SceneSight - an introduction to the demoscene

Intel: Closed Demoscene Competition

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 13:19:33 -0500

Intel launched their website for a closed group demo competition with exclusive music by DJ Hell. The contestants are: ASD, Conspiracy, Farbrausch, MFX and Fairlight. The winning team will be announced December 1st and celebrated on December 7th at a party in Munich. For further information, visit the contest's website: http://intel-demoscene.de/

[...] Intel set up the “Intel® Centrino® Trailer Competition”. It sees the best demo groups from across Europe pit their wits against each other. To ensure comparability and fair play, the requirements are the same for all teams. Each team works on the same Asus high-end notebook on an Intel® Centrino® Duo platform. The sound basis is also identical. Exclusively for the Intel Demo Trailer Competition, DJ Hell has produced various tracks of between 30 and 40 seconds, which must be used by the teams. The deadline for the demos’ creation is about 10 weeks. After that, the teams have to stop work and present their demos on this website to see what the community thinks. The winning team will be revealed when voting ends on 1st December.

Demoscene@OpenChaos showing Breakpoint Demos (German)

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 16:23:59 -0400

The OpenChaos Meeting at the Chaos Computer Club Cologne will feature the best demos from Breakpoint 2006.

Schon beinahe eine kleine Tradition: seit dem ersten Jahr des Bestehens schaut der Digitale Kultur e.V. im Rahmen der Vortragsreihe OpenChaos hinter die Kulissen und auf die Compo-Highlights der Breakpoint.

Am Donnerstag, den 27. April 2006 werden in den Clubräumen des Chaos Computer Club Cologne die besten Beiträge aus den verschiedenen Disziplinen der Breakpoint 2006 vorgeführt.

Im Rahmen der Präsentation wird zusätzlich auf die Hintergründe der Demos und ihrer Macher eingegangen.

Weitere Informationen finden sich auf den Seiten des C4.

Bitfilm call for submissions

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 15:46:00 -0400

You belong to the scene and write realtime Demos with neat visual effects and music on descent hardware? Then you should head over to the Bitfilm website to contribute your Demo to the "Bitfilm Festival" and win fame and prices. The winner will receive a price money of 1500 Euros!

In 2006 Bitfilm uses a new voting process: the Internet community will decide about the Bitfilm Awards by a public voting process between June and September. For this reason they don't accept .exe-files. Technical difficulties would scare non-demosceners away. They recommend to use .kkapture by Farbrausch for the transformation.

Submission deadline is June 1, 2006. The Award Show will take place on September 7 in Hamburg, Germany.

It's possible to post contributions that were already released elsewhere. They only reject Demos that were presented at Bitfilm before. So please post your contributions if you want to take part immediately here: http://www.bitfilm.com/festival/demos.php?lang=eng

Die Zeit: Article about the demoscene (German)

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 16:28:55 -0400

ZUENDER -Subkultur : Kunst aus Code

Featuring a profile of sTEELER and others.

German Article: Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 15:34:40 -0400

KSTA.DE: Moderne Kunst nur aus Nullen und Einsen

The Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger featured an introductionary artice on the demoscene, published today.

Demo Screening at the "Filmfest Dresden"

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 09:27:53 -0400

This Friday there will be a demo-screening as part of the Filmfest Dresden - International Festival for Animation and Short Films.

It will show a selection of some of the most interesting win32-demos released over the last five years.

The programme is called Passages 3: Programmed Fantasies in Realtime.

Location and time details:
Fr. 15.04. - 21:30 / Cinema 5
Filmtheater Metropolis/Waldschlösschenareal
Dresden, Germany

For more information check: http://www.filmfest-dresden.de/

[via email from j-fanque]

intro.de: Article on the demoscene (German)

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 16:42:02 -0400

Intro - MAGAZIN > MUSIK - Demoscene. - Rechenkünstler by Felix Knoke.

CeBIT: Realtime meets Culture

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 12:28:08 -0500

From March 10th to 16th supported by ATI and Intel, Digitale Kultur e.V. presents the Demoscene at CeBIT, the world's biggest computer exhibition in Hanover.

As co-exhibitor of ATI and with suapport from Intel, Digitale Kultur e.V. presents the worldwide network of approximately 15.000 computer artists, the so called "Demoscene", in hall 27.

