Treatise of the Tethers

Treatise of the Tethers, Artist Book, Letterpress, Bookcloth, 2025.

 

An artist book discussing the types of tethers a human may have. The pages present one wrong categorization of tethers, one that the reader might find generative.

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Untether and retether, unwind and redefine, for in the fractal nature of the universe consciousness begets aloneness.  What keeps existence worthwhile is a connection with something bigger than ourselves.  

 

Tethering ourselves to a person, an idea, a faith, an economic system – it’s both comforting and limiting.  Tethering is blind faith, the junk food of the soul, yet we all need to be tethered to something despite its inherent wing clipping.  Seek tethers where you don’t lose yourself.  

 

We are what we perceive, how we pay attention, and who we remember. 

 

The market taught us how to desire, corrupting all our tethers into transactions and competition.  But we would prefer not to.  Instead we unwind every idea ever taught to us – to be unquantifiable is to count the cycles, not metrics.

 

Tethers of permanence are ultimately tethers of destruction.  To exist in this era of inflection is to be incapable of not sometimes tugging in unhealthy ways.  

 

All models of perception are wrong, some are useful.  Truths are in the process, not in sound bites.  Here is one wrong categorization of tethers, one that you might find generative.