I just found out about pastagang and I think it’s extremely good. Here are some unordered thoughts I’ve had as I’ve been reading/learning about pastagang and while I was having a little jam earlier in nudel.cc
But I’m not sure if I should be writing this. Everything is by pastagang, so is it okay to say “I”? I saw other people write “I” in their posts so I think it’s okay to do this.
Even though pastagang seems to be radically and genuinely open I feel like an imposter writing this blog post. Maybe you feel like an imposter too - from one imposter to another I think and hope it’s okay to write something if you want to.
Earlier today I was reading the in-progress pastagang paper about learning to live code via nudel, and how that was a really lovely and effective experience for the writer to learn by doing and watching others doing. I had a similar experience learning FoxDot in my band TYPE… we used an old collaborative live coding protocol called Troop and I learned so much through watching everyone else code. Unlike nudel though, with Troop everyone’s code is in different colours, so it’s super easy to see who did what - it’s not necessarily a bad thing and I think it can be cool in performances, but it was a different ethos than pastagang which seems to promote anonymity. I think that’s good, there is some personal protection in anonymity. Live coding as a scene is explicit in embracing error, but sometimes it’s a bit scary when you’re the one embracing the errors and everyone else is doing a great job.
Reading this pastagang blog post about hierarchy I find myself with another excuse to share something I really love and that I think is very relevant to live coding: “Energy: YES! Quality: NO!” (anyone who knows me or has even probably just met me once will now be rolling their eyes with boredom). I first read about this concept on the White Pube in their article about Thomas Hirschhorn @ Kochi Biennial and then I went to check out what Thomas himself has to say about it:
“‘Energy: Yes!’ is the assertion that things which have their own energy are important. Energy is what counts, Energy is what I can grasp, Energy is what I can share and Energy is what is Universal.”
- QUALITY is something guarded by the establishment. QUALITY is exclusive.
- ENERGY is a personal response. ENERGY can change day by day.
- If you make art or music it will be judged. Hirschhorn reminds us this judgement is not about you but about the work.
- We can’t do anything about judgement, but we can make work that has energy for ourselves (and hopefully others!)
In the hierarchy post pastagang says (jokingly..) “this is the best live coding performance ever” as a sort of opposite to breaking down hierarchy. But I think if we think about ENERGY as opposed to QUALITY we can break down hierarchies and still have our fave rave performances. THIS is the best live coding performance:
But we can also be kind to ourselves and respond to our own work in terms of energy rather than quality - did you have fun? did you learn something? did you meet someone friendly? I think the hyper-collaborative/somewhat-anonymous nature of pastagang can help with this. Also earlier I read some stuff todepond wrote about Arroost and emotional blockers and I think personally thinking of my art/music/life/whatever in terms of energy as opposed to quality has really helped me articulate how I’m dealing with emotional blockers. I used to think like “perfect is the enemy of good” but that feels kinda like a corporate work phrase and I like “Energy: YES! Quality: NO!” much better.
Also going back to what I said earlier about the feeling of anonymity in pastagang: I think it gives us the opportunity to hide a bit if we want, which also makes some of those emotional blockers a bit easier to deal with.
Maybe I should have sent an email or something instead of writing this post on what feels like someone else’s blog (even though I know rationally that it’s pastagang’s blog and I am pastagang, I’m also irrationally imagining pastagang as a creepypasta type urban legend monster that is going to be mad at me for writing this).
Another I: Hey, I am (as you are too now), a part of the “urban legend monster” that is pastagang, and I can assure you I am not mad. In fact, it’s lovely too see people taking this space and making it their own, because I think this is what pastagang should be about.
This post was written by pastagang. Everyone can edit this post.