Exclusion Confusion: Other Archives Named ADA

Chapter V

In the previous chapter, we explored the challenges of preserving the media art and productions in the demoscene. We discussed the importance of archives like the Amiga Demoscene Archive (A.D.A.) in documenting and preserving the history of the Amiga demoscene. In this chapter, we will explore the confusion surrounding other archives named ADA and their exclusion of the demoscene.

This chapter asks more questions than any other part of this essay. Let's see if we can answer them.

Will the real ADA please stand up?

In addition to the Amiga Demoscene Archive (A.D.A.), there are many other sites named ADA.

ada-arte.com and ada-ada-ada.art are two examples. They are related to art and design and have nothing to do with the demoscene or archiving digital art. There are two sites named ADA that are related to digital art and archiving digital art. They are both called the Archive of Digital Art or ADA. One of them is legitimate and the other does not look like it is all that legitimate.

An Archive called ADA

One ADA is the Archive of Digital Art at digitalartarchive.at.

This ADA at digitalartarchive.at describes itself a comprehensive online database dedicated to documenting and preserving digital and media art from around the world. It was originally established in 1999 by Prof. Dr. Oliver Grau under the name "Database of Virtual Art". It is now operated by the University for Continued Education in Krems, Austria (UWK). From what I gather, the original founder is no longer involved with the day-to-day operations of the archive at digitalartarchive.at.

The university's ADA serves as a platform for scholars, artists, and an interested public audience to access a wide range of works, including interactive installations, digital photography, virtual reality, and video art. This ADA tries to not only archive digital works but also to connect them with theoretical research and discussions about digital culture. Through this it seeks to be a resource for academic study and artistic exploration.

In this chapter we will focus on this archive called ADA. But before we do that, let's investigate another curious ADA.

And Another Archive called ADA?

The other ADA looks like it is a clone of the university's ADA. It can be found at archive-digitalart.eu.

archive-digitalart.eu seems to be an outdated and rather incomplete copy of the Archive of Digital Art with an old-fashioned design. It seems to have missed some of the more interesting features of the university's ADA because whoever went through the trouble of copying the original did not bother to copy the "Magazine" section of the university's ADA (more on this below).

It is not clear if this reproduction is legitimate or not. It certainly lacks any legal reference to EU GDPR (DSGVO in Austria), or any cookie notice about tracking users' visits. It does not even list the operating entity in its legal notice. Also some functions seem to be broken.

A peek into the web inspector reveals that the site uses JQuery 1.9.1. This is an exceedingly old version of the JavaScript library from 2013. The most recent stable release is version 3.7.1 from 2023. The beta release of JQuery 4.0 was launched in 2024. While the generator information about the version of the Typo3 Content Management System is obscured in the website's source code, it does show that PHP version 5.4.45 is used (the current version of this programming language is 8.2). This was released in 2014, so it is not unreasonable to believe that the site uses an outdated version of the Typo3 CMS.

All of this is publicly available information, only a right-click away. And it does not paint a reliable picture (see screensots below). It is important to keep your Content Management System (CMS) and its JavaScript libraries updated to ensure security, improve performance, and maintain compatibility with new features and technologies, reducing vulnerabilities to attacks.

The web inspector shows that archive-digitalart.eu uses JQuery 1.9.1 (originally released in 2013) and a copyright notice in the comment block from 2016.

The network tab of the web inspector shows that the server of archive-digitalart.eu uses PHP 5.4.45 released in 2014.

Since I feel that the site is questionable and looks like it is an incomplete copy of the original university's ADA, I will disregard it in the further discussion. I believe that only the first of the two archives legitimate with any certainty, the one located at digitalartarchive.at and clearly operated by the university in Krems.

ADA, the Archive of Digital Art

I first encountered digitalartarchive.at while studying Media Art Histories at the University for Continued Education in Krems (back when the institution had the much cooler name, Danube University Krems). The ongoing development of this archive is funded through project grants to the university's Center for Image Science^[6].

To register on digitalartarchive.at, users need to first fill out a contact form and wait for a response. There is a requirement that registrants be professional artists or scholars with at least three exhibitions or published works respectively. I wonder if exhibiting work at demoparties or winning demo competitions would qualify. According to many accounts, some who have used the contact form have not even received a response.

The archives appears to have originally aimed for a community-driven approach, like demozoo.org, pouet.net, and the Amiga Demoscene Archive (A.D.A.), but with a focus on digital art. However, this model doesn't seem to have worked well, as the archive is not very active and many entries are incomplete. For a few years now, digitalartarchive.at operates on a different model than the demoscene archives. This warrants a closer look.

Instead of relying on the artists themselves to archive their own art, the university hires people to maintain the archive. This is a very different approach from the demoscene archives that are driven by community enthusiasm. The university archive's approach relies on funding and grants to pay for resources, which are then used to maintain the archive.

The archive at digitalartarchive.at features a much wider spectrum of art than just digital art. It includes physical installations, bio art, non-digital electric artwork, sculptures, and many other forms of art that are hard to classify as digital. This makes the decision to include "digital" in the name somewhat puzzling. Perhaps the name should include the word media to accommodate this. So a more fitting name would have been "Archive of Media Art" (AMA^[7]) instead of ADA.

These are two great examples of the good documentation available in digitalartarchive.at with images, descriptions, and links to supplementary material.

The field of media art is much broader and more mainstream than the demoscene. It includes works often exhibited in galleries, museums, or other art institutions and is created by artists who typically identify as part of the fine art world. As such, the potential for audience interest in an archive like digitalartarchive.at is much larger than that of demoscene archives.

Yet, despite hiring people to manage the archive, digitalartarchive.at lists fewer artists than the Amiga Demoscene Archive (A.D.A.). To be fair, the university's ADA has more works listed overall. Even though it focuses solely on the Amiga demoscene, the Amiga A.D.A. is no slouch. As of September 2024, it features more than 900 demo productions, over 1,300 creators, and approximately 350 demoparties. Please refer to the screenshot of the Amiga Demoscene Archive statistics in Chapter III.

In contrast, digitalartarchive.at lists approximately 3,000 works, 800 artists, and around 5,000 events.

At the bottom of the page, you can see the total number of artworks on digitalartarchive.at: 3,042 (September 2024)

Additionally, the average quality of the data on the Amiga Demoscene Archive appears to be higher than that of digitalartarchive.at. The Amiga A.D.A. has a higher percentage of well-documented entries, often including images, links to videos, source code, and other media. While the university's ADA might have a larger number of entries, many of them are quite sparse (though, to be fair, many are very well documented).

Please don't take my word for it, have a look at the materials in the different archives. For example, the entries for artist Nell Tenhaaf's Oedipal Ounce of Prevention and Jane Prophet's Sarcophagus are empty except for the title, the year and an image. The images are not particularly clear. Nor is it discernible what they show. The large versions of the images have a resolution of 500 x 332 and 500 x 336 respectively. This is ridiculously low-res for photos. Any descriptions or documentation are missing. It is uncertain, what a scholar should learn from entries like these, of which there are many on the university's ADA. (See screenshots below.)

Examples of very sparse work descriptions on digitalartarchive.at are surprisingly common.

As stated, the Amiga Demoscene Archive serves a niche within the wider demoscene. As you may have gathered from this essay, there is significant room for improvement in this archive. This is not to diminish the efforts of the volunteers who have contributed to it, but the Amiga archive could be much more comprehensive and detailed. However, in some respects, it still surpasses the university's ADA.

The statistics of demozoo.org as of September 2024 (scroll down to the very bottom of the Demozoo front page).

If we look at the numbers from the larger demoscene archive, the difference becomes even more striking. The newer demoscene archive, demozoo.org, lists over 167,000 productions and more than 100,000 creators—orders of magnitude more than the university's archive. All of these entries have been documented and uploaded by the demoscene community of enthusiasts, party organizers, and individual sceners.

One can only imagine how much digitalartarchive.at might have achieved if it had been driven by community enthusiasm and a passion for the subject matter, as seen in the demoscene.

To summarize the numbers (as of September 2024):

^* The figure for the Amiga Demoscene Archive (A.D.A.) counts individual Amiga sceners. The university's digitalartarchive.at counts individual artists. demozoo.org counts sceners across all platforms.

While the university's archive itself is not very active and entries can occasionally be incomplete, a great feature of digitalartarchive.at is the "Magazine" section. This editorialized section features articles and interviews with artists and scholars, providing valuable insights into the world of digital art. The "Magazine" is an excellent resource for anyone interested in learning more about media art creators and media art history.

A section like the "Magazine" can only be created by a hired team. I'm certain that some of them are dedicated and passionate about digital art. However, I doubt they would maintain the same level of quality, consistency, and regularity in sharing their knowledge if they weren't paid for their efforts.

While the university's archive itself is not very active and the entries can occasionally be incomplete, a great feature of digitalartarchive.at is the "Magazine" section. This editorialized section features articles and interviews with artists and scholars that provide valuable insights into the world of digital art. The "Magazine" is a great resource for anyone interested in learning more about media art creators and media art history.

A section like the "Magazine" can only be created by a hired team. I am certain that some of them are dedicated and passionate about digital art. Yet I doubt that they'd be committed to sharing their knowledge with others at the same level of quality and with the same consistency and regularity if they weren't paid for their efforts.

The front page of ADA's "Magazine" section at digitalartarchive.at

Neither demozoo.org nor pouet.net or the Amiga Demo Archive have a section similar to the "Magazine" of digitalartarchive.at. That being said, there are numerous websites, YouTube channels, and blogs that cover the demoscene. Then the fans post links to these articles and videos on the forums on pouet.net and demozoo.org. The big difference is that these resources are not centralized in one location like the "Magazine." Instead, links are posted on demoscene forums such as those on pouet.net and social media platforms like the demoscene's Reddit community, r/Demoscene Reddit, and the scene's Discord channels. The discussions in the forums of demozoo.org, pouet.net and the Amiga Demo Archive are often lively and informative, with sceners sharing their thoughts and opinions on the latest news, releases, and events in the demoscene. You do not need an account and be logged on to see them. The scene is a transparent and open community.

Good examples include the previously described near-weekly YouTube demoscene report produced by PS/PSEnough, where he covers the latest news, releases, and events in the demoscene. Another great example is the event website demoparty.net, which lists upcoming demoparties. Party organizers post nearly a hundred parties a year, and while sceners sometimes announce these events, most content is posted directly by the organizers. After the events, organizers often publish submitted productions, videos, and recordings of seminars on YouTube. They sometimes also post interviews with demosceners and creators. Additionally, participants at demoparties share their own videos, works, and source code on personal websites, social media, and demoscene forums.^[8]

Other examples include community-driven video collections such as the YouTube channel Demoscene TV and the streaming channels of most demoparties on scenesat.com and Twitch. These are all community-driven efforts, spread out across the internet rather than centralized in one location.

The results of the two approaches are decidedly different: despite being a much smaller niche, the demoscene archives remain active and vibrant, whereas the university's ADA cannot be described in the same way.

Enthusiasm Bests Work-for-hire

The comparison between the demoscene archives Amiga Demoscene Archive (A.D.A.) and demozoo.org and the archive at digitalartarchive.at was never intended to undermine or criticize the valuable efforts of the team behind digitalartarchive.at. Both platforms serve as essential repositories for preserving cultural artifacts in their respective fields. However, this comparison highlights the incredible potential that can be unlocked when a large community of passionate enthusiasts is deeply motivated to maintain and grow an archive.

