Route 66 Remixed

In 2025, Refract Studio partnered with the City of Albuquerque to help bring Route 66 Remixed to life: an 18 mile public art experience created for Albuquerque’s Route 66 Centennial celebration. Stretching across Central Avenue from Nine Mile Hill to the eastern edge of the city, the project transformed the historic corridor into a network of murals, sculpture, poetry, sound, and web browser-based augmented reality experiences created by New Mexico artists.

Refract Studio led the technical production and implementation of the project’s immersive and AR components as well as development and design of the website, collaborating directly with each artist to translate their creative vision into site-specific digital experiences accessible directly from a smartphone with no app download required. Rather than using AR as a novelty layer, the project treated immersive technology as a storytelling medium rooted in place, memory, and public space.

The experience featured narration and storytelling by Hakim Bellamy alongside installations and AR works by Deb Jojola, Nazario Sandoval (Wemfer), Helen Juliet Atkins, Dale Deforest, Jessica Helen Lopez, Carmen Montes, Gael Luna, Lynnette Haozous, Jesse Littlebird, Thomas Christopher Haag, Sonja Killer, Lea Anderson, Dante Betsch, Rob Vanderslice, Akilah Martinez, PAZ, Karl Orozco, Noé Barnett, and Travis Bruce Black. Each work reflected a different perspective on Route 66 and Albuquerque itself, from Indigenous futurism and migration to lowrider culture, ecology, poetry, film history, and roadside Americana.

Notable works included Deb Jojola’s AR experience at Singing Arrow Park, Helen Juliet Atkins’ Neon Plátano at Talin Market, Jessica Helen Lopez’s poetry-based AR activation at the Special Collections Library, Sonja Killer’s immersive landscape intervention at the Albuquerque Museum Sculpture Garden, and Karl Orozco’s Signs of Life at Nine Mile Hill. Akilah Martinez created the AR experience Origin Route at the Route 66 Visitor Center, while PAZ created the mural As the Crow Flies / Rez Truck Revisited. Additional sculptural and mural installations throughout the corridor included Wemfer’s The Mother Road and Route 66 Throne, Jesse Littlebird and Thomas Christopher Haag’s Buffalo Return to Route 66, Lynnette Haozous’ Cultural Crossroads, Noé Barnett and Travis Bruce Black’s Mother: Moment, and Dante Betsch’s moving ART bus installation Sunset to Sunrise.

Route 66 Remixed demonstrated how public art and emerging technology can work together at city scale, creating accessible, community centered experiences that invite residents and visitors alike to encounter Albuquerque through story, place, and participation. Through the project, Refract Studio helped engage in a new model for civic immersive art rooted in collaboration, local culture, and the lived history of the communities along Route 66.