In collaboration with Intel GmbH and ATI, Digitale Kultur gives interested visitors an understanding of the technical and artistic contact with computers. The focus of the presentation are mostly exhibits from the Digital Art and the Demoscene of the recent years.

Additionally Digitale Kultur aims to give a point of reference for Demosceners at CeBIT, "Aside of the pure meeting point, the exhibition booth has always been more. There has been active exchange between artists and audience.", Stefan Keßeler president of the association summarizes his memories of last year's appearance.

Uwe Semtner, marketing director of ATI Europe, is impressed by the demoscene: "The Digitale Kultur booth shows clearly that demos demand a great deal of performance from nowadays' graphic cards and that our products meet these requirements."

Just recently Digitale Kultur started allowing for the international character of the Demoscene by welcoming international members. So this year at CeBIT, the new Belgium member Peter Smets actively supports the association at the booth.

Submission deadline for fmx'05 extended

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Sun, 06 Mar 2005 15:51:20 -0500

If you still want to compete in the fmx digital arts festival make sure you upload your demo-submissions by Tuesday 2005/03/08.

Your demo may have participated in other festivals before. So make sure you submit your demo here:

http://www2.festival-gmbh.de/sixcms/detail.php?template=d_fmx05_flashup_form

What do you get? You can archieve international reputation and win one of several hardware prizes!

Virtual Museum opens subsidary in germany

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Sun, 23 Jan 2005 23:10:53 -0500

Virtual Museum opens subsidary in germany

Digitale Kultur e.V. in cooperation with NetCologne opens German mirror
for global "scene.org" network.

"scene.org" is the main virtual museum for the worldwide demoscene. The
demoscene concerns itself with creating computer generated short movies
that show the ultimate in graphic and sound performance capable on todays
hardware. The archive contains nearly all productions released in the last 15
years.

In cooperation with NetCologne, who is suppling the connectivity, Digitale
Kultur e.V. is now able to provide a German mirror for the currently 250
gigabyte size archive.

Originally only reachable via FTP protocol, the main server located in Holland
was updated over the years to a comfortable WWW site, allowing the users to
download the productions from their nearest mirror. Available among those
mirrors now is the copy located in the NetCologne datacenter in Cologne,
Germany.

"A German mirror is insofar important for the demoscene as after very
successful demoscene events the main server suffers from the amount of
access", says Timo Eismar from Digitale Kultur e.V.
Beside productions from the demoscene "scene.org" also contains a music
archive featuring many netlabels. "Free server such as these are essential for
the digital media and artworld", underlines Marc Wallowy, labelhead of Tokyo
Dawn Records, strengthening the importance of this server to the netlabelmovement:
"Without the gracious support of organisations like Digitale Kultur
e.V. or Scene.org the rising netlabel scene would never be possible".

Outreach report from Switzerland

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 10:38:08 -0500

As some of you might have heard before (Ojuice, personal message, or some other mailinglists), we've been doing heavy outreach action yesterday evening at the University of Arts in Zurich. We (that were Paralax/Speckdrumm, Robocop/Atlantis and me) were invited by the professors of the faculty of 'New Media' to present the idea of demos and the demoscene to the students under the idea of a regular
event called "Digitaler Salon". This event is more or less regularly taking place and always features some interesting presentation and whatever you can think of (beside a good supply of beer and snacks, of course).

What we did
As requested we prepared a full featured demostration/presentation of demos and the demoscene. Personally, I prepared a PowerPoint presentation with a lot of photos/images and audio/video content (yes, it took me quite a while, but it's possible to do that with PowerPoint) :) Paralax has been talking about the history of the scene and explained expressions that are wellknown to all of us, but not to people that are not involved within the scene. Paralax additionally showed how to create a demo using a demo-
tool (coding is not what the students of an Art school are most interested in) - he presented his own tool of course. I continued by explaining "news and media" in the scene as well as giving and idea of what a demoparty is (thanks to Slengpung for all the photos ;-)). Robocop closed the presentation by having an unprepared speech about the Swiss demoparty "Buenzli" and generally about his passion for demos and the scene.

