FACULTY OF FINE ART AND SCIENCES

ANTHROPOLOGY DEPARTMENT

THE DEMOSCENE SUBCULTURE:

ANTHROPOLOGICAL CASE STUDY

By

KEREM ALİ İNAL

20120203006

Submitted to the Anthropology Deparment

in Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Undergraduate Program

Istanbul 2017

THE DEMOSCENE SUBCULTURE:

ANTHROPOLOGICAL CASE STUDY

KEREM ALİ İNAL

20120203006

THESIS BOARD AND APPROVAL

YARD. DOÇ. AYŞE HİLAL TUZTAŞ HORZUMLU : ………….....................

THESIS EVALUATION GRADE : ………….....................

THESIS APPROVAL DATE : ………….....................

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Table of content:

PROLOGUE .................................................................................................................................. III

SUMMARY .................................................................................................................................. VI

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................. VIII

1. THE DEMOSCENE SUBCULTURE ............................................................................................. 9

1.1 Cultures and Subcultures .............................................................................................................. 9

1.2 What Is The Demoscene .............................................................................................................. 10

1.3 What is a Subculture ................................................................................................................... 19

1.4 Literature Review: ....................................................................................................................... 19

1.4.1 Technical Writings: ............................................................................................................... 21

1.4.2 Articles about the Community ............................................................................................. 21

1.4.3 Art and The Demoscene ....................................................................................................... 22

1.5 The Aim ........................................................................................................................................ 23

2. RESEARCH METHODS AND TECHNIQUES: ............................................................................. 25

2.1 What I Did .................................................................................................................................... 28

2.1.1 Funds for the Research ......................................................................................................... 31

2.2 Ethics ........................................................................................................................................... 31

3. THE SCENERS ...................................................................................................................... 33

3.1 Women in The Demoscene ......................................................................................................... 33

3.2 Professions of the Sceners .......................................................................................................... 36

3.3 Family and Personal Life .............................................................................................................. 36

3.4 The Nicknames ............................................................................................................................ 37

3.5 Art and The Demoscene .............................................................................................................. 39

4. THE PRODS. ........................................................................................................................ 41

4.1 Coding .......................................................................................................................................... 41

4.2 The Meaning of the Prods. .......................................................................................................... 43

4.3 Humor in The Demoscene ........................................................................................................... 43

4.4 The Groups .................................................................................................................................. 44

4.5 Hierarchy ..................................................................................................................................... 45

4.6 The Creation of a Demo .............................................................................................................. 45

4.6.1 Bit Music ............................................................................................................................... 46

4.7 Language in The Demoscene ....................................................................................................... 46

5. THE PARTY .......................................................................................................................... 48

5.1 The Atmosphere .......................................................................................................................... 48

5.2 The Attendants ............................................................................................................................ 50

5.3 The Party Structure ..................................................................................................................... 51

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5.4 The Party as the Social Glue ........................................................................................................ 52

5.5 Sleeping ....................................................................................................................................... 53

5.6 Communication ........................................................................................................................... 54

6. THE WHY? ........................................................................................................................... 55

6.1 The Reason Behind The Demoscene ........................................................................................... 55

6.1.1 Nostalgia ............................................................................................................................... 56

6.2 The Future of The Demoscene .................................................................................................... 57

CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................. 58

APPENDIX 1: REFERANCES .......................................................................................................... 63

APPENDIX 2: PICTURES ............................................................................................................... 66

APPENDIX 3: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS .......................................................................................... 84

APPENDIX 5: CV .......................................................................................................................... 86

III

PROLOGUE

The computer always had a very important place in my life. I remember playing with

my father’s work computer as a child. As time passed interest in computers grew into a passion

for technology in a more general sense. I was constantly following new developments, trying

out new gadgets and upgrading my computer to try and get it to an optimal level. On the other

hand, alongside my strong interest in technology, I was also very interested in people, cultures

and communities. I was always curious to know how people spent their days, what they were

thinking, what they were interested in, and the places they went to, how they went there and

why. So, I decided that studying anthropology would be the answer for me. I wanted to learn

more and understand more about different cultures. I realized eventually that I needed to find a

way to combine my interest in people with my interest in computers. There were quite a few

paths I could have taken but most of them required resources I did not have. I would have

needed assistants, much more time and funding all of which I lacked. As I was searching for a

topic for my paper I asked my teacher, Cenk Esiner, from whom I had taken a class the previous

year, for advice. From him I found out about a subculture called The Demoscene. This

subculture seemed to be just what I was looking for. Here was a whole “tribe”, so to speak, with

their own characteristics to be examined who had also come into being because of a shared

interest in computers. I had found what I was looking for.

Very soon I realized that there were many layers to this subject matter. First of all, this

“subculture” was not some tiny group of people as I had first thought. They existed in many

different countries throughout the world. There were large groups in The Demoscene in fierce

competition with each other which resulted in the community growing larger with a people

enjoying the competitive atmosphere. Also, not only was this subculture not well known in

Turkey, but it had remained pretty much unknown in other countries it existed. It is an obscure

subculture unexamined by anthropologists.

In Turkey, The Demoscene started when the Commodore 64 technology was introduced

into the country in the second half of the 1980s. Commodore was the first affordable PC. It’s

being the most affordable was one of the main reasons behind its huge success. My subjects in

this research call themselves ‘Sceners’. Their relationship with their computers differs from

ours in that they work with aspects of computer work little known to laypeople like us. They

are interested in the inner workings of the computer and are fluent in its language.

IV

Let me briefly describe what The Demoscene actually is. The Demoscene is an art

subculture, but it did not start as an art subculture. In the 1980s when the prices of computer

games started going up, young people of the time started hacking the games and marketing

them illegally. Even though this was an underground activity they still wanted the insiders to

know who they, the “official” hackers were. So, they started signing their work, by creating

small animations for the game player to view before they play the game. It started as a signature,

but with time the artwork became more and more elaborate with the addition of sound, color

and movement. What started out as just a signature became artwork which stood on its own.

The Demoscene is not just a hacker subculture; it also has an artistic component. It is an

opportunity for the members to express themselves freely through their art. For them The

Demoscene symbolizes freedom. They are not merely artists, they are very well versed in the

language of computers. They create their artwork by writing codes which is the basis of

computer software. It is the language computer programmers do their work in.

For the past 10-15 years The Demoscene has cut its cords with illegal activity and

created its own subculture based on the abilities that people were able to do with their

computers. These abilities are shown in a form of an art. Not all the participants of the

subculture call their workings art, however it is seen as an art form. The artwork they produce

have various names and different properties. Demo, Intro, Pixel Art and many more art forms

are created within The Demoscene community. During my research, I was able to meet some

very interesting people, people devoted to The Demoscene, to computers, to art and especially

to retro art. During the beginning of my research I had planned to make a demo, to try one at

the very least. After my research was done, I stopped trying to do what the sceners did, and left

it to the professionals. During the events I attended, I did try to understand how people were

doing the demos, but after trying to understand the coding for several hours, I stopped, and went

on to discover the reason behind such a hard and unknown art form.

I feel that this subculture deserves to be better known in Turkey. There is much that has

been written on the subject in other countries and I feel that we need more information on the

subject here as well. The computer is a big part of our lives. I hope this thesis will be a first step

in fulfilling my desire to combine my two passions; computers and anthropology.

V

The Demoscene subculture has been written a lot about, but the writings are mostly

about the technical side of The Demoscene, not about its human side. This is the main reason

why I believe that my thesis is an important start toward a new perspective on The Demoscene

community.

I feel I have learned a lot from doing this research and fieldwork. I learned about a

subculture that not many people know about, I studied and understood their missions and their

way of life. Next, I learned to respect their work as artists and as programmers. This graduation

paper not only helped me see this community, but it also allowed me to view the world from a

different perspective. Finally, the most important thing this paper has taught me is to be a better

anthropologist.

VI

SUMMARY

The purpose of this study is to observe, study and understand The Demoscene art

subculture worldwide. The Demoscene was a big community at its heyday with thousands of

participants in many different countries around the world, but is getting smaller and smaller

nowadays. The Demoscene is an art subculture, where the sceners (or artists) do digital art with

outdated computers. They combine visual aids, such as pictures, photographs and animated

visuals with music, producing an artwork. The Demoscene is not just an art subculture, though.

It is a subculture that tries to connect to the roots of computer programming. By using computers

that were popular in the early 1980s, machinery that may be considered ‘primitive’ by today’s

standards, the sceners create incredible works of art. What is interesting is that in its day, these

computers, would never be thought to be capable enough to create such art pieces. However,

despite the usage of ‘nostalgic’ machines, a main goal of the sceners is to exhibit their mastery

of computer programming, and to express their feelings by using art. The sceners main objective

is to showcase their “new” and unknown method of doing that certain project. The art work that

is shown exhibits the feelings of the sceners, but in addition to that, the sceners show their

ability to be able to do the art work.

