End vulnerability

as we gradually approach the tadi web’s second birthday…

• I’ve never stopped working on the tadi web. the current pastagang stuff: although it’s grown into its own beast, i see my work within it as part of my tadi web work. that’s how it appeared for me. tadi web -> logiverse -> pastagang -> pondiverse
• torn leaf is the bridging project / the project that bridges my previous project (arroost) with the current one (tadi web) so i need to finish that next. im putting all my time into it
• the top 99 vid feels like the culmination of a lot of the tadi web (and therefore pastagang) work. its role is to act as a contrast to those practices: the extreme opposite of public / permissive / slippy.

this entire project has been about grappling with these different forces: wanting to self express / assert your identity / introspect / figure yourself out. but also to connect with others / collaborate / make room / actually achieve something(?). im not good enough at words to explain

torn leaf has been a constant in the background throughout it: as an exploration of these themes, it’s an ultra slow exquisite corpse / it requires the authors to identify themselves + show their appearance and voice alongside their artwork.

how much am i allowed to make it my own art piece as a supposed curator? how much am i supposed to? regardless of the answer, i can’t help but do that. in these two years ive learned to lean into that more

Vulnerability

the unexpected theme that binds this all together is “vulnerability”.

sharing a scrappy fiddle puts you in a vulnerable position

so does working on a piece of art for 2+ years that people are waiting for with high expectations

pastagang is about making yourself open + vulnerable to others

the tadi web / slippy mindset is about becoming good at bouncing back from bad things / becoming immune to vulnerability

yes. by adopting a “slippy mindset”, the idea is that you can bounce back from any disaster. you could lose everything and it wouldn’t matter.

the theme of the current sandpond saga trilogy is “getting stuck” (at the start, in the middle, at the end) with the question of “how do you get unstuck” and one answer to that is to “lose everything” à la tadi web, or “let code die” à la tadi web. “forget EVERYTHING you know. shave your head. it’s pastagang time”

if you are truly able to do this, then amazing things can happen… we’ve seen that with pastagang. it can only exist because people are willing to lose everything. it’s a risky practice. it could all go very wrong. is it worth the risk?

Normalise sharing scrappy fiddles

“normalise sharing scrappy fiddles” is a pretty light half-hearted mantra (and even so, some people fear it)

a stronger statement might be: “end vulnerability”

“end vulnerability” is a pretty bad mantra. its not intended to mean “avoid vulnerability” or “never feel vulnerable”. its intended to mean “defeat the negative effects of vulnerability” or “overcome vulnerability” but even those miss the mark

but maybe it doesn’t even matter if its bad. “bad code only” right?

“embrace death” became the much better “let code die” all by itself.

ending vulnerability means making it okay to do bad or getting it wrong and crumbling and bouncing back

anyway, the fact that i struggle so much to express all this in words is extra proof that i need to finish torn leaf zero and top 99 ways to make sand

it may take years but i promise you that torn leaf zero will be good(!) and top 99 ways to make sand will be really good(!)

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