The Amiga Demoscene Archive (A.D.A.) and demozoo.org, fully managed by unpaid volunteers from the demoscene community, demonstrate how personal commitment and shared passion can lead to remarkable outcomes. Despite having fewer resources or formal backing compared to institutions like digitalartarchive.at, the teams at Amiga Demoscene Archive (A.D.A.) and particularly demozoo.org have managed to build and maintain highly comprehensive and well-organized archives. Their success stems from the intrinsic motivation of individuals deeply connected to the content and history they are documenting and preserving.

On the other hand, digitalartarchive.at is a professional project with paid staff and resources, which faces its own challenges, including budget constraints, bureaucracy, and institutional limitations. These factors can sometimes limit the agility and responsiveness that smaller, community-driven projects can more easily achieve. This comparison is not meant to diminish the importance of the work at digitalartarchive.at, but rather to illustrate that in certain circumstances, grassroots efforts driven by passion and community engagement can outperform even well-funded institutional projects.

The key takeaway here is the incredible power of passion, collaboration, and community-driven initiatives in creating and maintaining large-scale archives. The success of demozoo.org and the early years of the Amiga Demoscene Archive (before becoming dormant) show that, when people are truly invested in what they are building, they can achieve exceptional results that may be difficult for traditional, institutionally funded projects to replicate.

For the sake of this comparison, I have deliberately made a distinction between art produced in the demoscene and digital art in general, as archived in the university's ADA.

However, this distinction is somewhat disingenuous because I believe that demos are digital art. They are a type of media art! Yet, the university's ADA does not seem to consider demos as digital art, as they are not included in the archive. This is a major oversight and a missed opportunity to document an important part of digital art history.

Let's explore the possible reasons for this.

Why Is the Demoscene Completely Absent from the Archive of Digital Art?

One of the individuals working on digitalartarchive.at repeatedly stated that they have a great interest in the demoscene. Yet despite this, none of the tens of thousands of works from the demoscene were included in the university's archive so far. The demoscene is one of the blind spots of digitalartarchive.at.

Even the ADA Thesaurus does not mention the demoscene or demos. The thesaurus lists keywords about media art aesthetics, genres and more. None of them relate to the demoscene.

It seems that the maintainers of digitalartarchive.at lean more towards what is traditionally recognized as "fine art" within the digital realm. This includes works that are often exhibited in galleries, museums, or other art institutions and are created by artists who typically identify as part of the fine art world. This is an oddly exclusive and restricted view of media art. It seems to deliberately ignore large sections of the digital art world including the demoscene.

In contrast, the demoscene is rooted in a subcultural context that does not exclude art but instead blends it to include people, cultures, and digital underground movements. Some works produced in the demoscene are highly sophisticated and artistically significant. Unfortunately, they do not strictly align with the traditional art frameworks that institutions like the university's digitalartarchive.at tend to focus on.

Despite them paying lip service, I believe that digitalartarchive.at just does not take the demoscene seriously on a fundamental level. Additionally, there might not be is a lot of grant money to be had for archiving the works for an enthusiast community like the demoscene.

Let's take an even closer look at the possible reasons for excluding the demoscene from the Archive of Digital Art.

As this search without any results demonstrates, digitalartarchive.at does not list any items from the demoscene (in September 2024)

The demoscene exists in a different cultural and social context from what the Archive of Digital Art at digitalartarchive.at typically wants to include. The Archive of Digital Art's focus is on works that are often linked with the contemporary art world, academic discourse, and institutional recognition. Demoscene productions, despite their artistic and technical merit, are often not exhibited in the same spaces as digital fine art and therefore may be deliberatley disregarded by the Archive of Digital Art's curatorial efforts.

The university's Archive of Digital Art seems to have a narrow definition of what constitutes digital art. By all appearances, it focuses on works that are conceptually driven, perhaps with critical or theoretical underpinnings that align with contemporary art practices. Demos, while artistically impressive, might be regarded by the team operating digitalartarchive.at at the university as merely entertainment or technical demonstrations rather than conceptual art pieces.

