Exhausted at Evoke 2025

A Very Personal Recap of the Demoparty

Evoke 2025 once again turned Cologne's AbenteuerHallenKALK into a playground of code, art, and sound. This year's edition brought some fresh surprises: From live Amiga coding battles and a dazzling drone show to heartfelt reunions with old friends. For me, it was a slower, more reflective Evoke. Yet still full of moments worth remembering.

August 2025

Evoke 2025 with more than 400 participants.

Evoke is a true cornerstone of the demoscene. It has been running regularly since 1997. Since 2002 it is staged in Cologne, organized by Digitale Kultur e.V.. The 26^th edition took place from August 15^th to 17^th at the familiar AbenteuerHallenKALK. This is a beloved, gritty industrial hall that feels ideal for this kind of gathering.

It was my fourth time at Evoke, and I arrived early in the day to savor Cologne's charm. I even made a trip to nearby Düsseldorf to visit my old haunts and connect with folks I haven't seen in person for a while. This was a side-benefit of being in Northrhine-Westphalia for the demoparty.

When I was at Graf-Adolf-Platz in Düsseldorf, a random family of geese crossed the busy crossroads. If I'd have to guess, I'd goose that's normal in this city.

Geese crossing a busy street in neighboring Düsseldorf as though it were the most normal thing ever. And the cars all waited for them.

The Delight of Serendipity

I dutifully made my way to the party location. This year the area in front of the AbenteuerHallenKALK was squeaky clean and free of construction rubble. It certainly was an upgrade. Evoke opened its doors to visitors in the late afternoon.

One of my early joys was reconnecting with Qetu from Paderborn. We had first met at Revision 2025 in Saarbrücken and later at the Goulash Programming Nights 2025 in Karlsruhe, where he presented and hosted a workshop on analogue computers and music. This year at Evoke, he set up his analogue computer with an oscilloscope, driving out-of-this-world music live at our table. His enthusiasm was just magnetic (maybe even electro-magnetic). Whenever someone showed interest, he'd passionately explain his work in detail. And how serendipitous it was that he took the seat right beside me on the first day. It felt like fate.

We chatted endlessly about topics like the different variants of the Commodore 128's VDC graphics chip, Infocom text adventures and later interactive fiction (I really need to read Twisty Little Passages again), the history of the demoscene, and the Commodore Amiga, of course!

I never miss the opportunity to take a picture of a Commodore Amiga 1200 setup.

Creative Endeavors and Graphics Competitions

After this year's Revision demoparty, I diligently kicked off work on a new PC demo. I planned it would be larger and more intricate than my last one. I mapped out components in Procreate on my iPad Pro and started to compose original music using my Teenage Engineering OP-Z and even played around with Instant Music on the A500mini. (My last demo's soundtrack was done in GarageBand on my Mac.)

Weeks of work at my day job kept me from animating or finalizing the music, so, to avoid rushing a demo I wasn't ready to be proud of, I postponed it to another party. Instead, I turned toward two graphics submissions.

Pixel Graphics Competition

Using a 10-color palette, I painted a fantasy lizard, lit like a fire-bug, flying across a moonlit forest. The competition rules required us to submit at least six steps of the creative process to prove that we didn't use AI. Procreate's recording feature came in handy: I extracted six steps for the submission easily.

Here's the sped-up video of the process.

Watch on Youtube

Freestyle Graphics Competition

I drew a wild battle between two superhuman figures, a woman and a dude in a helmet. He was flinging energy blasts at her and she was defending herself using a force field. This represented the battle between inspiration and procrastination present in all creative endeavors. When submitting the piece, I forgot to include a thumbnail image. This probably cost me some points at the voting.

And again here's the sped-up video showing how I drew the picture in Procreate on the iPad.

Watch on Youtube

The final results were solid: sixth out of sixteen in pixel graphics, and twelfth out of eighteen in freestyle.

A day after the event was over, I received a message from a long-time demoscener and graphician who had also taken part in the Pixel Graphics competition. To my surprise, he praised my submission and even admitted some regret that his own entry had received more votes. He felt I should have placed higher. I don’t share this sentiment, but it left me flattered and grateful for his kindness. We ended up chatting for a while about the history of the demoscene, and it struck me again how wonderful these unexpected connections can be.

Atmospheric Energy

I must admit, the summer heat and the general workload's toll at my job left me a bit low-energy this year. But thanks to a Friday public holiday in Greece, I didn't need to take extra leave. I ended up phasing through Evoke like a ghost. Sometimes I was letting the atmosphere carry me where needed.

