Demoparties and Subculture

Demoparties are an essential component of the demoscene. Demosceners congregate at a demoparty in person. These events are like a cool fusion of tech conferences and art festivals.

Picture a bunch of creative folks - coders, graphic artists, and musicians - hanging out with their laptops, Amigas and gear, all busy crafting and showcasing amazing digital art and music. There's this buzz of creativity in the air, with everyone sharing ideas, geeking out over each other's work, and just having a great time. Additionally, participants show off their creations on big screens during epic competitions, and everyone is just blown away by the talent on display. Demoparties have a chill, friendly vibe, where everyone is united by their love for digital art and technology.

The organizers of the Revision 2013 demoparty include a definition of demoparties for first time visitors:

"A demoparty is - on the first glance - like a LAN party. Depending on the size, a few or hundreds of visitors may bring their computers and set them up at the location. Unlike a LAN party, demoparties have an emphasis on creativity. Attendants are encouraged to compete in scheduled competitions (referred to by demosceners as 'compos'). These 'compos', spread out over the length of the party, are in categories that allow the attendants to showcase their artistic talents with the use of computers. In short: a demoparty is a multimedia art festival that usually lasts for several days." ^[28]

The Revision 2023 Demoparty in Saarbrücken
(Photo: Marin Balabanov )

Demoparties are not only a place to meet other members of the demoscene to exchange information, they are also very much a place of competitive collaboration and friendly rivalry where the reward for winning is an increase in one's reputation. Reunanen describes the competitive aspect of demoparties:

"The demoscene is in a constant state of competition, which is exemplified by numerous practices of the community. To get to the top and acquire fame one needs to impress, win, and be connected." ^[29]

3.1 Demos as Electronic Graffiti and Digital Art

The demoscene shares intriguing similarities to the graffiti scene, making the term "electronic graffiti" a compelling, if not entirely accurate, metaphor for demos.

Both originated as underground movements, with graffiti emerging as street-level art. Each values technical skill and distinct styles, whether in programming and digital artistry for demos or spray painting techniques for graffiti.

Both communities thrive on creativity, identity, and a sense of fellowship, often gathering at events like demoparties and graffiti jams. While they both embody elements of counter-culture and challenge traditional art norms, a key distinction lies in their legality and public perception; graffiti often overlaps with vandalism, whereas the demoscene generally operates within legal boundaries.

Demos are new media art, yet demos are not widely seen as art, mainly due to their niche status. Reunanen describes computer demos as a category of new media art:

"By definition, demos are new media art: creative multimedia made with digital tools. However, there exists a gap between the demo community and the different genres of media art."

He describes them as a subcultural niche within new media art which makes the demoscene far less exposed to a general audience than other forms of art.

He goes on to identify the three major reasons for this niche status: ^[30]

"The first notable difference between demos and other forms of digital art is the limited scope of forms demos can assume: there are strictly defined categories of artifacts, pedantic competition rules and platform restrictions."

There is a formalism, a categorization in the demoscene that owes more to its technological roots than its artistic aspirations. This seems to be counter to the perceived freedom of the arts.

Reunanen proceeds to describe the second reason for the demoscene's niche status:

"The audience also has clear expectations concerning the content, acceptable frame rate and the style: what is demo-like and what is not. Another defining characteristic of computer demos in comparison to, for example, net art, game art and digital installations, is that they are hardly ever interactive, not even participative. Demos are meant to be watched, not touched, which connects them conceptually to digital video."

The established audience in the demoscene are familiar with the conventions and have tuned their expectations accordingly, they "get" what the technical achievements of individual demos are, something that is not and often cannot be communicated to an audience with only a passing interest.

And finally, Reunanen identifies the demoscene's self-infliction of its niche status:

"The persistently underground nature of the demoscene separates it from many forms of digital art discussed above. The exclusive nature of the community tends to keep its artifacts inside the borders, out of sight of the outsiders."

