2019 Demoscene

Image credit: CDAK / Quite & Orange

Friday July 19
3:30pm – 4:30pm
Ars Electronica Center, Level -1, Lecture Room

Demoscene - Digital Culture in Real-Time

The demoscene represents one of the most colourful facets of digital culture. Musicians, graphic artists and coders (programmers) form groups and work on a demo, a computer programme intended to show their personal skills and abilities. Thanks to competition between various groups, demos have been subject to a high degree of evolutionary pressure so-to-speak in terms of technology and style. This includes in particular the underlying algorithms and mathematics.

The incentive behind these efforts is to amaze others, to overcome apparently impossible technical challenges and to exhaust the limits of the hardware. While films as a rule can only play back their images or frames, demos generate these images for the exact moment - in real-time.

The screening is curated by Stefan Pautze (a.k.a. Felidae / Reflex) from Digitale Kultur e.V.
http://digitalekultur.org

Stefan Pautze is graduate engineer in the automotive branch and graphic artist. His artistical roots as well as his ties to the Demoscene date back to the nineties, when the mainly Dresden-based Commodore 64 demo group Reflex ruled the demo competitions.
Recently he works mainly in the field in between mathematics and art with focus on aperiodic tilings.
http://www.pautze.de

The programme was supported with captures from Frederik "Annikras" Heinrich.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Annikras

The programme is not suitable for epileptics.

Tracklist with credits:

  1. CDAK / Quite & Orange
    Windows PC, 4 kiB, 1st @ Chaos Constructions 2010 (Combined 64k/4k Competition)
  2. Intrinsic Gravity / Still
    Windows PC, 25.2 MiB, 1st @ Ghetto Scene 2014 (PC Demo Competition)
  3. Absolute Territory / Prismbeings
    Windows PC, 4 kiB, 2nd @ Revision 2017 (PC 4k Demo Competition)
  4. Mito Chondrio / Andromeda Software Development
    Windows PC, 6.0 MiB, 1st @ Euskal 2012 (Open Demo Compo)
  5. Heaven 777 / Razor 1911
    Windows PC, 4 kiB, 3rd @ Outline 2013 (Combined Demo / Intro Competition)
  6. Elevated / TBC & RGBA
    Windows PC, 4 kiB, 1st @ Breakpoint 2009 (PC 4k Demo Competition)
  7. Doomsday / Complex
    Xbox, 18.0 MiB, 3rd @ Assembly 2003 (Combined Demo Competition)
  8. Hartverdrahtet / Akronyme Analogiker
    Windows PC, 4 kiB, 1st @ Revision 2012 (Combined 4k Intro Competition)
  9. Numb Res / CNCD (Carillon & Cyberiad) &. Fairlight
    Windows PC, 55.4 MiB, 2nd @ The Gathering 2011 (Combined Demo Competition)
  10. FR-062: The Cube / Farbrausch
    Windows PC, 8.3 MiB, 1st @ The Ultimate Meeting 2009 (Combined Demo Competition)
  11. On / Mercury
    Windows PC, 64 kiB, 2nd @ Revision 2015 (PC 64k Demo Competition)