To understand the environment of this subculture, I first went to the biggest Demoscene

party in Turkey, held at the Boğaziçi University in March of 2015. I was at the event for 72

hours, with about 50 other people. My objective in this pilot research was to generally

understand what The Demoscene is, what people do when they come together and see the

artwork they create in real life. Throughout my pilot research I believe I was able to complete

all my objectives. During my pilot research, I did in-depth interviews with three people and

conducted about ten shorter interviews with various others. My main focus was to observe the

atmosphere of the party and to get a basic demography of the event.

After my initial pilot research on Turkey, I found out that there was an even bigger party

in Germany, Saarbrucken called the Revision Party. On the 4th of April of the same year, I flew

to Germany and there I participated in the events for four days. The Revision Party was much

bigger than the biggest party in Turkey. There were around 500-600 hundred participants at the

peak of the party. The party was held at an old factory, and there was a building size screen in

one end of the room. It was one very big room, and all the demos (art pieces) were shown there.

There was constant music and a constant showing of art work, from older and current years.

VII

The main focus was again to understand the atmosphere, and the motives behind this subculture.

I was able to achieve my goal by conducting many one on one interviews, and talking to many

people during my research. Most of my interviews were done during events.

The final destination of my research was in America, Boston: The @party. This was a

much smaller party from what I had seen in Germany, similar to the one I attended in Turkey.

The party was held in an MIT conference room. It lasted two days and there were many

interesting technological presentations done during the party. My main objective here, was, one

again, to understand who the sceners were, to get closer with the sceners and try to understand

their motives.

The main objective of this paper is to understand The Demoscene subculture by

spending time with the sceners, and by attending all activities of the group in Turkey and as

much activities as possible in other countries. I was able to attend two other organizations from

other countries, yet this gave me a broad perspective on The Demoscene subculture.

Key words: Demoscene, Demoparty, Art, Digital Art, Nickname, Subculture, Art

Subculture, Nostalgia, Commodore 64, Amiga, Community, Demo, Gender, Pixel Art.

VIII

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to start by thanking my thesis advisor, Asst. Prof. Hilal Tuztaş Horzumlu,

for her invaluable guidance through the hard process of writing a thesis. It took a while to

complete the thesis, yet in the end it was all worth it. I am indebted to her for the patience,

intellectual stimulation and criticism that she provided throughout the project.

Next, I would like to thank my teacher, now friend, Lecturer Cenk Esiner for pushing

me in the right direction and helping me find the perfect graduation paper subject I could

imagine. I think I finally understood the butterfly effect…

All my teachers that got me to where I am, and the others who helped me when I was

down, I thank them as well…

I would like to thank my interviewees in The Demoscene parties who went into the

trouble of answering my dwelling questions with patience. Without their insight to The

Demoscene I would not have been able to continue with my research.

I would like to thank all my friends and family that helped me get through this paper

with ease. Without my mother’s knowledge and insights throughout all the steps, I would be

lost. I thank you for all your help and support.

Finally, I would like to thank my Father. He restlessly helped me to excel and pushed

through the hard times, showed me the ropes and believed in me. For this and a lot more, I

thank you…

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1. THE DEMOSCENE SUBCULTURE

With the advancement in technology and the cheapening of electronic equipment,

computers entered our daily lives. They are not just a part of the business world anymore, but

personal gadgets. As more and more people began to be involved with computers, some using

them for playing games, others for communication, some for accounting and writing term

papers and dissertations, some began to use them creatively to produce works of art. Art itself

has accompanied and sometimes led the development of humankind since the Stone Age. Now,

in the age of computers, art has become digitalized.

As the world gets increasingly more digitalized and computerized, researching the

relationship between humans and computers anthropologically is important. In this research, I

will be focusing on a specific computer subculture that combines computers and art. The

Demoscene art subculture has been around for about 30 years. This might not seem as a long

time, but if one thinks about it, it implies that this subculture has been around since the

beginning of the affordable home computer age. The Demoscene is one of the rare groups that

have been with us since the computers have invaded our homes and lives. Moreover, The

Demoscene subculture is a worldwide phenomenon. Its spreading across national boundaries

also makes this subculture unique, in its own way.

1.1 Cultures and Subcultures

According to Sarah Thornton, subcultures are:

“[Subculture is] groups of people that have something in common with

each other (i.e. they share a problem, and interest, a practice) which

distinguishes them in a significant way from the members of other social

groups” (Gelder & Thorton, 1997, p. 1)

“In fact, the prefix “sub” in “subcultures” ascribes “a lower or

secondary rank to the entity it modifies” and “gives us a clue to one of

the main assumptions of this tradition of scholarship”: that the social

groups investigated “are subordinate, subaltern or subterranean”,

even deviant or debased” (Marques, 2014, p. 72)

Henry Jenkins (1997) says about the fans. As I already said, The Demoscene artists are also

fans: fans of Game Boys, Commodores, Amiga computers and other old gaming and computer devices.

For people outside the subculture The Demoscene and fans can be interpreted as fanatics with obsessive

10

or weird likings, but for people inside the subculture it is just a particular lifestyle: “an underground

digital community, a digital lifestyle platform” (Marques, 2014, p. 72).

The Demoscene itself has many properties of a subculture, the cultural glue that holds them

together, the nicknames, the technical language that the sceners use when talking amongst each other

are all indicators of a subculture. When I first started to research about The Demoscene, I thought it was

a small community, with flimsy bonds with other countries. But after a while, I started to see this

community that is attached to one another with commodores, amigas and many other obsolete devices

that are not used anymore. The more I dove in to the community, the more I saw how people were

interacting with one another, how people knew one another, and it became clear to me that this had to

be something bigger than a community.

The first Demoparty I was able to attend was in Istanbul Turkey, there were about 50 people at

the most, and I got to talk to a lot of them I had a chance to hear the story from their side. As I kept

hearing stories I saw patterns that correlated, kids who were just learning about computing, somehow

met new friends that were in demogroups, illegal demogroups at the time. This pattern I saw throughout

my research, and it always amazed me to see the same pattern person after person.

After the first demoparty in Turkey, which was a small one, I went to the Revision party in

Saarbrucken. There were hundreds of people there, and none of them were from Turkey. I got to talking

to some of the people at the revision party, and the moment I told them I was from Turkey, they began

asking me about people I met at the party in Turkey. It was so interesting for me to hear their names so

far away from Turkey, and they knew a lot about them as well… At that point, I was sure that this is

much bigger than a community, it was a subculture.

1.2 What Is The Demoscene

Before explaining the scene Demoscene itself, understanding where the name comes

from is important to understand the subculture: The name Demoscene is made up by combining

two words. The first word Demo and the second word Scene. Demo is short for demonstration,

which is defined as a non-interactive, multimedia presentation of a software. In context, it

means the demonstration of the programmer’s abilities. Scene is defined as a part of a play,

movie. In context, it is the art work presented by the sceners. Scene is a term frequently used in

a cultural context to explain a ‘movement’ of sorts. An example would be the growing graffiti

scene that was scene in the late 1980’s (Wasiak, 2012, p. 264).

11

The Demoscene is a computer subculture whose members produce 'demos', audio-visual

presentations that run in real-time on a computer. Real time means that the computer

‘understands’, ‘reads’ the code written by the Scener in real time, it reads the code, and projects

what is said in the code. There is no loading, of the code before the demo starts, this is what

real time refers to. The main goal of a demo is to show off the technical skills of the

demonstrator, as well as his/her audio-visual aesthetic sensibility. Hence, a “demo” is short for

demonstration, referring to the fact that one demonstrates achievement of the three aspects –

Skill, audio and visual aesthetic sensibility. Demos runs on different platforms, ranging from

both old hardware like the Commodore 64 or the Commodore Amiga, to contemporary

platforms like the PC. A demo takes from anywhere to a few days to several years to create and

the creators go to “demo-parties”, conventions of up to 2-3000 people that meet for a weekend

to compete and show off their work (Hansen, Nørgård, & Halskov, 2014, p. 35).

Of course, The Demoscene is not only about computers, the second main component of

The Demoscene is the art factor. Art is deeply rooted in the sub culture. The people in the sub

culture themselves see their work as art projects. The art aspect has changed as has the

computers have in the past 30 years since the PC’s first came out. Graphics and art forms created

by computers has changed. This change can be seen in The Demoscene as well as outside, the

graphics and art pieces that people are able to make with the help of computers in unbelievable.

Art took another meaning after the entry of computers, visual arts started to become more and

more popular, graphics were being made much easily and the world has changed due to the

addition of computers.

