Toto Tvalavadze

Hi, I’m Toto—software engineer, fine-art photographer, gallery curator, and independent interface researcher.

This is my working notebook exploring photography processes, handbound books, creative systems, and humane interfaces—a place to log experiments, publish essays, and ship tools.

Newsletter

The Flâneur is an even more meandering version of this website and perhaps the best way to follow me — Instagram is also a-okay too.

Projects

A few projects I’m proud of and focused on. See all 25 projects.

Plaintext Commons
Plaintext Commons – Manifesto for keeping long-form knowledge in durable, human- and agent-friendly files.
project-humane
Arrowhead CLI
Arrowhead CLI – helps AI agents and command-line tools make sense of your Obsidian vault
obsidian
Unbound Notebook System
Unbound Notebook System – an analog notebook system that is friendly to thinking and exploration
project-humane

Notes

May 2026

  • Went to a couple of wine festivals in Tbilisi; the Zero Compromise natural wine festival was a highlight.
  • Returned to Rome mid-month and resumed operating from there after time in Georgia.
  • Published The Human Border, a short note drawing a line for how I use AI.
  • Published TP-7 CLI, a small command-line tool that gives CLI access to the Teenage Engineering TP-7 recorder.
  • Added an Obsidian hub page to collect my plugin and vault-tool work.
  • Published Better Kanban Bases View, a focused and keyboard-friendly Kanban interface for Obsidian Bases.
  • Finished painting and most of the remodeling in the Rome studio, then started the gradual move-in.
  • Watched The Devil Wears Prada 2 and The Mandalorian and Grogu in theaters. Both were okay, but fun.
  • Finished For All Mankind (Season 5), perhaps the weakest of them all. A few episodes of Star City have been really good, although surprisingly dark and cruel.

May was a bit tough on me. There are too many moving parts in my life right now, and mostly I want to be a little more relaxed and able to focus on one thing at a time. Starting in mid-June, things should get back into a better lane, and once I move out of Japan completely, I think life will return to something closer to normal.

The studio, which I call Studio Humane or Project Humane depending on the weather and my mood, is coming along quite nicely. Bookshelves are in place, so the books won’t be orphans or piles of paper when I send them over from Japan. The tools will also have a generous amount of workspace. One thing I have in Rome that I never had in Kyojima is a full suite of HomeKit lights and accessories. They’re fun to operate and should make the photo editing nook much nicer.

Get In Touch

Best way to reach me is via email.

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