Historically, the demoscene has been underrecognized by traditional art institutions. They have often overlooked the scene's contributions to digital culture. This lack of recognition seems to extend to the Archive of Digital Art at digitalartarchive.at, which might not have engaged with the demoscene as part of its broader mission. All of this despite only the demoscene being recognized so far by UNESCO as world cultural heritage and none of the artworks in the Archive of Digital Art at digitalartarchive.at.

Maybe respected demogroups like Farbrausch with their seminal works such as Fr-043 Rove (2010), Future Crew's Second Reality (1993) or Parallel Multiverse (2020) by Abyss do not have quite the same cultural importance as some media artists listed in the university's ADA. But they certainly have a greater art historical importance than a lot of them. It is completely baffling that none are included in the university archive whatsoever.

The demoscene does not really need digitalartarchive.at to document its works. The scene has proven over the past three decades that enthusiasm and a "can do" attitude can bring people together, show their works, and provide archives that are technically sound and regularly updated.

The Archive of Digital Art at digitalartarchive.at is not powered by enthusiastic volunteers as the demoscene. It requires funding to pay for resources who then in turn do the work. After all, archiving digital art is resource-intensive. Institutions like these must make curatorial decisions based on the likelihood of attaining financial resources. So they may prioritize certain types of digital art over others, leading to the exclusion of the demoscene.

Oddly enough, the Archive of Digital Art at digitalartarchive.at seems to have lower scholarly and curatorial standards than the two large demoscene archives pouet.net and demozoo.org.

Demoscene productions are widely shared and documented. This means that video recordings of demo releases are uploaded to Youtube. The source code of many demos are available in repositories such as the GitHub Demoscene Source Archive. Sceners organize dozens of demoparties per year across multiple countries. You can find a list of them here on demoparty.net. This level of detail, transparency, and inclusion is unheard of in an archive driven by the realities of academia such as the Archive of Digital Art at digitalartarchive.at.

In recent years, there has been a growing recognition of the artistic value of the demoscene. It has even been added to UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage as the only digital culture so far. As noted, none of the artwork archived in the Archive of Digital Art at digitalartarchive.at falls into this category. Unfortunately, this increased recognition has not prompted institutions like the Archive of Digital Art at digitalartarchive.at to reconsider their focus and include demoscene works.

To bridge this gap, it would need an initiative from both the demoscene community and digital art institutions to advocate for the inclusion of demoscene productions in academic archives like the Archive of Digital Art at digitalartarchive.at. This would require a dialogue between these communities to better understand the artistic, cultural, and historical value of demoscene works within the broader context of digital art.

I, for one, doubt that this will happen any time soon.

Why Name an Archive ADA?

The final question I want to address in this chapter is the reason why so many archives are named ADA or A.D.A. as it were. While I cannot 100% confirm it, I suspect one reason is that ADA is a short name that is easy to remember.

Another likely reason could be that the name ADA was chosen as a reference to a lady who is generally regarded to have been the first computer programmer, Ada Lovelace (1815 - 1852). To be fair, computers as we know them today did not exist in the 19^th century, but she was the first to write a program for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. This was an early mechanical computer and a very distant ancestor of the digital computer. It would have been programmed by setting gears and levers. The production techniques, materials, and craftmanship of the time were not up to the task of building such a machine. Ada Lovelace was so intrepid, that this did not stop her from writing a program for this hypothetical computer. She wrote a program to calculate Bernoulli numbers. It is considered to be the first algorithm ever written for a machine that could be considered a computer.

A hypothetical Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer, standing next to the hypothetical Analytical Engine (generated by Dall-E)

Naming a digital art archive after Ada Lovelace is highly symbolic. Ada Lovelace had a pioneering role in computing and visionary ideas about the creative potential of machines. When she worked on the Analytical Engine in the 1840s, she envisioned that machines could go beyond calculations to create art, music, and more. This aligns perfectly with digital art, which relies on computation. In addition, naming the archive after her honors women's contributions to technology.

More than a hundred years after Ada Lovelace's passing, the programming language Ada was named in her honor.