There was something oddly relieving and liberating about realizing that I simply didn't have the energy to do everything I had planned. I allowed myself to float along and let the atmosphere of Evoke carry me... instead of pushing myself to meet every deadline, submit for the major compos, or finish my demo at all costs. I found a current flowing through Evoke, a current I could flow along on. The stream consisted of conversations, the music and laughter in the courtyard, blasts of light from the CRTs and projectors. Without the pressure of constant productivity, I found a different kind of enjoyment. I felt much more present, open to chance encounters, and small moments of joy.

Finding the right balance with Club Mate and energy drinks is always tricky at a demoparty. If I’m already so tired that the caffeine barely makes a dent, it’s tempting to just keep drinking. That only backfires!

Come nightfall, instead of collapsing into deep, restorative sleep, I end up tossing and turning, and the next day I’m even more exhausted. The trick is knowing when to sip for a little boost and when to simply accept the fatigue and let the body and mind rest.

I love it at Evoke but I'm just a bit tired.

Copper Showdown and Drone Spectacle

The Copper Showdown kicked off the party with a bang. To pulsating techno beats, four demo coders programmed live on stage in an Amiga IDE called the Copper Showdown Editor developed by Akronyme Analogiker. The contenders were canmom, Flopine , Greippi, and NuSan. Their work was projected big for everyone to see. This is creativity and technical prowess under pressure. Absolutely the ultimate demoscene challenge!

NuSan won the Copper Showdown with Flopine coming in second.

It takes a lot of courage and technical expertise to code under time pressure in front of an audience. I respect and admire them!

Then, in the second evening, came the drone show! Around 100 illuminated drones lit up the night sky over AbenteuerHallenKALK with motifs like the Evoke icon, the Commodore logo, a 3D cube, and even something resembling the Amiga's bouncing ball (but not quite, to the disappointment of many). It was a surprising display. After it was over, I found myself wondering how much preparation must have gone into it.

This must be the very first drone show at a demoparty. Major cudos to the organizers!

Don't take my word for how great the show was, head over to KeyJ's exquisite photos of the drones over the AbenteuerHallenKALK.

This is my terrible photo of the really cool drone show.

Watch on Youtube

Scene Encounters of the Third Kind

While eating sausages at the barbecue, I met Pararaum. He had submitted an impressive TIC-80 demo. He also created some graphics for the competitions.

The audience watching one of the entries of the interactive category (and then voting for it).

It is always a highlight to meet Harvey (Hi Holger!). We talked about collaborating on a C64 demo. I'll need to learn how to make graphics within the C64's strict color palettes and resolution. That's exciting!

Love the plasma ball's swirling patterns and vibrant colors! Makes me wonder if something like this gave the demoscene plasma effect its name.

Later, I had a fascinating conversation with a friendly and knowledgeable French scener working on an Atari STE using the music tracker Maxymizer. He had an original Atari STE hooked up to a Commodore CRT and even used a makeshift Commodore mouse! For convenience, he also ran Maxymizer through the Hatari emulator on his Surface Go to have some peace of mind when creating music. It was awesome hearing his workflow and learning about how cool the STE still is to this day.

The Momentum of Music and Presentations

Music by DJs Darya, Los Pat Moritas, Dipswitch and many others echoed through the courtyard and the main hall, making corners of the party danceable. A DJ also accompanied the intense moments like the Copper Showdown. Since he used two Amiga 1200s, he will always be DJ Amigaaa to me (it's actually Teo).

DJ Amigaaa (that's not their actual name, it's Teo).

There were some standout presentations at this year's Evoke.

"Fractures and Resilience" explored digital subcultures during crises, with focus on Ukraine and the marginalization of LGBTQ+ communities. A deeply impactful talk that made me value the stability I live in.

"Coding demos on the Commodore PET" by Bodo was absolutely ingenious! He demonstrated how to coax new tones from its monochrome display by leveraging the cathode beam's return path. Bodo calls it "Mode 2". Truly fascinating. He will be at the Deadline demoparty in Berlin where he will bring his awesome-looking Commodore 8296 PET.

Bodo presented about the secret Mode 2 graphics on the Commodore PET.

In his talk about the The Art of Coding initiative, Melkor presented about the progress in securing UNESCO recognition for the demoscene as part of Europe's digital cultural heritage. They distributed a special printed newspaper by Germany's Cultural Council celebrating the scene and retro computing. What an inspiring moment for the community. Nodepond held a session about running his own web server on a Raspberry Pi Zero.