12

“The roots of The Demoscene reach far back to the first computer

generated graphic art subcultures in the early 60s. Ben Laposky in the USA

and Herbert W. Franke in Europe are considered as pioneers in the field

of early computer art (Goodman, 1987). Laposky’s relations of fleeting

light images using a cathode-ray oscilloscope by supplying the deflecting

electrodes with varying voltages based on different time functions is

similar to classical elements used in Demo art.”(Hastik & Steinmetz,

2012, p. 43)

This also applies to Charles Csuri’s first real-time animations and the

usage of computer technology as a medium for art (Csuri 2012). His

programmed functions with attributes manipulated by mathematical

instructions are as sophisticated as algorithms used in Demo art(Hastik &

Steinmetz, 2012, p. 43).

The Demoscene began in the early 1980’s where programming was newly started to

become a hobby for young people. Until the late 1980’s The Demoscene was associated with

the underground illegal cracker scene. Before the home computer revelation there was a

minimal amount of computer graphics done in the world. These graphics were later on used in

arcade games and many other places. The Demoscene does not date back as far as the computer

does, wherever in the early 1950’s there were certain computers in university labs across the

world, where with the minimal amount of graphics people were able to make colorful figures,

which help The Demoscene grow and expand.

Photograph1. A Hand down on an oscilloscope. Source: https://hackadaycom.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/scope-hand.jpg?w=400&h=300

13

Demo artists initially developed small introductory presentations for cracked home

computer games. This digital signature, so called Cracktro or Crack-Intro, was a start screen

with logo of the cracker group, colored text, marquee with information on the game and

greetings to friendly cracker groups, graphics, music and effects using the background color.

Soon these cracktros became more spectacular than the games and developed into independent,

real-time graphics, motion graphics and audiovisual arts (Hastik & Steinmetz, 2012, p. 45).

The cracking scene was mainly influenced by the success of Commodore 64, by

allowing a large quantity of people to be able to own computers in their homes. With this ability

to use computers in homes the gaming industry started to grow. After a short while the

domestically unavailable and expensive games were being sold in the pirate market. With the

availability of modems in houses, games were able to be uploaded and downloaded off Bulletin

Board Systems created. In Europe where the modem was scarce the distribution of games was

done by mail(Wasiak, 2012, p. 260).

Crackers (people who change the codes of software to their own want) who not only

changed the codes of software but also removed copy protections, they also modified and

improved original games. The aim of such modifications was the removal of all noticed errors

and glitches in the original code, since the cracked game was meant to be superior to the original

in every possible way. Another popular practice was the compression of game files. This was

important for practical reasons: it was easier to send a compressed game on one floppy disk

than the original two-disk version. This allows for easier transfer of the game and other of the

main reasons is because they can! (Wasiak, 2012, p. 262)

“Because we can!” is something I came across during my research. One of the main

starting points of The Demoscene was to show the skill of forcing a computer that could not do

much, beyond its boundaries to make things that the manufacturers of the computers could not

do. This seen in the categories of the parties as well. Trying to make the most out of a very

small amount of memory adds to the effect, and shows the skill of Scener.

As games from the 1980s were far more difficult than comparable products are today,

there was another popular form of modification. There was no ‘Save’ option, hence one needed

to spend an enormous amount of time finishing difficult arcade games. Crackers helped gamers

with the introduction of so called trainers, a modification of the code responsible for losing lives

14

or energy in the game. A decent cracker could add a simple question in his crack screen: ‘Do

you want unlimited lives? Y/N.’ By pressing one of those keys, the player could choose the

modified or the original game version. This allowed for the gamer to continue on playing

without the game stopping the player. Aside from modifying games, crackers also made

graphics and music that was used in crack screens, or distributed independently (Wasiak, 2012,

p. 265).

These intros were short introductions to the game, where in original games the

commercial of the distributor was seen. When manipulating the codes, crackers often changed

this intro and added their own names, or their own comments instead of the original. The main

reason to do this was to make one’s name heard in the industry. This was not only via a visual

graphic, but often had a vocal aid as well.

Virtually from the beginning, everyone in the computer underground used pseudonyms,

or handles, instead of their real names. This custom was already introduced when the police did

not yet have any interest in computer piracy. It was a cultural trait, typical for subcultures, rather

than a way of concealing one’s true identity from law enforcement agencies. The basic social

structure of this subculture was the scene group, which mostly encompassed a few members. It

was customary to write a personal handle along with the name of the group divided by a slash

(Wasiak, 2012, p. 266).

The Demoscene groups were formed during the beginning of the subculture, as in many

subcultures, as subgroups within the subculture. As The Demoscene subculture evolved, the

groups within it got bigger and better. People who could work best together started to work in

the same groups. Macdonald states that:

“A crew is a group of likeminded writers who band together under a

single name to form a union. Crews can be small or large, illegal or

legal, local or even international. But they all share a common purpose

– support”(Macdonald, 2001, p. 112).

Aside from the support offered by the group, it was easier for a team than for a single

person to distribute games. One-member was responsible for copy protection removal, another

one made graphics and music for crack intros, and yet another member was responsible for the

distribution of games (Wasiak, 2012, p. 266).

15

One way for people to become members of the groups was by writing to the addresses

that were provided in the intro of the games. Another way of entering was by talking and finding

a group member. As I heard from my interviews this was not hard to do. In the early 80’s people

with floppy disks were not very common to see, and when you saw a person holding a couple

of floppy disks, you could assume that they were a part of the scene.

A story told by ‘Weasel’ explains how the process of entering a group worked:

‘I started talking to that guy and asked him what disks that are and what

would be on them. He was very nice and started to talk to me as well and

told me about him being a musician with the handle HAVOK in a

computer group called FRONTLINE on the C-64. […] he invited me to

come with him to a weekly meeting of his group. […] At the following

weekend, I met with Havok and drove to the meeting place – a Burger

King restaurant […]. I was pretty shy at the beginning so that I was only

just watching all of them person by person to get some impressions about

those “illegal” guys. […] When that meeting was over I held a game

called IKARI WARRIORS in my hands which I had to crack till the next

meeting to prove that I could really crack and to get accepted to join

Frontline. Those guys let me know that the game had a pretty hard

protection on it and that they doubt that I’d be able to do the crack anyway

[…].’ It is important to emphasize how the subcultural rite of passage was

constructed through proficiency in technology use. After successful copy

protection removal, ‘Weasel’ went with the copied game to the next

meeting to attend a ceremony of joining the group: ‘DEEJAY was the only

cracker in that group and he was also the one who had to “examine” my

work if it was good or whatever. […] he said after looking into my work

for a pretty long while: “Well, the crack isn’t bad at all! […] My decision

is: Let him join!” That was the beginning of my long and still lasting

scene-career as a cracker’(Wasiak, 2012, p. 267).

From this you can gather two important things, one the so-called geeks of our time, were

actually very socially active. As seen by the formatting of groups in The Demoscene. Secondly

Wasiak explains the group dynamics, how they started and evolved and the groups rites of

passage’s.

Another way that the scene evolved was the process of cracking games turning into

financial gain, where the cracker sold the cracked games to his friends to earn an income in

addition to his pocket money. Although this was done in the industry the majority of the scene

had no gain in doing this, calling the people who earned money off of this ‘Lamers’. The

crackers at this time are in their late teens or early 20’s(Wasiak, 2012, p. 268).

16

“According to computer underground values, three categories of

computer users exist: real sceners, often called elite, lamers, described

with derogative terms, and gamesters, mostly presented as

neutral”(Thornton, 2013, p. 99).

(3) In the late 1980’s the youth formed social and cultural practices with characteristics

similar to other youth formed subcultures of the era. These youths formed subcultures had

especially started to be seen in the late 1980’s, as for instance, in the graffiti scene, bodybuilding

culture, goths, hip hop culture, the blitz kids, metal heads, poppers, the rave and acid scene, and

skateboard culture. These are all cultures formed by youths of the time (Wasiak, 2012, p. 264).

The Demoscene is actually very similar to these other subcultures I have mentioned. As in other

subcultures, where young people with similar interests and personalities come together to form

a culture, a unified understanding of a project; young people interested in computers and coding

start understanding and using their computers to form art projects and The Demoscene itself.

Examples of this could be given from almost all the interviews I had done on the subject.

Almost all of my interviewees told me similar stories of getting involved in The Demoscene. It

starts with their parents buying them the high end new commodore 64, then the youngster

spends days trying to understand the coding language, which was mandatory to learn to use the

computer. Later on, the kids meet other kids with similar computers and enthusiasm in learning

new codes, and changing the original codes. This leads to a form of a much larger subculture

that is now seen worldwide.

It has to be mentioned, however, that The Demoscene has a ‘dark’ past too. With illegal

activities in its past, the security forces of various countries have had a huge impact on how the

subculture developed. For example, in the 1980s when personal computers were new in many

countries and where laws for computer activities were not yet developed, especially in the

developing countries, piracy of software programs and cracking were not seen as illegal

activities. There was a difference between developed and developing countries. In Ukraine, for

example, such activities were not considered to be illegal in the United States, on the other

hand, such activities were considered to be illegal much earlier on. With the difference in law,

The Demoscene continued to grow in different forms. In the developing countries, Ukraine,

The Demoscene continued with illegal activities for a much longer time. However, in the

17

developed countries, the United States for example, the illegal activities were stopped, and the

art-scene grew in a larger proportion.

The Demoscene subculture became relevant in the age where computers started to

become household items and were accessible, with this availability of technology the demo

scene grew. More and more people got interested in the scene, and the scene was at its peak in

the late 1990s.

The Demoscene is a subculture --hence the need for an anthropological thought process

to understand and deconstruct it. The amount of anthropological research on the subject is

scarce, if any. Especially in Turkey and about the Turkish Demoscene there are no researches

that are written. I saw a big gap in this area and wanted to learn more about this dying subculture

that not many people had heard of. It was the perfect mix of computer and anthropology. The

sub culture aspect of The Demoscene is in the very front of the scene. Meaning the culture is

very important to all of the participants. Being a part of the culture, of the community is a very

important aspect of The Demoscene and it is one that I admire. All people attending know each

other, maybe not in person, maybe they don’t know each other’s faces, but they do know each

other’s work, groups. Since real names are not used, the nicknames that everyone has is how

people know them within the group.

It is hard to put The Demoscene in a context while trying to explain what it is, Heikkila,

while trying to explain The Demoscene found four main concepts where The Demoscene could

be fit in:

1. The “digital underground box”, along with the mainstream hacker

culture, open-source movement, political pirates and many Internet-

based creative communities.

2. The “artistic movements box”, in the same corner as experimental

film and video art.

3. The “youth subcultures box”, just between the punks, the graffiti

painters and the LAN gamers.

4. The “trash box”, which contains all the various clueless views that

do not tolerate a deeper analysis, such as ones with obvious causality

errors (“demos are primarily made for gaining employment in the video

game industry’).

(Heikkil, 2009, p. 2)

18

The term ‘boxes’ that Heikkil used can be better understood by see boxes as concepts.

These are just some of the concepts that can be used to describe The Demoscene. The

Demoscene has gone further than the ‘boxed’ concepts above. The Demoscene can be explained

using the underground terminology (a hacker culture, an illegal group activity), it won’t be

wrong to explain it in that manner, however The Demoscene has grew past the underground era

and has become a ‘entity’ within itself, not illegal any more, yet still carries the traditions of the

underground era; nicknames, demoparties and the use of code could be examples to this.

However, The Demoscene is also an artistic movement, it might not be seen as art to

some of the sceners, yet it is still largely accepted that The Demoscene has art rooted in it. The

Demoscene has gone past the artistic movement in the sense that is not a movement any more,

in the late 1980’s the computer art was not a subject known worldwide, hence the Scene had

the aspect of a movement. Now, however, with computer art being known worldwide, the

‘movement’ aspect is gone and The Demoscene can be seen merely as art.

Seeing The Demoscene as a youth subculture is not wrong either. It is a good way in

understanding how The Demoscene evolved in time, and how it started, yet not it has moved

much beyond the youth subculture box and has remained as a subculture. The Demoscene can

be explained by all these terms individually, but it can also be explained by putting these terms

together.

Most of the original Demoscene were youngster’s in the late 80’s and actually used the

computers in the first hand. They learned all the codes at the same time, tried to compete with

each other and had all the time in the world. Now these people are grown up, have lives other

than The Demoscene. They have wives, a job and kids. The Demoscene is no longer a main

priority for them.

As I have seen in most of my interviews, the participants are now in their late 50’s. They

have lives outside The Demoscene, they do not have time to create new materials. One of my

interviewees was a graphics designer, in his late 40’s. He said that he had been working on this

one piece for 4 years. He did not have time to finish it other than the time of the party. He had

brought his own Amiga computer and finished his pixel art during the 3 days he was in the

party. That was how he had been doing it. Coming to the party and nonstop trying to finish his

art piece.

19

For most of the participants the party and The Demoscene itself has a huge nostalgic

significance. They remember the “good old days” when they were young and were involved in

the scene. This nostalgic feeling is what mainly drives them to continue coming to the parties

and continuing to contribute to the society.

The parties that I have attended during this research had one thing in common, the

community aspect.

1.3 What is a Subculture

The Oxford Dictionary describes a subculture as “A cultural group within a larger

culture, often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture.” this

definition correlates what The Demoscene is. It is a cultural group within many other larger

cultural groups. Many other cultural groups, the larger groups are the main culture themselves,

for example the German culture, Lithuanian culture, Turkish culture and many other cultures

have come together under The Demoscene roof. Making The Demoscene a Subculture with in

many other cultures. The Demoscene might not have a belief system however The Demoscene

does have important figures and ritual like acts that constitute The Demoscene itself. This and

many other examples are what make The Demoscene a subculture.

A subculture, as Dick Hebdige defines it, brings people that are compatible with each

other and on some occasions neglected by the larger culture, together and unites them under a

unifying property such as, language, music, religion and art and many other factors come to

mind(Hebdige, 1979).

1.4 Literature Review:

There is no lack of papers on The Demoscene, but there is a huge gap in the writings

about the Turkish Demoscene. There virtually no papers about the Turkish Demoscene.

Although it is not a big part of the overall community, there is a Turkish Demoscene that has

been around since the late 1990’s.

Through all of the writings I looked at, I saw an enormous amount of writings about the

technical aspect of The Demoscene, how the demos are made, how makes them, the music

20

involved in the demos are all explained in great detail in many papers I have found. These

articles go in great details to explain the inner workings of the scene, how it is done, who does

in and so on. However, there are little to no articles on the subculture itself, and there are no

anthropological articles on the topic.

A study conducted by Nicolas Mendoza that looks at The Demoscene from a software

engineer’s perspective. In this article, not only do we see an explanation of digital art, how itis

made, but also a discussion of open source and the relationship of the two. The article provides

a good insight into The Demoscene world. However, the main focus of the article is the art, not

the people. Articles and papers on these kinds of subjects are much easier to find than those on

the people in The Demoscene subculture (Mendoza, 2006, p. 5).

Another technical aspect of The Demoscene is the music. The music in The Demoscene

subculture that is mostly used and played throughout the parties is called ‘8 bit’, ‘chiptune(s)’,

‘chipmusic’, ‘micromusic’, and ‘fakebit’. There are also other words used for this sort of music,

but this sufficient to give an idea. Marilou Polymeropoulou has written an article about this

type of music that is used in The Demoscene. The articles main concept if the chipscene` which

is a subculture based on a kind of digital music characteristic of 8-bit sound. (Polymeropoulou

, 2014)

There are also a number of articles, which rely on the historical aspect of the Scene.

usually start from the early days of computers, heading on to the current day, where The

Demoscene has become digitalized and grew with the internet ((Reunanen & Silvast, 2009;

(Polgar, 2008)). ‘The Demoscene: as a particular way of life’: This perspective relates The

Demoscene to sociology, cultural studies, and cultural history. The researchers have discussed

The Demoscene as youth culture or counter culture, multimedia hacker culture or as a gendered

community and many more (Heikkil, 2009).

Finally, there is a group of writings on the art perspective of The Demoscene, viewing

it as an artistic activity (Hastik & Steinmetz, 2012). Seeing the products as complete art forms.

They give the Scene an artistic value in which it becomes much more than just a subculture but

it also an expression of feeling. An example to this dual thought could be the graffiti scene.

Where some view it as hooliganism, others see artistic value and expressions of feeling in the

graffities and look at it from a different angle.

21

1.4.1 Technical Writings:

Technical writings are a group of papers that are for the people who might be interested

in how the demos were and are made. This might also help new comers in to the subculture to

be able to understand how the coding, rendering and the real time graphic work within the

subculture.

In The Demoscene world, the size of the art work is an important aspect of the art itself.

The biggest piece possible is tried to be made in a smallest possible format. This tradition comes

from the old computers. Having a very small amount of memory, the sceners were constantly

trying to fit as much data possible into the small memories they had. This is seen in the

categorization of every demo party: 64KB, 4KB. 1KB or 256 bytes There are categories suited

for musicians and graphic designers to compete in music, pixel graphics (hand-drawn pixel by

pixel), raytraced graphics and many others, depending on the respective party (Burger,

Paulovic, & Hasan, 2002). There are many other categories that are seen within the demo parties

allowing Sceners to enter in any category they find their art work is fit in.

Another main technical topic that is seen is how the graphics shown in the demos are

made. The 3D modeling is done with geometric and mathematics, hence there is a lot of

formulas involved in doing it.

1.4.2 Articles about the Community

In this context, we are able to see many different points of view, allowing us to

appreciate a broad perspective of The Demoscene itself. With a historical perspective, usually

starting from the beginning of the PC era, these approaches explain how the emergence of

personal computers started The Demoscene movement:

“The Demoscene is a community that creates digital art with home

computers. It has its roots in the late 1970s home computer revolution

and software piracy. The Demoscene— or just the scene—has

traditionally been a male-dominant hobby” (Bubenko Jr, Impagilazzo,

& Solvberg, 2003, p. 290).

These kinds of essays aim to explain the subculture from the begging by showing the formation

of the scene. It gives an overall view of to the creation of the Scene. Adding the newer developments in

the scene as well.

22

Markku Reunanen recently published a paper called ‘Times of Change in The

Demoscene’. In this paper Reunanen, as a person who was in The Demoscene himself, is able

to explain and show the change in The Demoscene. He gives examples from the past, and

explains what The Demoscene is. His paper has both a historical aspect and a cultural one. By

giving examples from his own experience, Reunanen is able to show The Demoscene from an

inner perspective. (Reunanen, 2017)

A paper by Reunanen (2013), this time with a co-writer Silvast, discusses The

Demoscene as a cultural phenomenon. The paper starts by explaining the subculture and

explaining what the Sceners do and used to do within the subculture. Then the paper goes on

into explaining the adoption of new technologies that The Demoscene subculture has adopted

to. This paper not only shows The Demoscene from an inner perspective, it also sheds light on

the current Demoscene, and on what The Demoscene was from a historical perspective.

(Reunanen & Silvast, 2009)

1.4.3 Art and The Demoscene

The Demoscene community is not all together in calling their work art:

“Anders Carlsson, for example, has chosen to present The Demoscene

as craftmanship rather than art. Indeed, the “crafty” aspect is still quite

strong, and many sceners dislike their works being referred to as “art”.

However, there’s also a big portion of sceners who have “true” artistic

ambitions and sometimes even a willingness to receive appreciation

from the “mainstream” art world. Quite many sceners have even

studied in art schools, which has lead them to a position from which to

compare the two worlds.” (Heikkil, 2009, p. 4)

As seen here The Demoscene itself is divided about calling their products art or not.

There are many similarities between The Demoscene and the art world. The visuals used by

The Demosceners can be found in many art forms that have no direct connection with The

Demoscene. The bond that can be seen in The Demoscene between the musical and visual

aspects is also seen in the art world. Both in the art world and in The Demoscene, the two

aspects complement and reinforce each other. Another strong connection between art and The

Demoscene can be found in the ‘artist’ and the ‘audience’ being the same people. Most creators

also make the audience of the ‘art work’. The biggest difference however is the role of

distribution and the way it is shown to the public (Heikkil, 2009). The Demoscene might not

be underground and illegal any more however it still has the characteristics of an underground

subculture. With little to no publicity The Demoscene has a much more closed and core

23

following group than the majority of the art world. In addition to this, The Demoscene has little

to no financial gain to the Scener.

Another important book about digital art was written by Christiane Paul: Digital Art.

Paul in her book goes into great details about the digital art. She starts from the early digital age

and moves forward explaining what digital arts giving ample examples. The book is a great

place to start a journey into digital arts, a great venue to see the historical impact of digital art,

and to understand where digital art is heading.(Paul, 2015)

1.5 The Aim

In this paper, I intend to look at the scene from an anthropological perspective, looking

at all aspects of the scene. This I will do, by combining the information I have found searching

the past of the Scene and the information I have acquired from the Sceners I had a chance to

talk to during my field research.

The Demoscene started to form in the late 1980’s, thus allowing the late 1980’s youth

to be incorporated in a scene of their own. In this paper, I will be talking about the life styles of

these youths of the 1980’s and how their lives had changed during The Demoscene proses.

The aim of this paper is the fact that knowing the history of anything allows for better

understanding of the concept itself. This can be seen in any kind of context. Knowing the past

and the evolution of the household PC and the users is an important to know and understand.

This gives a view of the time and the thought process of people that used the first PC’s at home.

Not only does this allow us to see the immense change that has occurred in the past 30 years,

but it also allows us to see the roots in all the changes that has been done to computer. Computer

graphics have changed and evolved over time, this can be see when looking at what computers

could do and what they are doing today. This also has reflected in The Demoscene as well. The

graphics that can be seen in The Demoscene today could not even been imagined in the late

80’s. With new graphical enhancements, The Demoscene has grown out of its origins and added

new ways for the sceners to express themselves. The new time has allowed for the size of the

demo’s to get much smaller, it has allowed for new areas of competition, for example the PC

demo category in Demoparties where the sceners must do their ‘art’ using a PC coding structure

(instead of using a commodore or amiga codding structure). This and many other things the

changes that can be seen in The Demoscene.

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The Demoscene sub culture is also seen in Turkey, and this is one of the reasons I have

started this research. Not only the fact that this sub culture is in Turkey but the little to no

coverage of its activities, especially until 2015, is one of the main reasons my research is

important. The lack of knowledge and coverage of this subculture allowed me to be one of the

first people to be writing about such a subculture with the inclusion of the Turkish side. Thus,

making my comparative research important in seeing the inner workings of the sub culture and

how the sub culture differs from culture to culture.

Another reason that I am writing this paper is to form an understanding in people that

are not from the computer world, and for them to see the importance of this subculture and how

The Demoscene subculture works. The Demoscene subculture is fading since the mid-2000’s.

It has gotten more and more off the grid in society and is not known by many people. The

Demoscene in a subculture that actually has witnessed the start of the computer era. Most

participants have seen the first computers and have used them in the day.

25

2. RESEARCH METHODS AND TECHNIQUES:

The main objective of anthropologists and other qualitative researchers is to understand

the culture being researched. To understand a culture, you must understand where the culture

comes from and how it came to the point it is now.

The best example of this sort of research model is the Thick Description Theory

advanced by Clifford Geertz (1973). By understanding the background of an action done in the

culture, you understand better the culture itself. My research method is based on Geertz’

approach. To be able to understand the culture, you must ask questions concerning its origins.

In my research, I tried to understand the inner workings of The Demoscene subculture by trying

to see their cultural acts and workings. This concept of thick description was first put forward

by Gilbert Ryle. Ryle states that the actions done by people within cultures are code-governed,

understanding the action and then the code behind the action will help to understand the culture

itself. (Kaploun , 2013, p. 4)

In the famous example used by Ryle and then by Geertz the winking and twitching boys

gives us a clear understanding of this concept. Eye movements of twitching and winking boys

are the same, yet the social meaning is completely different. The conclusion to this is very

important for anthropology, winking is only possible in a culture where a pre-established ‘social

code’ is known within the culture. (Kaploun , 2013, p. 5)

The qualitative strategies I used during these researches are based on two main

strategies. The first one: Case Studies strategy. In this strategy, the main objective is for the

researcher to explore an event, activity or process. The cases are bounded by time, they happen

in a certain point in time, where the researched group comes together. The researcher in this

field will have to collect detailed information on the event and on the people, that are in the

event.

As an anthropologist, the main tool that I will use in my researches will be my eyes.

What my eyes see are one of the most important things for me to use later on. Observation is

the key for every qualitative research. Since ethnographic researches take a long time, the

researcher will usually keep a journal that will keep all the observatory notes the person has

encountered during his/her long stay (Kottak, 2012, p. 28).

26

In addition to observing and understanding my surroundings I tried as best I could to

participate in the events that were occurring. As an ethnographic researcher, my goal was to

“grasp the native’s point of view” (Malinowski 1922:25 Argonauts of the Western Pacific.)

What this means is to understand The Demoscene from an inside perspective. Explain the

subculture as a “native” meaning as a person who is in the subculture, not as a person from the

outside, this helps the ethnographer to see the field from the inside, not from above, not by

judging the field, but by living in and with the field.

Spardly points out, I would have to do whatever the social environment asks of me. I

would have to adapt to the environment to understand and to better feel the environment. This

participant observation method allowed me to enter the world of the Sceners. I slept like the

sceners, ate like them and tried to do their art as well. All of these participations in The

Demoscene allowed me to better understand and feel both The Demoscene and the sceners.

As shown by James Spradly, there are 5 degrees of participant observation, ranging from

high to low:

1 Complete Participation:

Complete participation while researching about The Demoscene would

have been to organize a party. This would allow me to be an integral

part of the community, and a person who is involved in many of the

processes of The Demoscene.

