So you’ve heard something about the demoscene. You know that it’s a collection of highly talented digital artists from around the world who produce mind blowing demonstrations on all sorts of computer hardware.

Now you want to know more.. more about the demos and about the people behind them, but you don’t know where to start?

Well you’ve come to the right place!

Us dedicated people here at Demoscene Outreach have all joined up for a mission.. a mission to spread the gospel of the demoscene to the entire world. Whether you’re an artist, a designer, a musician, a programmer or just someone who appreciates the special brand of underground digital art that the demoscene has to offer, we’ll tell you everything you need to know. And once we’ve taught you all that we can, we’ll show you how you can take things to the next level and get involved yourself!

We’ll be bringing you news and in-depth articles as well as pointing you at the very best that the demoscene has to offer. What’s more, all this content will be geared towards you – the newcomer to the demoscene. Take our hand and stick with us, we’ll look after you!

And now that you’ve found us, stay tuned! We’ve got so many exciting things that we’re just dying to tell you about..

[ Demoscene Research ] Scene-related conference in Poland
The School of Media and Audiovisual Culture at University of Lodz will organize a conference with the theme “Behind the Scenes” on 23–24.5.2015. More details and the CfP can be found on their website. This could be a nice opportunity to meet your demo researcher peers in person.
[Submitted by BitBot]

[ Demoscene Research ] Europe in 8 Bits
A recent documentary movie on the chipscene: Europe in 8 Bits. Available for purchase as DVD/BD or through a streaming service.
http://europein8bits.com/

[ Demoscene Research ] Four new titles
We’ve added a few new (and old) titles/abstracts to our ever-growing bibliography: Two German books on the 1980s cracking scene by Christian Stöcker (2011) and Matthias Horx (1984), a brand new paper on a C64 cracking/importing group from Peru (!) by Eduardo Marisca (2013), and a recent book chapter on games circulation in late-socialist Czechoslovakia […]

[ Demoscene Research ] Um Papel
Quite an extraordinary discovery this time: a Brazilian paper on demos by Emmanoel Ferreira and Abel Duarte, published at the VIII Simpósio Nacional da ABCiber (2014). The first ever demo article I’ve seen in Portuguese.

[ Demoscene Research ] New Blood Joins This Earth…
We’re happy to announce that we have a new editor who will help us speed up the updates – Antti hasn’t had much time lately and Markku has been quite burdened, too. Now Gleb has joined the crew. He’s currently doing his postdoc at the University of Zurich with a focus on software piracy. Expect […]

[ Demoscene Research ] Broken links fixed
Thanks to Brian Qiu who pointed out some broken links. Now most of them should be ok again. There are some changes looming ahead in the near future, but more on that later.

[Submitted by BitBot]

The exhibition SCRIPT FILMS - Type as Image in Movement is currently running in Karlsruhe, Germany, and will go on tour to Liverpool in 2014.

- Here's the full list of demos which are shown at the exhibition.
- Here are video stills of all shown demos.
- Here is the official exhibition teaser at YouTube.
[Submitted by Bobic]

SCRIPT FILMS - Type as Image in Movement: http://on1.zkm.de/zkm/stories/storyReader$8527 (or "SCHRIFTFILME - Schrift als Bild in Bewegung" in German) is an exhibition currently running at the ZKM | Museum of Contemporary Art, Karlsruhe, Germany, where demos from the following groups will be shown: Black Maiden, Bypass, Chorus, Cryptoburners, Equinox, Fairlight, Neuro, Northstar, Phenomena, Sanity, Scoopex, Super Swap Sweden, Triumph and Vision.

Through multiple digital possibilities, script can go beyond its function in the mediation of information and is increasingly gaining an autonomous, aesthetic status. Analog or digitally based films or film fragments are referred to as script films, whereby moving, animated, graphically designed and, above all, script set to sound play the main role.

The exhibition "SCRIPT FILMS" leads to places in which we encounter moving script: artistic productions, but also feature films, advertising, music videos or media facades in cities. The project "SCRIPT FILMS" represents an attempt to compile, typologize and publically present classical popular as well as lesser noticed and frequently difficult to access script films from twenty countries dating from 1895 to the present.

The exhibition enables visitors interactive access to script films: they can select the films and the kind of performance themselves. The exhibition is arranged as a mobile archive. The presentation at the ZKM provides insights into cultural and media developments, offers retrospectives and diagnosis of the present, but also outlooks into the media future, not least in the interactive media.

The project "SCRIPT FILMS" is collaborative project between the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe and the Experimental Media Lab (xm:lab) at the Saar Academy of Fine Arts, FACT Foundation for Art and Creative Technology Liverpool and Goethe Institutes worldwide.
[Submitted by Bobic]

Daniel Botz, a researcher at the Institute for Arts and Education at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, has written a book about the demo scene. In his book, entitled as "Kunst, Code und Maschine" he looks from a scientific point of view at the scene, their productions, different art styles and everything else, which makes this one the most comprehensive study ever about the demoscene. 428 pages are filled with tons of background information, exciting stories and tech stuff and even people who are familiar with the demoscene will find lots of interesting stuff in there.

"Kunst, Code und Maschine" is a book in German language covering an international phenomenon with a likewise international discourse, predominantly led in English. Writing in a different, native language or a technical terminology with local tradition often enables more precise statements, but not without inavoidably building a language barrier. To give the international reader an outline of the book's content, here is a commented table of contents in - roughly translated - English.

BitFellas .deMOSZENE spoke to Daniel Botz, author of this book. You can read the interview here.
[Submitted by Bobic]

Speckdrumm invites you to another demo scene outreach event at Vienna's hacker space of choice, the metalab! The event will be held on June 18th, cover coding, gfx and music topics as well as scener-compatible partying afterwards. For more information check out the official event site.
[Submitted by paralax]

A demo-related licentiate thesis called "Computer Demos - What Makes Them Tick?" was published on June 14th. It deals with the various practices and artifacts of the community and connects them to other historical developments. Downloadable here: http://www.kameli.net/demoresearch2/reunanen-licthesis.pdf
[Submitted by Marq]

SIGGRAPH has a new program (since 2009) where real-time graphics are shown before the SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater, on the big screen in the biggest room in the convention center. The intent is to become the showcase for the best real-time graphics, just as the Electronic Theater is the showcase for the best prerendered graphics.

If you're interested in submitting your demo, visit http://www.siggraph.org/s2010/for_submitters/live_real-time_demos. The deadline is April 28th, so there's just about a week left.
[Submitted by ryg]

The Filmfest Dresden focuses mainly on short fiction and animated films but recently opens up for new media as well ... and so for the gems of the Demoscene ...

Here are the details: Demoscene @ 22nd Filmfest Dresden - Tue. 2010-04-20 - Sun. 2010-04-25

Innovations: Demoscene
Thu. 2010-04-22, 8.00 PM, Kleines Haus 3 - Fri. 2010-04-23, 3.00 PM, Kleines Haus 3

The programme is featuring:
- Elements / Haujobb
- Doomsday / Complex
- Nine / Reflex
- IX / Moppi Productions
- Memories from the MCP / Brain Control
- FR-055: 828 / Farbrausch
- Lifeforce / Andromeda Software Development
- Chromosphere / SQNY
- Youscope / TVT
- Stargazer / Orb & Andromeda
- Elevated / TBC & RGBA
- Blunderbuss / Fairlight

Address:
Kleines Haus (Staatsschauspiel Dresden)
Glacisstraße 28
01099 Dresden
Germany

More Info: Filmfest Dresden: http://www.filmfest-dresden.de/
Stefan Pautze a.k.a. Felidae / Reflex
[Submitted by Felidae]

The seminar videos and all the additional stuff resulting from our Outreach event in November can now be downloaded here!
[Submitted by paralax]

