Demoscene
Since home-computers -like the Commodore C64 and Amiga – arrived in kids´ rooms in the mid-80s, the so-called demoscene evolved. Since 1992 I´m part of this development, first in the cracker group Agnostic Front, then in the pretty well-known demoscene group Haujobb from 1994 till today.
Digitale Kultur e.V.
To organize demoparties and promote the demoscene (What is the demoscene?) outside of its formerly secretive realms, we established the association Digitale Kultur e.V. in Cologne, Germany, in 2003.
Aside from organizing demoparties ourselves, the main aim of the association is to make the demoscene more visible to attract new talent and re-connect old sceners to the craft of realtime-demo-development – and being a touch-point for the interested public. The association has its focus on activities in Germany. Still, the mindset of any demoscener is always highly international, and thus we are happy to be involved in collaborations everywhere around the world.
Regular Activities
Our activities’ centerpiece is organizing the demoscene-party Evoke in Cologne, Germany – usually timely close to Respawn – Gathering of Game Developers & devcom during gamescom mid/end of August.
Other activities include expositions, talks, demo-shows, and we also advise other events and organize tours to events with demoscene-affiliations.
If you are interested in talks, demo-shows, or have a budget to invite us for an exhibition, send a message to vorstand [at] digitale-kultur [dot] org or get in touch with me.
Special Mission: Art of Coding
To ask the question why digital culture is not yet playing a role in UNESCO intangible cultural heritage, Andreas Lange and I initiated Art-of-Coding, an initiative to enlist the demoscene as the first digital culture on the list of UNESCO intangible world cultural heritage. With the help of many inside and outside of the scene, this initiative is groundbreaking in a few regards you can read more under the link below.
But to say the least: the initiative was already successful in Finland (!), where the demoscene is now since 2020 an official UNESCO intangible cultural national heritage. Hopefully few more countries to come!
If you are interested or want to support the initiative:
Please find all information under:
http://demoscene-the-art-of-coding.net/
Demo-Videos
Don´t know the products of the demoscene yet? The demoscene is not only about demos, but also graphics, music, coding, Ansi/Ascii, and many more things, but the most easily consumable are without a doubt the demos themselves.
Here is a selection of fantastic demos as Youtube-Videos from 2015: