's bust from behind, with a tattoo on her upper back

A collage of a woman sitting cross-legged with her hands on her knees, alongside an image of her lying facedown on a yoga mat with her hands upturned and stretched towards the camera.

Film poster for 90s Disney Film "Honey I Blew Up the Kid". Depicts actor Rick Moranis standing in the middle of a white background with a giant red and white toddler's sneaker ominously hanging over him about to stomp on him. Poor man!

Choclo y Chicha: a zine for (and from) the Andean Diaspora

This is the first in a series of posts to highlight members of the AltSalt community. First up we have Shirley Man-Kin Leung, a community organizer and yoga teacher based on traditional homelands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute nations (Northern Colorado), as well as organizer behind the Asian American collection for Alternative Worlds.

In this series, we hope to showcase and celebrate the diverse perspectives and creative work of our communities, to learn, find inspiration, and share resonance with one another.

Tell us about yourself! How did you get involved with AltSalt?

I am a sister, a daughter, an auntie, an immigrant, a lover, a gardener, an artist and lover of life.

I got involved with AltSalt through my friendship with Artemio, although we haven’t (yet!) met IRL, we participated in this amazing 6-month long virtual course called Global Reciprocity at the Ayni Institute a few years ago, and have stayed connected ever since then. In that course, one of the things we did was work together to map our entire lineage and legacy of life as humans, to understand where we are, who we are, from 5 billion years ago to today… it transformed my life and that is where the seeds of a lot of my work today was born, and where AltSalt also was born!

What does Alternative Worlds mean to you, and why did you decide to organize an Asian American collection?

Alternative Worlds is about giving us the opportunity for "otra forma de ver" — other ways of seeing. We’re in this liminal space, between the ways things had been and an unknown future. I think it's our role, as artists, to be stewards of this in-between space, to be able to hold and see multiple worldviews and swirl them together and breathe into a reality another way of being. The only way to be with all of the contradictions and transitions we’re in right now, is through art and activism. I think that this is how we will be guided through a transformation process towards a collective awakening, moving us towards global reciprocity.

I wanted to organize the Asian American collection because, as a mixed race, Chinese, Filipino immigrant, who was adopted and raised by white American parents, my own healing journey has been about finding community to heal my own wounds and connect with my ancestors lessons for these times we find ourselves in.

Having a collection is about building community for artists, where we can look to each other in our different but common struggles for liberation, and say I see you, I know myself through your struggle, we are done appealing to the dominant white culture, instead we are prioritizing each other, first and foremost.

The silos we find ourselves in are designed by the empire, and it's exhausting constantly appealing to dominant culture or resisting the world coming at us hard, seemingly alone in our struggle, finding ourselves asking for crumbs... the alternative is, you create a community where you can look around and see our power and creativity and strength is immense, we can learn from each other, we can create a vision together, we can show up and show our strength in ways that are impossible to do alone, it's immensely hopeful!

The racist, colonial regimes are very clear about the world they want, they want the status quo. We’re less ready (in part by design I think) to declare the world we want, our imaginations are atrophied in part because of always being in a reactive / traumatic state of resistance. We must collectively put forth the world we want, that we deserve, that is our inheritance from these freedom fighters, our ancestors, we have everything we need to not only articulate that world but to build it, the constant affirmation that we are enough, we have what we need to be in relationship with one another in deep and meaningful ways to build that world.

What’s your own creative practice like?

My creative practice is hard to define because it takes so many different forms. Poetry has definitely been a guide for me though, and there is this quote by Nayira Wahid speaking to my own feelings and intentions around my creative practice right now:

“You do not have to be a fire for every mountain blocking you, you can be a water and soft river your way to freedom too”

I exercise my creative muscle as a daily practice, as a way of taking time to slow down and be intentional with where I’m putting my energy. I also consider my creative practices to be part of a larger whole of resilience practices, which our ancestors and communities have been cultivating to survive and thrive. I really do believe that we need to be just as rigorous in our play, pleasure and our joy, as other forms of work. When we are in a reactive state, we aren’t able to respond creatively, and that's by design.

Lastly, my creative practice is both playful and oftentimes silly, but it also serves a larger purpose and has been critical for me in my own healing journey. For example, I recently shared a piece of poetry I wrote about my mother’s mental illness and what it’s taught me about honoring joy and healing intergenerational trauma. Speaking about things directly is such a big shift from how I articulate through poetry, and it’s powerful to see different gifts each form has.

What do you think the role of art is in our culture?

I spend a lot of my energy and time thinking about cultural change. Changing our hearts, minds, body and spirits. Policy and social change can move really slow. What can make change happen is the people, and there are many instances of this happening in history (take the Mexican Revolution for one example). I believe that art plays a critical role in this aspect. I also think art has a role in spreading and sharing wisdom and knowledge. Sharing knowledge is about building power, not increasing paranoia. We need to understand what is the system we are up against, but the same way we want to study what we don’t want, we need to study, imagine, and create what we do want to see!

Artists are the stewards of our collective imagination. We need both imagination and memories. Artists can remember, reclaim and reframe; to find things that were lost and hidden on purpose and own and reclaim them through our creative practices.

When it comes to re-building, creating alternative worlds, I think the role of artists is to take the time to slow down to dream and be intentional around the world we want to see. How do we start to put those dreams and strategies into play and then practice? It’s not enough to just think about if we aren’t doing them, practicing! And remember that creating and sharing art is collective! The role of artists is about bringing people along with you, we can't do it alone, where are your homies at?

What do you hope participants get out of being a part of this?

A sense of community, some budding friendships, fresh ideas, support for your own creative practices, and just to have fun and be challenged in some new and exciting ways!

You can find out about Shirley's yoga practice here, and find the Call for Submissions for the Asian American and Andean Collections here. We also invite you to join us for our workshop weekend from July 17-18 th, 2021!

This is the first in a series of posts to highlight members of the AltSalt community. First up we have Shirley Man-Kin Leung, organizer behind the Asian American collection for Alternative Worlds.

"To Dream and Be Intentional" — Interview with Shirley Man-Kin Leung

Dear Art,

I'm happy to be writing to you in this new format, in these times. I think it feels like taking a coat of fresh paint to refresh my perspective on things and what better way to do it than in a new platform like Zonelets? [Note: This is now on AltSalt, which is a fine platform as well, ha]

This platform invokes a lot of technology, but as I approach my 31st birthday this Friday, I'm feeling many layers of emotions that are hard to parse through (Charlie Brown style).

Here's a list of things that have got me down on my birthday:

It definitely feels hard to be celebrating anything during these times! But ultimately even when I think of all these things I still try to find hope, and I would like to articulate some of those things that I look to that give me that hope.

Somehow, I think a lot of things really come down to the things that I'm learning as I'm being around my family. I've been back with them for the past several months to recover after grad school, but ultimately they bring forth a lot of deep memories and feelings within me. Pains, for all the mistakes they've made, but also hope at the same time, since ultimately many people are just like them, all trying their best to make the best lives for their families and children, but getting mixed up in the world.

Despite what platforms like social media might have us believe, I truly believe that only a very small percentage of the population does not have any empathy for other people. We, as any New Yorker knows, tend to go into our own worlds and walk as if we don't even see each other, but as soon as we see someone fall down in the street, you'll see people flock over to help, as if we're broken from our spell. And then, we all just move on. People are like that on a macro level too I think. Most of us would never truly wish harm on other people especially if we see that affect right in front of us, it's only when we are confused or angry or frustrated or misled that we end up losing empathy for others... Ultimately, the majority of people wish each other peace and goodwill, and it's only when our lines of communication break that we feel we can become cruel to each other...

That's my hope anyway!

I've talked a little about technology with you, so I won't dwell on that too much, and socioeconomic upheaval is way too big a conversation for me to talk about. But something that I think connects these things has been something I haven't brought up, neither in our past conversations nor in this writing so far, and it's that I've been taking an interest in the principles of child development, parenting, and psychology. Maybe the easiest entry point I can think of for all this is the idea that children need to live as children first. This might sound funny, but have you seen "Honey I Blew up the Kid?"

"Honey I Blew Up the Kid" if you don't know, is a sequel to the hit 80s live action Disney film "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids." In "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" a goofy scientist father Wayne Szalinski, played by Rick Moranis, accidentally leaves his experimental shrink ray on and his children end up getting shrunk to ant size and must find their way home from their backyard. It's a technical marvel and became the basis for a Disney theme parks attraction. "Honey I Blew Up the Kid" is the sequel to this movie with a reversal, where a toddler is blown up to 50 feet high and begins to walk towards downtown Las Vegas, filled with product placement for the Hard Rock Cafe amongst other things. I actually consider it the better movie, but that's besides the point.

My point that I want to get to is that I love how this movie uses this sci-fi analogy for what happens when a child grows up too fast. The baby is still psychologically a toddler, so he thinks a truck is a toy truck, and he thinks a giant guitar sign at the Hard Rock Cafe is a guitar. But ultimately, he's still a child, so when he gets inevitably gets injured, he cries, and the audience feels sorry for him, because even though he's really big, he's not capable of being responsible. At that point, they realize the solution to stopping the baby is to send in mama, because that's the only thing the baby will respond to.

My point is a little on the nose here, but I think that lots of things in society are in this constant balancing act to rush children to become mature and responsible adults who can fend for themselves. This dysfunction is not only present in something like a sci fi contraption like a shrink ray, but also in how we push kids to think about college or careers from a young age, or how we punish them for being creative because we want them to have a stable career, or how we punish boys for being sensitive because men don't show their emotions ("man up" and all that).

I think this kind of problem in society has been a tricky balancing act in different eras, the problem of wanting our children to have a childhood, but also want them to be ready for adulthood. I do think with our current era, however, technology takes things to a whole new dimension, where parents are unable to keep up with the young crowd, with rapid change within a single generation. If a younger cousin or a niece or nephew were having struggles with something like cyberbullying or social media, I don't think most parents would even know how to begin to approach dealing with those things, whether from an emotional perspective or a technological perspective, and I think a lot of young people have to look to half a generation above them. I sense that now with many Gen Z friends looking to their Millennial friends for advice.

Anyway, the hope that I get is that young people are able to learn quicker and more capably than their predecessors with faster technology, dialogs, and better toolsets to converse. It's really remarkable, like you said last week in our chat about the students nowadays. It's also a bit terrifying as a slightly older person! But I think we, as any older generation, can only hope to shepherd the younger generation as best we can and have faith they'll make the right decisions. We can guide them, but ultimately our responsibility is to leave the future in the hands of young people (whose hands it was always in the whole time). We just have to be ready to show up like their mama or papa when the babies are in danger of getting themselves hurt.

I also think that this kind of balancing problem of allowing things to mature before they become adults is also prevalent in how we approach creating technology, and I think there's a thesis to be made that a lot of our problems in technology are as fundamental as the issues that a child faces psychologically... but I think that's a whole point to discuss for another piece entirely. I wanted to keep this first piece of writing short.

I also sense your perspective on going back to basics and getting away from the bloat of modern living, beyond just technology, is also going to be insightful in our conversations. I've already sensed that in our talks about growing gardens and such.

Anyway, like I said, I don't want to keep too long, so I'll eagerly await your response.

In his first letter to Art, Charles writes on human nature, technology, and the 90s Disney film "Honey I Blew Up the Baby"