The Feedback
The feedback was awesome, people invited us for beer and wanted to know more details - and some of the even plan to come to Buenzli next August. In some smaller room right beside the presentation location, we set up some kind of demo-lounge with a C64 running various demos, an old 486 running Second Reality + a new PC having a couple of Windows-demos on the harddisk.

I have also been talking a lot to the professors and it seems that there will be some more outcome in this, maybe seminaries on demos or generally realtime-arts. As another form of feedback those "artists" gave me some hints to revolutionize demomaking (not exactly, but they gave some hints on making demos looking more like traditional oldschool movies when it comes to the design/separation
of the screen content and so on).. :)

That's it for this small report that has just been written to show you that also the Swiss scene does outreaching ;-) Actually, from our side, the thing was running through our Buenzli-society. I will certainly write a more detailed report on all this for the next issue of PAiN.

Best regards,
[unlock/vantage/padua]

Demoscene presentation at the University of Ulm

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Wed, 24 Nov 2004 10:54:36 -0500

On December 2nd, Ainc will be presenting the demoscene at the university of ulm. For more information, see their flyer (PDF).

Demoscene article in Phlow (German)

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 16:30:14 -0400

Ghandy wrote an article about the demoscene for the German magazine Phlow:
Phlow: netzkultur: Die Demoszene - Versuch einer Definition

Bitfilm Festival introduces new Demo Competition

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Thu, 08 Jul 2004 10:52:03 -0400

The Bitfilm Festival for neo-digital film culture introduces a new award for 64K demos 3D animations lasting several minutes that fit into a computer program of only 64 kilobyte.

German Article: Die Zeit: 29/2004 "Coole Kunst im Rechner"

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Thu, 08 Jul 2004 10:49:43 -0400

The German magazine Die Zeit features a nice Article on the Demoscene in their latest issue:

Die Zeit - Coole Kunst im Rechner

It serves as a pretty good introduction to the Demoscene and was written by Aaron Koenig, who is one of the organizers of the Bitfilm-Festival, which also features an intro competition.

Farb-Rausch's release of Demomaker slashdotted

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Tue, 22 Jun 2004 07:42:00 -0400

Slashdot | Farb-Rausch Releases PC Demo Creation Software

Demoscene Art Book released

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Tue, 15 Jun 2004 14:21:21 -0400

The First Book ever about the Demoscene is ready to be released! Titled: "Demoscene: The Art of Real-Time". 72 pages, full colour, professional quality, various writers, lots of visuals/design. 

Published by Even Lake Studios & katastro.fi. The book is released at the Sonar (www.sonar.es) festival in Barcelona 17-19.6.2004. This 'art style' book is for everyone,not just for demosceners. It has a longer in-depth history article, case articles and 100% demoscene designs. For more info please visit:
http://www.evenlakestudios.com/books

OpenChaos: Demoscene (German)

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Wed, 26 May 2004 11:37:15 -0400

The Chaos Computer Club Cologne will have a presentation by Digitale Kultur e.V. on the demoscene. The talk will mainly be about the Breakpoint releases and the 'making-of' for some of those productions them:
chaos computer club cologne | OpenChaos am 27.05.2004: Demoszene

Breakpoint & ATI Press Release

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Mon, 05 Apr 2004 11:51:18 -0400

Press information for immediate release

ATI Inc. and Breakpoint announce partnership for festival of independent computer artists

The Canadian manufacturer of innovative visual processor solutions ATI Technologies Inc. and the organization behind the Breakpoint digital festival today announced their partnership for the Breakpoint 2004 event.

Breakpoint takes place at Easter, in Bingen, which is near the river Rhein in central southern Gemany. For 4 days Breakpoint hosts more then 1000 independent digital artists from 33 countries. At the festival itself, the artists will submit self-made creations in several competitions. These creations (called demos) consist of music, graphics, and computer code. The art produced by combining these elements is judged by the Breakpoint audience, and those with the highest ratings will receive prizes at the end of the festival.

Simon Kissel, Main Organizer of Breakpoint, comments "ATI Inc. is a perfect partner for us, as they are not just offering us a platform for presentation, but also communicating directly with the artist community."

Central for ATI Inc. is the value of the highly creative output of this growing computer subculture: "ATI's main purpose is to provide perfect 3D hardware. The artists at Breakpoint show us how to combine the technical, the avant-garde, and the cutting edge - pushing limits with an artist's eye." - Uwe Semtner, Marketing Director of ATI Germany.