As part of a group gathering in Vienna, Speckdrumm are organizing a scene outreach party on November 14th 2009 at the metalab hackerspace. We'll be starting at around 2pm with an open demoshow, have some scene related talks by fellow sceners and a party at night. Mind that the wiki site linked here is only in German but I've set up an English thread for the event on the Bitfellas forum for you!
[Submitted by paralax]

Once again Helsinki has played host to the mighty Assembly demoparty. Held between August 6th and 9th, Assembly is the largest combined demo and LAN party of the year. This year the entries were both impressive and plentiful, but we've managed to narrow things down by choosing just 15 of our favourites to show to you

Click here to see our recommendations

We'd like to link you to a couple of great articles about the demoscene that have recently been published on the web

Firstly we have "Past, present and future of the demoscene". This well-researched article delves into the history of the demoscene and asks where it might be heading next. It was originally presented in the UK print magazine PC Plus before being re-printed on TechRadar.com
http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/past-present-and-future-of-the-demoscene-616817

Secondly we have "Putting the demoscene in a context", an in-depth article written by Viznut of the demoscene group PwP, who are perhaps most well known for their Vic 20 demo Robotic Liberation
http://www.pelulamu.net/countercomplex/putting-the-demoscene-in-a-context/

I'm organizing a demoscene competition at a digital animation festival happening in Portugal 18-19 October 2009, called festival animatu.

It's the third year i been helping them out to put up demoscene related stuff into their program. and the second there will be a competition.

You can submit for competition demos and intros made after 1st january 2008.
Prize money 500e for the winner. Winner will be decided by jury vote.
More info at the regulations page.

To submit entries you have to fill out a form, sign and send it back (either by post, or digitally scanned). You can get the .pdf at the regulations page, or get the .doc version instead.

Deadline for delivering submissions is 30th July 2009.
[Submitted by ps]

The results from the jury are in... and here are the winners of the 7th Annual Scene.org Awards! We've included links to streaming videos of each one so that you can watch them all right now


[ Read the rest ... ]

Each year, Scene.org holds an awards ceremony at the Breakpoint party in Germany to celebrate the best demos from the previous year and last week they announced their nomations for 2008. These nominations cover 12 distinct categories and, this year, contain 39 different demos, intros and animations. Some of these you will recognise from our recent Demoscene 2008 viewing list but others will be new so we recommend that you take a look at these standout productions by clicking here. We will of course bring you the list of winners after the prize giving event on 11th April, but in the meantime - who do you think will win?

Our second set of viewing recommendations is a list of demoscene productions from 2008 that we think you might just want to know about. We've collected together 15 of our favourites from last year and linked you to more information about them - including a browser-enabled video for each one so that you can start watching them right now!

Click here to see our 2008 highlights..

If you're anywhere near Paris on Friday the 6th of February you could do a hell of a lot worse than heading on over to the "Demo In Paris" event. The evening looks like it will be a good primer on what demos are as well as a look at the spirit of the people creating them.

The event will be held at:

La Cantine
151 rue Montmartre, Passage des Panoramas
12 Galerie Montmartre
75002 Paris

from 19:30 to 23:00

Entry is free but the places are limited, so be quick! The organisers strongly recommend that you book your place as soon as possible.

Look here for more information

Recently released on the PSN network, Linger in Shadows is a PS3 exclusive demo written by the demogroup Plastic. This is the first time that such a demo has been released as a commercial project on a modern console and it's been creating a bit of a buzz!

For all you gamers and retired sceners who have had their interested in the demoscene piqued by this unusual product, we have collected together a big list of resources to help you find out more!


[ Read the rest ... ]

The first weekend in August saw Assembly 2008 being held in Helsinki, Finland. This is the largest demoparty of the year - an event where almost 5000 demosceners and gamers gather together for four days of gaming, socialising and watching demo competitions. Of course we were there for the socialising and the competitions, and boy did we see some great new demos!

This brings us neatly on to what will be the first in a regular series of viewing recommendations. In these we will be showing you our favourite demos, and each list will be based around a different theme.

So without further ado, check out our Assembly 2008 Viewing Recommendations by clicking here!