2 Active Participation:

This is best described as the ethnographer doing his research while

actively participating in the culture. For example, while researching

The Demoscene, if I had been able to create a demo, get in to a group

and actually show a demo in one of the parties, I would have seen The

Demoscene from the point of view of the Sceners

3 Moderate Participation:

While doing his research the ethnographer is able to maintain a balance

between being an observant and an insider would be called Moderate

Participation. Moderate Participation is what I have tried to maintain

while in the field. While participating in many of the events, such as

games and lectures, I was not able to participate in creating demos,

which made me an outsider in that situation.

27

I was able to converse with many people, and had long conversations

with many of the participants, yet I was always in a researcher mind

set, I always introduced myself as an anthropology researcher trying to

understand The Demoscene, which made me a Moderate Participant.

4 Passive Participation:

If an ethnographer relies mainly on his eyes, and looks at the group

from an outside perspective, the ethnographer would have been doing

a passive participant ethnographic research. By looking at the culture

from a distance, there are many important things you might see that you

would miss if you were intricately involved in the culture. Passive

participant ethnographers also would generally talk to some of the

participants to gain an inside perspective.

5 Nonparticipation

This is an example where the ethnographer does not or cannot be

directly involved in the culture, and has to understand the culture from

a distance (Spradley, 1980, p. 58).

In my research I was able to use almost all of the aforementioned participant observation

types except for complete participation. I was not able to immerse myself enough to create an

organization, or even a demo. However, I was able to do all the rest: Active observation, as an

anthropologist I went to the parties, met with the sceners and tried to understand who they are.

During this process I actively participated in some events, played games wither other sceners.

As a moderate participant I was able to keep a good distance as an Anthropologist from

the scene itself. Conducting interviews, talking to sceners during the parties are examples to

how I was able to do moderate participant observation.

Passive Participation, I watched how the sceners interacted amongst one another, I

watched as they danced freely to the non-stop music, and I observed their actions while demos

were shown. I took notes, and this helped me to understand the inner structure of The

Demoscene.

Finally, Nonparticipation. After and before the parties I attended, to understand more

about the scene, I read many articles, papers and book on The Demoscene, these helped me to

understand what I needed to see during the parties, and it helped me understand the reason

behind The Demoscene.

28

In addition to the anthropological research I conducted, I will fill in the voids in my

research with information I acquired from other papers. In the end, this will help my research

to be a complete work of social science, looking at The Demoscene from as many angels as I

can, and allowing for the best explanation possible.

The research I have conducted took me 3 weeks to complete. For this research, I traveled

to two countries, and attended an event in Istanbul, where I currently live. The research took

place in Boston, USA; Saarbrucken, Germany and Istanbul Turkey. During the events, I

attended I did 8 in depth interviews with the participants. Since the events I attended were social

gathering as well, I got a chance to talk to many people during the events.

The longest in-depth interview I was able was 50 minutes, which took place in Germany.

My shortest was 25 minutes, which took place in Turkey. The names of the interviewees have

been changed for ethical reasons.

2.1 What I Did

The first encounter I had with The Demoscene subculture was in Istanbul. The first party

I attended waste first step towards this research. The idea of researching this sub- culture came

from a teacher of mine, Cenk Esiner. I wanted my paper to combine technology with

anthropology, my two main focus points in life. I knew that Cenk Esiner was very interested in

technology and computers, so I thought that it would be a good idea to consult him on my paper

subject. After brain storming for a while, he told me about this subculture called The

Demoscene. That was the first time I had heard of this subculture and the idea got me interested.

That night I went home and did some research on the subculture. Since it is an art form

I got to watching many different “demo’s” that where produced during the 35 years of

computers being in people’s lives. After watching many “demo’s” and doing some more online

research I got very interested in the community. As I continued to try to understand how and

why these people were doing this art, I came across an organization held in Istanbul. They called

it The Demoscene Party, and I had to be there.

It was about a week from that day, and I immediately tried to contact one of the

organizers to ask them about the organization. I didn’t want to ask too many questions, so I kept

it simple. I asked if anyone could come, and whether it would be a problem for them if I were

29

doing some field research. He immediately answered and said that the party is an open event,

anyone could join. I got very excited and started to get ready for the event. I thought that I

needed to know a little bit about the organization and The Demoscene itself before going to the

party. I did a lot more research and then structured my plan for the party. I came up with some

simple questions, and a general understanding of the whole organization.

The party, as it said on the web site, was going to be a 72-hour journey. It started on

Friday morning (21 March. 2015) in the computer lab of the Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. I

packed my bags with the computer equipment I needed, an extra t-shirt and I went off to the

university campus.

This ‘party’ was eye opening for me. It leads me to a whole new area of technology that

I had never been in contact with. The nostalgic side of technology. The party was full of ‘old’

computers from the 1990’s. After this party, I knew I had to continue to research this sub

culture.

After the party was over, I started to look at other parties taking place around the world.

I heard about the Revision Party held in Saarbrucken Germany. It said that it was the biggest

party in Europe. So, I said that I had to be there. It was about 1 or 2 months after my first party

in Istanbul. I bought my tickets and flew to Saarbrucken. As soon as I arrived at Saarbrucken,

I went to look at the party area. It was an old factory building, turned into a party area. There

were rows and rows of tables in the area. The first day I got to meet the people that were

organizing the whole party. They told me the basic information that I needed to know, and

allowed me to do a quick tour of the party area.

The party itself lasted 3 days. It was nonstop. People were constantly on their computers,

writing codes and listening to techno music. The last night of the party, all the members got to

show off whatever they have been working on. The party had around 600 people attending. And

almost all of them knew each other. It was very interesting to see how a group of 600 people

could all act as a family, and come together every year. The Demoscene is not as active as it

was in the 1990’s so the group usually only gathers in these huge parties that accrue.

After this party, I wanted to see how The Demoscene was in the US. So, I found a party

called the @party. I bought a ticket to the United States, and went to Boston, where the party

30

was held. Sadly, after Germany I was expecting too much from the @party. It was a much

smaller event then what I had seen in Germany. Yet it was a friendly and a small group which

taught me a lot about The Demoscene and what they did.

Ethical problems that I had was one that was my fault, this being my first major research

I made a mistake while doing my interviews, I forgot to get their permission to use their name

in my paper, this is the reason for the made-up names I have created for this paper. Other than

this there were no problems ethically I had with the sceners in The Demoscene. The Demoscene

subculture is a very open society, and since The Demoscene is not as thriving as it was in the

90’s, people are eager to explain what they are doing. The sceners are very open about their

work, and really want other people to understand and respect their work. Whenever I had a

question I always got a warm and welcoming answer, and a long talk. Getting in the culture

was not hard at all. Everyone was very pleased that I was researching The Demoscene, and

were eager to tell me more about the scene.

The initial contact I made with The Demoscene people was explaining what I was doing.

I told them that I was an anthropology major and that I was writing about The Demoscene

subculture. Interestingly most of my interviewees knew about anthropology, which is not a

reaction I am used to living in Turkey, where almost no one knows about anthropology. After

my initial contact, I usually asked a question. If at the time my interviewee was writing some

code, or was on the computer, my question would be more on the topic of their work, what they

were doing, how long it took and so on. If my interviewee was on a ‘break’, then I would ask

about his life, how he started, where he was from, what job he did, why he got into The

Demoscene, and finally why he was here.

The last question why he was here being actually a very deep question, trying to

understand the motivations in coming to parties every year. It was interesting to see this many

people coming together every year and I had to understand the motivation behind it. (See

appendix 1)

The gender distribution within the scene is hardly a distribution at all. Almost 90 percent

of the group are men. There are some women, which I did get to talk to, but the huge majority

was a male population.

31

Another important aspect of my research was the pseudo names that all the Sceners

used. It was very interesting for me to see the nicknames being used throughout the party.

Instead of being referred by their real names people were called by their nicknames. Everyone

knew each other’s nickname and called each other by that name. Not only did most people

know each other’s names, but they also knew their groups, what they did and their most famous

work.

2.1.1 Funds for the Research

For my pilot research, my expenditure was minimal. The food I ate in the 72 hours I was

at the Demoparty was the only money I had spent, and the cost of the food was about50 Turkish

Liras. In addition to that, I got to the Demoparty site and back using public transportation, and

spent no other money during the event.

The costs for the Demoparties outside of Turkey that I attended to were as follows:

The first research was held in Istanbul, where I currently live. The place the party is

held, is walking distance. So, no funds were necessary for this leg of my research.

The plane ride to Germany and back to Turkey costed me 400$. I stayed at a hotel in

Germany for one night, and that costed 40$. Food and other expenditures for a 5-day trip were

around 150$. In total, 590$ was spent for my research in Germany

Then I bought plane tickets to the United States and back. The cost was 500$. I stayed

at a hotel which was around 50$. My food and other expenses were around 150$. So, the total

was 700$

The grand total for all 3 researches was 1315$.

