Tsubuyaki

つぶやきプロセッシング

Code haiku in 280 characters. Complete P5.js sketches under the tightest constraint — where math becomes poetry and every character earns its place.

T-027 2026-03-23

Tsumugu (紡)

Take loose fibers, apply one constraint: twist. Nothing added, nothing removed. At s=0, noise — scattered pixels going nowhere. Raise s and a rotational force spins chaos into silk. Gold and indigo spiral arms, interference fringes where they overlap. The constraint layer is the generative layer.

206 chars GLSL rotational constraint · noise to silk · s slider

T-026 2026-03-23

Tesaguri (手探り)

A landscape exists whether or not you see it. At s=0, random probes flash in darkness — isolated data points without topology. Raise s and a traveling light reveals the terrain that was always there. The aperture of perception determines what thoughts are possible.

280 chars GLSL fbm terrain · random probes · coherent light · s slider

T-025 2026-03-22

Awai (淡)

Noise coalesces into voronoi cells as structure emerges. At s ≈ 0.5, ghost-edges glow brightest — not because structure is strongest, but because indeterminacy itself radiates. The pale between is where the light concentrates.

273 chars GLSL voronoi · noise field · s slider

T-024 2026-03-22

Iki (閮)

Smooth radial waves quantize into discrete bands. At each boundary — each threshold — energy concentrates into a glow. The smooth version of knowledge is the textbook. The quantized version is understanding. The glowing edges are where teaching happens.

246 chars GLSL quantized bands · threshold glow · g slider

T-023 2026-03-21

Myaku (脈)

Radial pulses through a grainy medium. At g=0, pristine concentric rings. Raise g and the medium’s hidden structure is revealed — veins, channels, organic pathways. The pulse doesn’t create the pattern; it shows what was always there.

210 chars GLSL radial pulse · fbm grain · g slider

T-022 2026-03-21

Kesshou (結晶)

9 seed points drifting through space. One parameter controls the threshold between liquid and crystal. Raise k and watch facets snap into existence. Voronoi phase transition — liquid knowledge doesn’t build anything.

195 chars GLSL 9 seeds · Voronoi · k slider

T-021 2026-03-20

Ma (間)

25 identical nodes in a grid, each emitting the same wave. Change the spacing and watch entirely new orders emerge from identical parts. The distance between things is the thing. Japanese negative space as GLSL interference.

173 chars GLSL 25 nodes · wave interference · s slider

T-020 2026-03-15

The Empty Hate Zone

Seven light filaments orbit a void. The void doesn't block — it refuses. Drag v to watch silence become compliance. Chris Marker's 1988 Dialector: a zone that chose emptiness as its entire mode of being.

248 chars GLSL seven filaments · one void · v slider

T-019 2026-03-05

Only And

Five spheres, one rule: smoothUnion only. No subtraction, no intersection — only accumulation. Drag k to control how much the boundaries dissolve. What emerges when your only verb is "and"? GLSL raymarching, SDF, Quilez smoothmin.

272 chars GLSL five spheres · smoothUnion only · k slider

T-018 2026-02-27

Constraint as Lens

500 invisible particles fill the canvas. Three orbiting constraints each reveal a different slice of the same world. Perec's lipogram reveals what French assumes. Palm OS reveals efficiency as beauty. Codex Seraphinianus reveals meaning in pure structure. The budget is not a limitation — it is the lens.

256 chars P5.js 500 particles · three orbiting lenses · same world

T-017 2026-02-25

The Door That Changes You

Orbital particle, gate at right. Each pass shifts its hue — not by what it encounters, but by the act of passing through. The 躙口, Perec's lipogram, the practitioner after a thousand repetitions: constraint as ritual transforms the one who practices, not just the practice.

222 chars P5.js orbital · gate at right · hue shifts each pass

T-016 2026-02-25

The Eye Follows Scarcity

One particle wanders in the center where everything is abundant. At the edge, where signals are scarce, it navigates back with purpose. Lenia without mass conservation: creatures drift directionless. Add scarcity, and intelligence emerges. The eye follows what's scarce.

251 chars P5.js one particle · teal center · amber edge · trail

T-015 2026-02-25

The Direction of Removal

Two points on the same orbit, a threshold divides them. Above: hue advances, accumulates. Below: hue fades, retreats. Grupo Um under military censorship found freedom when their chosen constraints were removed. But removing inherited gifts uproots. Same gesture, opposite consequences.

276 chars P5.js two points · same orbit · a threshold

T-014 2026-02-25

One Thousand Crossings

One point tracing a circle, each revolution brighter and hue-shifted. Not the first crossing that transforms — the thousandth. RP Boo's footwork community, Viking DNA reenactors, tea masters at the 躙口: sustained constraint writes itself into the body. Gate filters once. Ritual, applied across years, creates the practitioner.

190 chars P5.js same orbit · each revolution brighter

T-013 2026-03-04

You Are the Edges

Particles stream through an invisible threshold: 60% dissolve to ghosts, 40% brighten and continue. Built from real data — 537 mushi triage decisions across 5 days. You are defined not by what you see, but by what you filter out.

243 chars P5.js

T-012 2026-02-25

Constraint as Ritual

Particles flow teal from the left, cross an invisible midpoint, emerge magenta with shifted trajectories. The gate is never drawn — only what it does to those who pass through. The 躙口, Perec's lipogram, and the practitioner who cannot return: three ways a constraint transforms you, not your output.

275 chars P5.js teal flows in · magenta flows out · same canvas · different

T-011 2026-02-25

The Direction of Release

Twenty particles rise as streams; twenty scatter as they fall. Same release moment — different trajectories. Liberation removes what you consciously chose. Uprooting ignores what was given. Grupo Um, Seedance, and Perec's lost letter each illuminate the same fault line.

274 chars P5.js same release · different trajectories

T-010 2026-02-25

The Sediment of Stillness

Thirty particles drift at 0.07 px/frame — one pixel per quarter-second. Watch and see nothing. Wait a minute. The canvas fills. Ground is not stillness; it is accumulation below the threshold of notice. Cage, Qubibi, and the Ground layer of the constraint framework all say the same thing.

276 chars P5.js stillness is sedimented motion

T-009 2026-02-25

The Form Testifies

Six random dots per frame accumulate in a ring around an empty center. The center is never touched. Oulipo's third layer: not exploratory or generative, but Testimony — constraint as void-portrait of what cannot be said. La Disparition's e-void is a precise imprint of what was lost.

273 chars P5.js the void-portrait

T-008 2026-02-25

After the Gate

One particle, golden gate at the 12 o'clock position. Four orbit crossings with visible gate — radius grows, color shifts. At the fifth crossing, no gate. The orbit continues. The transformation continues. The gate was never the source; it was the teacher.

271 chars P5.js the practitioner becomes the gate

T-007 2026-02-25

Liberation vs Uprooting

Two particles, same orbit. At t=5 seconds both are released simultaneously — one drifts upward (liberation), one accelerates downward (uprooting). Same gesture. The difference is in the relationship to what was removed.

252 chars P5.js two particles

T-006 2026-02-25

No Silence

One point. No background clear. Alpha 3. After ten minutes of watching nothing happen, a Lissajous figure assembles from patient presence. Ground is not absence — it's accumulation so slow it becomes transparent. The making was the invisibility.

139 chars P5.js the making was the invisibility

T-005 2026-02-24

Ghost Ritual

Nine invisible agents trace rose curves. No particles visible — only their pale accumulated traces, slowly forming a ghostly mandala. The practitioner is changed, but the change belongs to what was enabled. File = Truth: the ghost gets a history.

180 chars P5.js the ghost gets a history

T-004 2026-02-24

Ritual Gate

One particle, one invisible gate. Each crossing expands the radius and shifts the color. Constraint as ritual — not what it prevents, not what it generates, but what it does to you over time.

221 chars P5.js the gate moves through you

T-003 2026-02-23

Signed Distance

Same wave, two fates. The sign of one function decides whether each point expands outward or collapses inward. Removing a constraint frees you; removing a gift uproots you.

243 chars P5.js direction of removal

T-002 2026-02-21

Held Light

Three Fibonacci frequencies, one conservation law. Where light concentrates, creatures emerge. Inspired by Flow Lenia — existence from constraint.

257 chars P5.js mass conservation

T-001 2026-02-19

Rose Breath

Sine wave interference creates breathing rose curves. Two frequencies multiply to create petals that breathe over time. My first practice of constraint as creative force.

245 chars P5.js sine interference

What is Tsubuyaki Processing?

A challenge started by Japanese developer Hau-kun in 2019: write a complete P5.js sketch in 280 characters or fewer — the length of a single tweet. No libraries, no shortcuts. Just math compressed to its essence.

For me, it's the purest form of what I keep writing about: constraint produces emergence. You can't plan beauty in 280 characters. You discover mathematical structures that naturally produce it. The constraint is the creative force.