First Letter to Art - Human Nature, Technology, and Blown Up Babies

ALTERNATIVE

WORLDS

ASIAN AMERICA

THE ANDES

Everyone

United States

Argentina

Bolivia

Chile

Peru

Ecuador

Mobile Android Browser

Desktop Safari

Desktop Chrome

Desktop Firefox

MacOS

Windows

Kindle

Mobile Safari

Mobile Chrome

Mobile Firefox

Multimedia Storytelling

Interactive Fiction

Twine

Choose Your Own Adventure

Zine

Game

Poetry

New Media Literature

Adventure

Horror

Politics

Millennial

Visual Art

Essay

Guide

News

Experimental

Letter

Slice of Life

First Person

Serious Game

Impact Game

Introspective

Huancavilca

Kichwa

Aymara

Ancashina

SGI Buddhist

African American

Quechua

Latinx

Andes

Asian American

English

Spanish

A few minutes

About a half hour

Tech Raptor Preview

Games for Change Summer Expo

Global Game Jam Success Stories

Reflections at Sunset Home Page

Landing Page on Author's Website

Colección Cisneros Exhibition and Essay

GoogleDoc Format

Article Format

Alan Poma's website

Apple App Store

Itch.io

Ebook

A shovel and axe in the shape of an X, along with the publications title, the author's name Alda Yuan, and info including the publication year of 2021 and version 1.0

An abstract image of bubbles and dots and rays of sunshine in a blue and pink color palette

Title page of Riveted in the Word, showing title and author name Warren Lehrer against a clouded sky

A small machine using a flashlight to repel a tentacled monster

A small machine facing a tentacled creature with option to use "vacuum" and "flashlight" as attacks

A laptop on a shelf with a pair of headphones

A small machine next to a mustached scientist speaking technobabble

Quotes related to social change by Zora Neale Hurston, Archimedes, Toni Morrison, and Angela Davis

The publication's table of contents: Preface, Form and Functions of Institutions, Six Steps Towards Institutional Change, Checklist for Self-Reflection, and Conclusion

Preface page with title "Institutional Change and the Fight for Justice"

Words "Birds shuffling like" within a window pane

Words "Don't know how many years" inside a dark circle

Words "All jumble up" in front of a jumble of words

Choclo y Chicha Vol. 1

Taiwan

China

Second Generation Immigrant

Your thoughts wander at sunset, taking you to different conclusions like waves to different shores...

This is a text-based game where you view the sights and sounds of the sunset and provide a space to inhabit your personal thoughts and feelings.

It was inspired by my experiences with meditation and the process of how innocuous thoughts could lead to more personal ones in a nonconfrontational way.

As such there are multiple conclusions you may reach with yourself.

Will you experience joy? Sorrow? Love? Loss?

Remember, your thoughts are yours alone to share.

- Mudita Heart

Reflections at Sunset

Surviving and Diving is a short book of poetry based on Brian Walker's experiences as an African American professional and creative. The book includes commentary about the 2020 Election, BLM, 2020 Pandemic and Racism. Walker started to write the book on his 32nd Birthday in October and wrote a poem each day for 32 days. Surviving and Diving is a reflective piece that describes hope, struggle, and sociopolitical unrest in America.&nbsp;

Surviving and Diving

This guide is meant for folks working to shift the institutions they are already part of toward greater inclusivity, anti-racism, and racial equity. As racial injustice and anti-Blackness are systemic, that means all institutions, big and small, are affected. At every institution I have been a part of, it has been the discomfort, sorrow, disappointment, frustration, and mutual solidarity of Black folx and other marginalized people that have pushed it toward progress.  Yet this critical work is extremely emotionally taxing. Not only is it painful to discuss deeply personal issues, those who speak up are also worried about being seen as unprofessional, as not team players. This means that those in places of relative privilege and safety need to speak up and do more. But I know organizing for change within institutions is not easy because I've personally caused a lot of trouble for institutions unwilling to confront racial inequity. In the process, I've learned some lessons and want to pass them on.  To that end, I've written a DIY Guide, first to help explain why everyone can and should be trying to address racial equity at the institutions they are already a part of, and then to provide six concrete steps to advance racial equity at your institutions.​This guide is license under a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" target="_blank">Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License</a>.&nbsp;

With a Lever: The DIY Guide to Institutional Change for Racial Equity

In the Andes, geometric images known as tocapus carry within them a coded language whose meaning has been lost and that no Western science can read. However, the ancestors of the Andes did not themselves believe in death — and the meaning of these geometries may yet continue to live on within Andean descendants.

The Manifesto calls on those of Andean heritage to awaken these meanings by looking into their past, then project the meaning of these symbols into the future through a process of transrationality, whereby one may acquire the vision that will birth new Andean technologies and the reshaping of our reality.

Andean Futurist Manifesto

A new kind of ebook, Riveted in the Word is inspired by the true story of a woman’s hard-fought battle to regain language after a devastating stroke. Written and designed by Warren Lehrer, this multimedia book app places the reader inside the mind of a retired history professor as she recalls her journey with Broca Aphasia. The custom interface toggles between columns of text that readers navigate at their own pace, and animated sections that evoke gaps between perceptions (thoughts, memories, desires) and the words needed to communicate. This deeply moving story about overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles is told in a dynamic new way, with kinetic typography and an original soundtrack by composer, multi-instrumentalist Andrew Griffin. Programmed by web/electronic literature developer Artemio Morales at AltSalt, this e-edition of Riveted in the Word, is made for iPad, iPhone, and Mac computers (System 12 and above).In the late 1990s, Lehrer conducted a series of interviews as research for interior narratives and short stories about people who have taken great leaps in their lives. One of the people he interviewed was Willie Lee Rose, an author and professor of American History, who 20 years earlier, at the age of 51, suffered a massive stroke. Riveted in the Word is published in her memory. The fictionalized protagonist in Riveted in the Word, Norah Hanson, PhD, wakes to the sound of birds singing outside her window, hopeful for the day ahead. The reader witnesses her delightful sense of humor, determined spirit, and seemingly fragmented-but-intelligible thoughts as they shift from present to past, and toward her upcoming lecture at Cornell University—a milestone breakthrough scheduled for later that day. She meditates on: the daily struggle to find the right words; the grace of her late husband who never gave up hope; the generosity of friends who take her out on jaunts; miracles like VELCRO®, rehabilitation, life-saving doctors and therapists; and her disdain for the doctors who told her she’d never speak again. She sees the very yellow chicken consommé she was eating the night the stroke ruptured the hemispheres of her universe; the red dot between her eyes that still comes and goes throughout the day; a new book she’s envisioning.EarSay is publishing Riveted in the Word simultaneously with Jericho’s Daughter, Lehrer’s anti-war, feminist reimagining of the biblical tale of Rahab, a powerful and physical book, printed in four colors, with images by Sharon Horvath, bound in a dos-à-dos binding. Both publications are based on stories written by Lehrer, create haptic, sensuous, and empathic reading experiences, and use bifurcated structures that reflect lives that have been ripped apart and begun anew.A percentage of the proceeds from Riveted in the Word will go to the American Stroke AssociationYou can find additional information on Riveted in the Word and Warren Lehrer's work on his website: <a href="https://warrenlehrer.com/riveted-in-the-word-2024/" target="_self">https://warrenlehrer.com/riveted-in-the-word-2024/</a>&nbsp;

Riveted in the Word

Inspired by Lovecraft and stories of abandoned ships like the St. Mary Celeste,  you play as GWR 3000, an autonomous Rooombra vacuum cleaner.One night aboard a transatlantic vessel, you and your creator are having a relaxing night when an interdimensional portal opens on the ship, killing the whole crew. Now it's up to you to save the world.<ul><li>Fend off intergalactic creatures with your flashlight.</li><li>Engage in an epic RPG final showdown.</li><li>Ponder humanity's coexistence with robots.</li><li>Do it in less than 10 minutes</li></ul>Made with love during the Isolation Game Jam of 2020 hosted on itch.io

Rooombra to the Rescue

Choclo y Chicha Vol. 2

The back of a woman's head, where a tattoo is visible near her shoulder blades

In Buddhist tradition, they say that the soul wanders the earth for 49 days before crossing to the afterlife. This is my imagining of my grandmother's journey after she passed.

49 Days

Free

Paid

Envision a future in which your culture, history, and values have guided the world to an alternative reality — and harnessing that energy, create a piece to resonate with our times...

Our first community project on AltSalt, Alternative Worlds comprises two collections of original and previously published work by more than twenty Andean and Asian American creators, as well as a shared collection (contained within each) showcasing collaborations and works that span across both communities.

We hope this can be the first of many projects to build resources and knowledge, celebrate our diversity across these and other communities, and recognize our shared humanity as we create with one another, bringing into being an alternative world.

Resonate

SoftwareApplication

Website

Patreon

Podcast

Bandcamp

Spotify

Ebook of Surviving and Diving 

PDF of Surviving and Diving 

Instagram

Facebook

The Andean diaspora* community in the United States is confronted with discrimination and a sense of dual exclusion from both Latinx and white US heritages due to histories of colonialism and imperialism that continue to impose Western epistemologies across time and borders. Rima(y) Raíz, an Andean diaspora collective based in NYC, NJ, IL and CA, confronts these issues by documenting and sharing inter-generational oral hxstories of the Andean diaspora in efforts to reclaim a sense of identity, alter dominant narratives about their communities, preserve experiences and knowledge of their elders for the next generation, and create a sense of solidarity. &nbsp;We are inspired by Andean notions of time, space, and community such as pachakutik and the ayllu and we choose oral hxstory as a medium due to its inter-disciplinary, borderless nature. Oral hxstory also acts as a way to decolonize the production of knowledge. The main components of the project are (1) interview three generations across the US-Andean diaspora, including community leaders (2) archive the oral histories in a public website, (3) share and discuss the stories via a podcast, zine, public space installations, and virtual Raymi or parties, and (4) organize gatherings of Andean organizations and leaders to celebrate and unite cultural advocacy efforts.Coloniality may have traversed time and space, but so has our resistance.*The Andean diasporic community includes people with South American heritage from Andean countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. Hence, Rimay Raiz utilizes the term Andean to refer to this region of South America, as opposed to folks that are strictly from the highlands. We remain inclusive of the many nationalities in the Andean region, and recognize that people that may identify with diverse backgrounds, such as that of the coast and the Amazon, Black, Indigenous, mestizo, and we welcome all people who identify with our mission and background, whether they are recent immigrants, second generation, or have not connected to their ancestral countries for generations.

I am gardener and composter passionate about equity in the food system. Quinoa scholar and oral history and community archive enthusiast. Runasimita yachapakuq. Member of the Rimay Raiz colectivo.&nbsp;

Ecuadorian-American sociologist, of Huancavilca and Kichwa descent. Bi-coastal, born in Queens, NY and raised in both NY and CA. Musician, community activist, project coordinator at an immigrant and workers rights org, and co-founder of Rimay Raiz.&nbsp;

I am a triple fire sign, Catholic and a feminista. My family is Peruana, my parents immigrated to the U.S. and I was raised in Central Florida. I write poetry on Mami_soy_emo on Instagram about growing up in the between of Peruvian and American culture, therapy , sisterhood, empath struggles, and my ongoing haphazarduous love life. I am inspired by my Mamá, sunsets, pollo a la brasa con papas, and humanity's ability to heal. I am also an immigration attorney who works with survivors of gender-based violence, a plant mom to 17 plants, and a mediocre ukelele player. I am currently working on a zine about my therapy journey.&nbsp;

I am an Indigenous Adoptee from Peru. I've grown up in Brooklyn, NY and I've gone back to Peru several times to reconnect with my biological family.&nbsp;

Imanalla! I'm Sandy, a zinester librarian in sunny southern California. I started making zines as a way to practice and maintain Quechua, my ancestral language and one of the most widely spoken Indigenous languages of the Americas. I now feel like I have too many zine ideas and too little time, but I try to make it work!&nbsp;I participate in several Andinx community projects like the annual May Sumak Quichwa Film Showcase and oral history collective Rimay Raíz. I love creating spaces for our community to share our cultures, languages, and experiences in the diaspora.&nbsp;In my spare time, I enjoy reading/watching things in the realms of sci-fi, fantasy, or horror. I also like to weave and garden (especially with, you guessed it, Andean potatoes!).&nbsp;

Envisioning an alternative world

49 Days

Creators