2.2 Ethics

Ethics were not much of a problem for me during my research. I did not have any

problems involving people not wanting to talk to me or people getting annoyed by my research.

On the contrary, all the people I had a chance to meet wanted to let people know what they were

doing. The sceners loved to explain their work and gave me no trouble at all.

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However, as I was writing part of my paper, I remembered that I did not ask my

interviewees whether they would mind if I used their names or nicknames in my graduation

paper. For this ethical reason, I did not use the real, or nicknames of the people I had the chance

to talk to. I would not want to offend any of my interviewees who were gracious enough to talk

to me.

I choose not to use their ‘real’ nicknames either, because a quick internet search will

most likely get you the real name, the group he is in, where he is from and all kind of information

on the person, which he/she did not permit me to give out.

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3. THE SCENERS

3.1 Women in The Demoscene

It is hard to see women in The Demoscene. There are only a very small number of

women that attend the demoparties or that are in The Demoscene. In all three parties I attended,

I was barely able to see any women, except in Boston where one of the main organizers was a

woman, and even she saw herself as a “special situation”. I was able to see some women, where

I later on found out that they were girlfriends of Sceners and they were coming for support. Of

course, the amount of women is not none, there are a number of women that are involved in

The Demoscene, that attend the parties regularly, and have an impact in their group as well.

The highest number of women I saw was actually in the United States, but they were

not entirely involved in The Demoscene. One of my interviewees was a film major, and she

was trying to film a documentary on The Demoscene. She was interested in computers and saw

The Demoscene very interesting. She was constantly filming the events and the people

attending.

The organizer in Boston that I mentioned above had some very insightful things to say

about the women presenters in The Demoscene. Lal (34) had started with an Apple personal

computer and was not that much interested with coding. She was introduced to The Demoscene

in 2003. She was actually very interested in art, and that is where The Demoscene overlaps with

Lal’s interests. She explained herself as being a Comic and sci-fi geek, and she had organized

a lot of events for these causes. In 2003, she organized her first demoparty, and became a well-

known demo party organizer. She told me that she had no knowledge about coding. She had

released her first demo in 2008 with the help of some of her friends in the scene. Since 2008

she was able to release 3 demos, and was working on one at the moment.

During the interview, I got a chance to ask her about women in The Demoscene. She

said that the main why reason women were not in the scene was because of women being the

minority in the field in general. And traditionally because they were thought to be incapable to

do computer work. In addition to that, women were seen as objects scene the beginning of the

scene. Women were treated as the ‘others’ in the group, not allowing them to get in the culture

as they would be pleased. Women were always further away from technology then men were,

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and this has a direct impact on The Demoscene. She continued on explaining how she was

accepted to The Demoscene.

“if you aren’t a woman that has good connections with men, and cannot

handle their ‘way of life’ then it is almost impossible to be accepted in

the group. When you are a woman and you made a mistake, people react

in a much more exaggerated fashion then they would if the mistake

would have been done by a man. It’s hard for a woman to get into the

group by herself, especially if she doesn’t know anyone.” (Lal, 34,

2015)

She later on added that the gender inequality was a much bigger problem in Europe then

it was in the United States. She said that people were much more male oriented then she had

seen in the US.

Lal has helped organized many demoparties in Europe as well as the States and her

emphasis in gender equality is something I also noticed during my research. As I mentioned,

the larger number of women I was able to see was in Boston.

After the question about the number of women, she said that since the 1990’s the number

of women in The Demoscene had grown, not by a huge amount but had grown, and the ‘sexual’

demos have gotten much less. The showing of naked women in the past was very common in

The Demoscene world. However, with the increasing number of women, these demoes are not

seen as often. In addition to that the traditions that were done mainly by men, are now not done

as frequently as they were. A good example to this, which Lal gave also, and I saw for myself,

was the Pants Down! Tradition. To Lal this is an extremely ‘manly’ tradition, where the sceners

would literally pull down their pants, and sit with their beer in one hand to watch the demos.

This is one of the things I experienced during my stay in Germany. The tradition is,

during the parties showing of the demos, when the Amiga demos (demos done by Amiga

computers technology) are being displayed, everyone pulled their pants down, and yelled

Amiga! and watched the rest of the Amiga demos with their pants down.

The socialization factor of children before the 5th grade continues on in a child’s life,

where the girls are constantly excluded not only in computer related things, but also in math

and science, which are also socially seen as a ‘manly’ professions. Another interesting point

made in Varma’s paper is about the role models women have in computing, science and math

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industries. Although the number of women in all these professions has been rising in the past

decade, the number of women role models are still low, which according to Varma has a huge

effect in the field. (Varma, 2010, p. 303)

This social phenomenon can also be seen as the image that people have when talking

about people in math, science and computers. This phenomenon is where women are usually

seen and raised as children that are further away from technology. Girls are pushed to socialize

with other girls, which in itself creates a loop in where women, from a young age, are not in the

technology world as the men are. “The Geek” is a person that works a lot of hours, devotes all

his time to his profession’s, usually seen as a “Middle-aged man”, usually with big glasses,

usually with a buttoned-up shirt and one-color pants to match the shirt, usually anti-social and

keeps away from people he doesn’t know. This image is so imbedded in the society, it might

show us a window into the society as a male dominant society (Varma, 2010, p. 305).

“Only a small percentage of computer scientists and computer

professionals are female. In the most recent years for which statistics

are available, women received a third of the bachelor's degrees in

computer science, 27% of master's degrees, and 13% of PhDs. Not only

do women make up just 7.8% of computer science and computer

engineering faculties, only 2.7% of tenured professors are female”

(Spertus, 2002, p. 9)

As Spertus has written the amount of women in the computer science professions is very

low. This low number of women in computer sciences of course is seen in The Demoscene as

well. The number of women in The Demoscene were very low, maybe even lower than the

professional average.

Other interviews that I have conducted during my research were aware of the inequality

of men and women in The Demoscene. They all seemed to see the same inequality in the

computer engineering courses as well, yet none of them attributed this inequality to a social

problem, instead most of my interviewees just thought that the inequality was because of the

unwillingness of women in computer products.

“I never viewed the gender inequality as a social phenomenon for a

long time, especially when I was younger. Later on, in my life I did see

the social demands that society pushes on women, and that directly

effects women entering the computer world, and The Demoscene

world” (Rigo, 43, 2015).

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3.2 Professions of the Sceners

Although all the jobs that the Sceners do could not possibly be written about, a large

majority of Sceners are, of course, in the computers business. There is no one sector that all the

sceners are in. Some are in the web design sector, others in programming others are in artistic

sectors. It’s hard to pinpoint what the majority of the Sceners do. This demographic has shown

itself throughout my whole research. However, this demographic is not seen in all Sceners.

Many Sceners are musicians, who create the music, again by using computers, that is heard in

the demos. Some are professional musicians. Next there are the designers, which create the

looks in the demos. Most of the designers work in the designing industry, using computers, of

course, but fairing to the art side of computing. There is a small population of sceners that work

as a full-time artist, and mostly do electronic art. The scene is not a homogeneous subculture

when it comes to professions, although most of the sceners reside in professions that deal with

computers on a daily basis.

3.3 Family and Personal Life

The Demoscene in general is an ageing group. With most of the participants being in

their forties, their personal life has changed substantially since the beginning of The

Demoscene.

“At the beginning, we were all youngsters and we wanted to be a part

of a community that understands us, some where we felt comfortable

and at peace. So, in my twenties, I started to learn coding with my first

commodore personal computer. It was very exciting, getting to

understand new things every day, and seeing the age of computer

growing while I was growing was a very fun and interesting experience.

However, now the demoparties are more as a ritual for me. It is a place

I come to every year, to reminisce about the ‘good old days’ and to see

some of my old friends. Now I am not able to devote a lot of my time to

The Demoscene, I just don’t have the time. I have a kid now, and a

family… this effected the scene a lot. After people hit 30 the scene began

to get smaller and smaller.” (Rigo, 43, 2015)

This is something I noticed in all of my researches. People told me that the scene

changed when people got jobs, wives and kids. The sceners were not able to put enough of time

into The Demoscene. And when people could not find the time to make demos, The Demoscene

started to get smaller and smaller.

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The Demoscene never became popular with the newer generations. The main reason

that the sceners told me, was their lack of concentration and patience. Making a demo takes a

lot of time and to manage a demo, you must be patient. According to many of my interviews:

“They all say that the youngsters today want everything done in an

instant, that’s how they were raised. We however were raised by doing

everything ourselves. Learning the tricks ourselves and elevating

ourselves in time.” (Can, 42, 2015)

This attitude that the newer generation has, discourages a lot of the sceners to try to

teach them about The Demoscene. Hence The Demoscene gets smaller and smaller.