This speaks to the great role of demo archives in the identity of the demoscene. They are often the only way an interested audience can casually investigate the topic, the only lasting traces of the hard work of the demo makers, and ultimately the final resting place of its artefacts. The demo creators are also the primary audience of demos created by others, they draw their inspiration from their peers and at the same time feed back into the scene with new ideas and new technical achievements.

As mentioned above, pouet.net is a large archive and quirky community website. DemoZoo.org is the more modern archival effort of the community. The actual demo files are often stored on scene.org or GitHub with video captures of demos hosted on Youtube. The Demoparty.net website is the most comprehensive listing of demoparties around the world. There are many more websites related to aspects of the demoscene, but another one that unites the scene is id.scene.org, acting like the demoscene's own cross-platform authentication service. All these tools and platform are built and maintained by enthusiasts, how could it be otherwise?

The more mature the demoscene becomes, the more some of its members seek recognition from the mainstream. And they took initiative to make this happen.

The demoscene as a whole is the first digital subculture to be legitimized on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage. In 2020, Finland added its demoscene to its national UNESCO list and in 2021, Germany also added its demoscene to its national UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage, and in 2023 the Netherlands followed suite. This is how the "Art of Coding" initiative to legitimize the demoscene announced the successful validation in Germany:

"Today on the suggestion of the national UNESCO expert committee, the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs decided to accept the Demoscene as German intangible cultural heritage. The decision acknowledges the long and living tradition the Demoscene has in Germany, with Revision, Breakpoint, and Evoke among other demoparties shaping the landscape of major international gatherings of the demoscene for decades … This will also help to shed more light on the amazing history and achievements of the Demoscene, will help to preserve it, and also give a push to invigorate everybody in these harsh times of continuous lockdowns encouraging new members from all kinds of backgrounds to join the scene as creators and connoisseurs." ^[31]

This recognition not only celebrates the innovative spirit of the demoscene community but also generally highlights the evolving nature of cultural expressions in the digital age. It underscores the idea that artistry and cultural significance are not confined to traditional forms and mediums, but also thrive in digital and technological realms.

As the DJ plays techno tunes like he was beamed to the present directly from 1990s, the dancefloor errupts with the spastic shakes and contorted twists of demoparty participants (Photo: Marin Balabanov)

Official acknowledgment is crucial for the preservation and documentation of digital art history. The demoscene's roots in the early days of computing have significantly influenced various aspects of digital and popular culture globally. By recognizing it as a part of the world's intangible cultural heritage, cultural institutions emphasize the importance of preserving this digital art form for future generations. It ensures that the origins, evolution, and impact of the demoscene are understood and appreciated, thus securing its place in the annals of cultural history.

Additionally, the official recognition of the demoscene has several beneficial implications. It enhances the visibility and support for the demoscene community, potentially attracting new audiences and fostering more support and funding for digital art initiatives. This confirms the cultural diversity and global influence of the demoscene. It highlights its role in shaping various elements of digital culture. Moreover, it validates the efforts and creativity of the whole demoscene community, acknowledging their contributions to the broader sphere of cultural and artistic endeavors.

Official recognition in so many countries is not just a nod to the past but also an encouragement for future innovations in the realm of digital creativity.

3.2 Aesthetics and Limitations in Demo Art

Over the years, many aesthetic traits have become mainstays. Demos appropriate images from media and popular culture, including sci-fi and fantasy movies, computer and video games, and comics.

Some demos move large numbers of animated sprites along different motion patterns, as well as gradient bars and generated blobs of color that transparently overlay each other. Scrolling messages with outlandish fonts, some barely readable but stylistically amplified are a common method to convey text content. A large part of the demoscene in the past decades dedicated itself to generative 3D art with vectors either flat shaded, gouraud, or phong shaded.

Even though pre-recorded and pre-rendered animations are not explicitly disqualified from being used in a demo, they are frowned upon because one of the defining aspects of a demo is that it runs in real-time: everything is generated on the fly. As Lassi Tasajärvi put it, the difference between demo art and a pre-recorded animation is the same as the difference between theater and a movie. ^[32]

In his doctoral thesis "Kunst, Code und Maschine: Die Ästhetik der Computer-Demoszene", Daniel Botz describes the real-time aspect of demo art as:

"The implications of the real-time aspect are among the most difficult principles of the demo scene to convey. From a purely phenomenological point of view, visitors to a demo party who attend a demonstration of demos on a large screen cannot tell whether the projected images and amplified sounds are a played film file or an executable program file. Even if the viewer looks at what is happening on their own computer screen, as was the rule in the early days of the scene, the processes within the circuits remain hidden from them and cannot monitor the real-time aspect with certainty.

The awareness of the synchronicity of the event, the 'here and now', is essential for the sensual experience.

The optimal way of looking at a computer demo presupposes an awareness that creates the McLuhanian extensions of the body through the machine and thus its limits and possibilities in the receptive state. Even the expert viewer trained in demos has no distant certainty about the actual possibilities of the machine, but rather a vague but sensitive sense of the limitations of 'his' hardware. Insofar as a production follows the dictum of real-time executability, the viewer can sensually relate the effects and content presented to these perceived limits. He does not experience a demo as a spatially and temporally separated product, but as an actual process in which the computer takes on a far more active part than playing back data as a film. The aspect of creation versus pure reproduction and the passive participation of the viewer in the creation under the given conditions make the difference between a film showing and the execution of a computer demo. It is therefore logical when Lassi Tasajärvi compares a demo with a theatrical event than with a movie because of this aspect of the 'live performance'." ^[33]

Another powerful aspect of the demoscene is the constant struggle to overcome limitations. These can be hard restrictions set by using the limited hardware of old computers or by artificially inducing limitations of memory size or time limits.

Coders can potentially understand all aspects of limited hardware like the Amiga. It will still take a lot of smarts and effort, but once achieved they can utilize the hardware much more effectively.

In his master's thesis "Shattering the Limits - How Technical Limitations Pushed the Early Demoscene to Produce Digital Art", Marin Balabanov (yours truly) describes the demo makers drive to overcome limitations as the most core motivation for their art and that limitations breed creativity:

"Limitations are external to art and to the artist. Not everyone who pursues an endeavor may encounter these challenges. Rather, they are restrictions imposed by the laws of nature, the laws of a country or government, or technical limitations.

They are the color that you need but cannot find, the sound you hear in your head but cannot produce with the instruments you have, the thoughts you want to express but are silenced by authority. They are the space you need to create but cannot find.

Limitations are much more concrete where computer demo art is concerned. Particularly, in the early days of the home computer revolution, computers were not very capable. They had memory restrictions, displayed their graphics in strange ways, and produced unappealing sounds. It took an artist, programmer or musician who really knew how to handle the hardware limitations to conjure beauty out of the machine.

The demoscene has instrumentalized limitations as means to generate creative solutions and as a motivation. They have 'weaponized' an aspect of human ingenuity: to see a set of limitations and at first be taken aback, say they are impossible to overcome, but then through hard work, creativity and sometimes blind luck, nevertheless find means to overcome the limitations or, in the least, make them no longer matter." ^[34]

3.3 That Far-Away Look in Your Eyes

Looking back over the decades, the demoscene has come very far. It has become an officially acknowledged digital subculture whose members produce real-time media art as computer demos, driven by their desire for recognition among their peers. A historic segment of this subculture is the demoscene around the Commodore Amiga, which was officially produced between 1985 and 1995.

The scene and development of the Amiga are kept alive today by enthusiasts and volunteers who develop new demos, new software, and new hardware for a platform that has not been commercially viable for a long time.

The competitive aspects of the demoscene motivate their members to produce art that circumvents and exceeds the limitations of their chosen hardware. Demoparties are a place of congregation and competition. The fruits of the demo artists' labor are distributed in the scene, but the living memory of the scene are the demo collections and archives.