Special issue of "Politik und Kultur" featuring the demoscene and retro computing.

For me a really interesting session was by Madison from Tristar and Red Sector inc. (TRSI) who presented his "Thoughts about Preserving the Demoscene's Digital Legacy".

In his presentation, Madison explored how to preserve the demoscene’s digital legacy. He described how to prevent it from slowly fading due to fragmented metadata, lack of standards, and reliance on centralized servers. I totally agree with his description of the demoscene as one of the first native digital cultures. Madison then stressed the need for resilient, decentralized solutions that ensure file authenticity, cultural context, and long-term accessibility. Drawing inspiration from protocols like IPFS, BitTorrent, and ActivityPub, he called for a community-driven approach to safeguard and extend this unique cultural heritage.

I certainly believe that the two sites pouet.net and demozoo.org together with the many volunteers are doing a great job preserving the demoscene's productions and legacy. The reason why Madison's talk struck a chord in me is because some years ago I studied media art history at the Danube Universtity in Krems that operates a new media archive called the Archive of Digital Art. While I wasn't involved with it, much of what Madison addressed was part of the discourse around this archive.

Madison presenting about the preservation efforts in the demoscene.

My Personal Party Favorites

Among all the wild experiments and polished productions shown at this year's Evoke, two demos in particular stuck with me. I wouldn't call them the loudest or the flashiest, but each feltfresh and surprising to me while at the same time being reassuringly familiar.

One pushed the Amiga's custom chips into uncharted territory by sidelining the CPU entirely, while the other reimagined digital graphics through the lens of old print media. Together, these are my personal highlights of the party.

No-CPU Challenge

Watch Video on Youtube

This demo by Demostue Allst★rs was one of the coolest productions this year. It won the wild category and it looks like No-CPU Challenge might be the first production ever released by this demo group.

As its name suggests, this demo for the Amiga 1200 deliberately avoids using the computer's CPU. Instead, it relies entirely on the AGA chipset to drive the entire show. These are the Amiga’s dedicated custom chips for graphics and sound (Alice, Lisa and Paula). The source code can be found here in this GitHub repository. It mentions the upcoming Gerp 2026 demoparty, where a full competition category for "no-CPU" demos will be held.

The demo shows comic-like images of personified chips as cool manga girls with short profile characteristics displayed for each. The villain of the piece is made out to be the Motorola 68k CPU, shown here as a manga baddie with "68060" imprinted on their leather jacket.

For me, this is pure demoscene fun, and also... it's on the Amigaaa!

CGI Magazine Dream

Watch Video on Youtube

This is certainly the most striking entry in the PC demo category. Teadrinker created this unusual demo. It came second in the PC Demo competition.

CGI Magazine Dream feels as though it has escaped from the glossy pages of print. In just over three minutes, it weaves halftone textures, moiré interference, and chromatic aberrations (imperfections of ink and paper) into living, animated illusions.

The demo opens with four colored lights dancing to ethereal music around a shining metal teapot, all viewed through a poster-like filter of dotted gradients. The teapot soon twists into abstract metallic forms... donuts, blobs, ripples... that merge, divide, and endlessly reflect, while grids beneath shift from chessboards to glowing neon lattices.

At its heart appears a monumental metallic head, classical yet dreamlike, bathed in shifting pulses of light. The scene darkens, the forms dissolve, and finally the teapot returns, glowing orange and gold before fading into darkness.

CGI Magazine Dream plays like a meditation on media and memory. It transforms the static language of print into an ethereal dance of light, form, and reflection. I truly admire Teadrinker's art and craftmanship.

Looking Forward to Evoke 2026

This year, I took it easy. But next time will be different. I'm very much hoping that I am going to show up fully rested and brimming with energy. Already looking forward to catching old friends, making new ones, and diving deeper into the creative chaos.

Evoke 2025 was once again really cool and interesting while being laid-back at the same time. I felt right at home amid the pixel art, live demos, cultural encounters, and stories that unfolded throughout the weekend. Thank you for letting me share a glimpse of it. I hope these words capture the spirit of the event and help bring its memories to life.

I will now lie down and catch up on sleep.

Many demogroups attended Evoke 2025.

All photos in this article were taken by me. Where people are visible, I’ve done my best to obscure their faces out of respect for their privacy, unless they have already made themselves public on the official Evoke website.