The so called "demoscene", who provide their works to Breakpoint is a worldwide non-commercial society of creative individuals involved in the making of what they have termed "Demos". "Demos" could be considered computer generated music clips done by programmers, graphic artists and musicians. These show what kind of graphic and sound effects can be done by pushing computer hardware to its full potential. Breakpoint is one of the demoscene's culminating events where the designers, programmers, and composers of these "demos" exhibit their skills.

Breakpoint: 09.04.2004 - 12.04.2004 - Militärdepot Bingen http://breakpoint.untergrund.net
http://www.demoscene.info

For more information: breakpoint04@untergrund.net
press contact:
Simon Kissel +49(0)6721-991177
Ekkehard Brüggemann +49(0)170-7311245

Heise Online: Demos @ CeBIT (German)

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Sun, 21 Mar 2004 13:18:20 -0500

The German publisher Heise features an article about the Demoscene display by Digitale Kultur e.V. at the world's biggest computer show, CeBIT: heise online - CeBIT special - "Demos" auf dem Messegelände.

demoscene.info launched

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Thu, 18 Mar 2004 11:14:34 -0500

This new site demoscene.info, launched by Digitale Kulture e.V. today. site aims to be _the_ site to send people to that want to find out more about the demoscene. Good job!

Real Time 3DX - Demo or Die @ SIGGRAPH

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Fri, 12 Mar 2004 14:42:17 -0500

FYI:

Message from:
Sandy Ressler

Hi....all you demo scene folks might be interested in a SIGGRAPH 04 special event we're calling "Real Time 3DX - Demo or Die" if you could pass on to your members...that would be great...and/or maybe it makes sense to collaborate somehow...thanks...Sandy

The description of the even is located at:
ftp://ftp.padua.org/pub/c64/Docs/tmp/3DXCFP.pdf

demoscene music on the radio (reboot.fm)

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Thu, 04 Mar 2004 14:40:11 -0500

Crest writes: demoscene music on air

In March you can listen again to the music of the demoscene on the Berlin based radio station reboot.fm. The 2nd programme will be in the night from 8th to 9th March at 4am. The third programme with talk about the demoscene (hopefully with studio guests) will be on 20th of March from 13:00 - 15:00 CET. You can listen to their internet stream as well.

Stern (German) on Farbrausch's The Popular Demo

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 12:58:43 -0500

The German Magazine Stern features an article on the FarbRausch's "The Popular Demo": FR-025: Farbenrausch unter Windows.

ORF.at: Mehr als Nostalgie

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Wed, 18 Feb 2004 09:42:00 -0500

As Mr. Alpha posted on c64.sk he came across an interesting, extensive old German article on Retro-Computing, the c64 and the demoscene on the website of an Austrian TV station: Mehr als Nostalgie.

Demoscene FAQ

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 16:11:07 -0500

The demoscene FAQ was just updated. Also I noticed that we didn't have a link to it on the site yet, so I added it right away.

Pilgrimage Outreach

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 16:03:30 -0500

In Pilgrimage: Outreach Rich Thomson describes his "First Night 2004" presentation of demoscene art in Salt Lake City including the details about the preparation and organization.

Demos as a benchmarking tool?

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 01:56:14 -0500

Redhound from scene.org reports:

Hm browsing the referrer logs of scene.org of this month i found some interesting referring webpages:...

2000/08: Fast Company: Write Code. Do Demos. Party On.

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Thu, 06 Nov 2003 16:43:47 -0500

Back in August of 2000, Fast Company ran a report on the demoscene, based on a visit to The Gathering: Fast Company | Write Code. Do Demos. Party On. Unfortunately there weren't too many reactions/comments.

scene @ ars electronic 2003 (vienna, september 5th-10th)

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Thu, 06 Nov 2003 16:38:37 -0500

Earlier this year, Dierk "Chaos" Ohlerich (Farbrausch), Markus "Droid" Pasula(Haujobb/MFX), Matti "Melwyn" Palosuo (Scene.org/Haujobb) and Ekki "sTEELER" Brüggemann presented the art of the demoscene at Ars Electronica in Austria and here's their report: scene.org - ars electronica 2003.