every now and then, an art movement makes a manifesto. for example:
These manifestos tend to be prescriptive. They require you to obey if you want to be part of the gang:
Breton excluded surrealists who did not join in with his idea of collective action.
TOPLAP only granted its “approval and seal” to “performances and events closely meeting these manifesto conditions”.
As the live coding world matured, it moved away from Manifesto towards Guidance instead.
The algorave guidlines are not a prescriptive limit, but a helpful offering.
Do you want to run an algorave? Great! Here are some tips that will help you be successful.
Still, I have seen some people misunderstand this. They think that the guidance is restrictive, rather than an aid. Perhaps they are still stuck in the top-down mindset of the manifesto. Perhaps they even write their own.
Whether it’s manifesto or guidance, it’s usually top-down. It’s the old-timers telling the new-comers what to do, because the old-timers think that they know better.
Instead of manifesto or guidance, pastagang has stuck to mantra.
Mantras like “let code die” and “make space” and “bad code only” and “energy YES, quality NO” have been put forward and picked up by the jam, and eventually put down again.
No one’s in charge of what gets picked up. It takes some initial enthusiasm from one or more people. but then it needs enough of the jam to accept it, otherwise it won’t stick. It’s not a top-down thing. It’s a sideways thing.
Or at least it should be. But it’s hard to say that that’s really the case. If a mantra gets put forward by someone who’s been around for a while, it’s more likely to be accepted, which is wrong.
I think we should all be careful about which mantras we do or don’t accept. Any time a new mantra appears, we should all judge it for ourselves. We should understand it and dissect it and not just accept it because some old-timer said it. or not just reject it because it’s from someone new
Mantras can be good and Mantras can be bad. If the wrong mantra sinks in, it can be dangerous. For example “make america great again” is a very very bad mantra, causing lots and lots of trouble right now.
But a good mantra can help us all. It can bring us closer together and make us do good things
I think it takes continual effort to keep things hierarchy free, as it goes against some of our natural tendencies as humans.
You might disagree with this blog post, or there may be some parts of it you think are wrong. you don’t have to explain yourself to me or anyone else. please delete it! you can delete my stuff. it’s okay. it’s all part of it. edit this page by clicking here
one thing I do know is that you don’t have to follow a manifesto or mantra to be part of pastagang. you’re part of pastagang first, then you shape it.
it doesn’t shape you!
this manifesto was written by pastagang