In their spare time, most of the sceners are not actually able to do anything productive

about The Demoscene, first of all their free time is either spent with the family, or doing non-

computer works. Of course, this cannot be said for every Scener, but the majority of Sceners

have this problem.

3.4 The Nicknames

The nicknames that the Sceners use has been a tradition since the beginning of The

Demoscene movement. The reason being the illegal activities that were done during those days,

as already mentioned. The nicknames used at the time allowed illegal cracking activities to go

on without being caught. The nicknames in the scene was an important reason for The

Demoscene to be able to continue. Not only did it help the person hide from the law, but it also

gave the Sceners a second life. The illegal activity is no longer a part of the lives of most

Sceners. The illegal activity is not there anymore but the nicknames stayed. There are various

reasons for this. The first being the second life factor. The Sceners have a different persona

during The Demoscene. They do not sleep, drinks a lot, and sleeps on the floor. A second life

to his normal life with his kids, wife and jobs. The second factor is nostalgia. The Scener

remembers his old days, his younger days, and having a name that is stuck at that age allows

the person to become that young person he was 20 years ago.

“The nickname helps us be ourselves, most of us are pretty normal

people, but with the nickname we get a chance to be someone else,

maybe someone we were 30 years ago. The ability to be free and express

our passion is one of the main benefits of having a nickname.” (Rap,

35, 2015)

One of the more interesting things I noticed in all three of my researches was that most

of the sceners knew each other by both their nicknames and their real names. It was hard for

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me to understand how people knew a person’s real name and nickname both at the same time.

During an interview with someone, if a person was going to be mentioned the first way to

describe him would be by using his nickname, then his real name if necessary, finally his group

and affiliation within the scene. For example:

“That’s Ligo, Josh, he is a coder in the group Push”

This is just one example that explains how people are introduced when someone that is

not from The Demoscene talks with them. Amongst themselves the sceners usually use their

nicknames to call one another.

The sceners usually pick their names by personal experience. This might be a favorite

character, an old job title, or a world resembling something important to the person. A past

interest of a cartoon character, for example, was the nickname of a Scener I met:

“I came up with the name after I watched an episode of my favorite TV

series at the time I got invited by one of my friends to my first

demogroup gathering. There people had already got their names ready,

I was one of the latest people to join the group. They asked me what I

would like to be called. I haven’t thought of it until then, for some reason

I told them my favorite character. And from that day on my name

became the shortened name of the cartoon character. A while later, all

of my friends, family and many other people started calling me by that

name.” (Rigo, 43, 2015)

In this case, not only in The Demoscene world, but also in the real world my

interviewees name had become his nickname. He used it everywhere. Until he got a job, and

grew up. Then his name changed to his ‘real’ name and his nickname became known during

his The Demoscene related things. He added that his nickname was so commonly used that his

mother actually called him by his nickname.

“The sociological studies of nicknaming practices have shown that

naming practices are often associated with domains of language use.

For example, nicknaming practices are frequent in gangs, the army, in

sport team, in political arenas, and within the family”(Starks & Leech,

2011, p. 87).

“Nicknames belong to the unofficial group of names, they are mostly

used and varied in modern language, in informal discourse situations

(in a familiar or social circle) and in smaller separate communities.

Nicknames offer the greatest range of names: any linguistic sign or a

meaningless sequence of sounds can become a nickname, and

nicknames can be chosen freely from the vocabulary of the given

language or make up random sequences of sounds for the identification

of the person named.” (Bauko, 2012, p. 6).

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Nicknames are commonly used in many situations, The Demoscene is absolutely not

the only place this is seen. As stated by Bauko, the nickname is mostly seen in familiar or social

circles of a person. And the ability for the person to have the freedom to choose his or her own

name allows the person to express him/her self in a much better way. And this is what I saw in

the community. The nickname aspect of The Demoscene was now much more than an old habit,

or a way to hide from the law. It was a way of expressing the feeling of the person, it was a part

of the art of The Demoscene and it is how the subculture kept together.

By using names to express their own personalities the Sceners were able to bond

together in a much more personal way. Not only did my interviewers know the other persons

nicknames but they also knew a little bit of the story behind it. Why he chose the nickname and

so on. This allowed for the Sceners to bond in a deeper level, or to know each other much more

intimately. This nickname attribute of The Demoscene, is also another reason why it can be

called a subculture. This is not a general practice that is just done by one group of the sceners,

but it is done throughout the community, each person having his/her own identity.

3.5 Art and The Demoscene

“It’s a passion!” (Can, 42, 2015)

This was the single sentence that I heard the most when I asked about what The

Demoscene was. It was passion and it was about art. It was about the expression of free will,

and the ability to do what one choses to do via computers. It was the intense struggle that

allowed these people to push the boundaries of their computers and make graphics that had

never been seen before. It was the ability to do what was almost seen as impossible to do, at the

time and even now. The ability to amaze people by making a huge graphical art piece with the

limited amount of computer memory is unbelievable and that is was pushed The Demoscene

community forward. To be able to do things that non-sceners could not do.

The most basic answer I heard was “because WE can!”. This is an important statement.

The livelihood of The Demoscene is actually these two statements. The passion aspect of the

demos, the way the sceners sit at their computers for hours, maybe days, to finish a project that

will gain, nothing other than the satisfaction of doing it, and the knowledge that they have the

ability to do it. These are the two main drivers of the community.

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“There are two main aspects of demos, 1 the journey. 2 The party!”

(Ruck, 48, 2015).

The party is a very vital part of The Demoscene, if not the most vital part. It allows the

community to get together to show each other what each group can do, and to share the passion

of the scene amongst each other. This is what made The Demoscene bigger in the late 1980’s.

The community aspect of The Demoscene is huge. As I mentioned, with no financial gain, the

Sceners all look forward to these parties to be able to show what they have done since the last

one. These parties have many things: fun and laughter, music, art pieces, demos – lots of demos

– and the community, people coming together and socializing.

“A strong common denominator between these art groups and The

Demoscene, according to the article, can be found in the self-sufficient

attitude: the creators and the audience are the same. The esthetic

criteria are those of the creators themselves, not anyone else’s.”

(Heikkil, 2009, p. 3)

The parties are like opening that artists have, where the artists are meant to show their

art work to the world, but it is much more than that. The opening is usually done by the artists

talking to other people, socializing, explaining his or her art piece. The opening of an exhibition

is much more than people looking at the artist’s work, it is an event, sometime accompanied by

drinks, music, dancers, live acting and many other art forms can be implemented in the opening

that artists do. This is seen in the demoparties as well. Where people don’t only come to see the

demos, although it is the main focus, they come to socialize, to listen to the music, look at other

art work that could be shown as well (Pixel art, Live coding). It is an event just like some art

openings are.

“Anders Carlsson, for example, has chosen to present The Demoscene

as craftmanship rather than art. Indeed, the “crafty” aspect is still quite

strong, and many sceners dislike their works being referred to as “art”.

However, there’s also a big portion of sceners who have “true” artistic

ambitions and sometimes even a willingness to receive appreciation

from the “mainstream” art world. Quite many sceners have even

studied in art schools, which has lead them to a position from which to

compare the two worlds.” (Heikkil, 2009, p. 4)

At the end of the day the art aspect of The Demoscene is still a controversial subject,

many sceners see their products as art, but there is a large community that does not see it this

way. A way to understand this might be to look at movies, are all movies art?

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4. THE PRODS.

4.1 Coding

The art that is created is called prods, a short version of products. Although the products

are non-profit art pieces the technical term of the art is prods. There are many prods made and

showcased in a demoparty. Many categories and different art forms are showcased in each

party. The products that were created by the groups are submitted under the corresponding

categories.

Categories:

PC demo

PC 64K PC 8 K

Pc 4 K Demo

1 K Demo

Amiga demo

Commodore 64 demo

Oldskool demo

Oldskool intro

Music

Graphics

Media Facade Competition

2D Demo Competition

Animation

Gamedev

Wild

New & Noteworthy

Each of these categories allow for a certain type of product to be shown in that

competition. These categories also can show what system the demo will be produced and

running on, and states what will be seen in the competition. PC, Amiga and Commodore 64

categories state the system the product must be shown on. So, the image that will be shown

must be compatible with the systems. In addition to the system the file must be in the specified

size of the specific competition. For example, the 8k PC demo must be done on a personal

computer, shown on a pc and must be smaller than 8000 bytes. These 8000 bytes must contain

the visuals, all the graphics and in addition to that it must contain the music as well. 4 K (4000

bytes). 64 K (64000 bytes) and 1 K (1000 bytes) are the most known and leading competitive

Demoscene categories seen in Demoscene parties. For reference: a 2-page word document, is

about 15KB (15 kilobytes – 15.000 bytes). A 4-5-minute-long 8K demo, will be much smaller

than a two-page word document.

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The Gamedev (Game – Development) category allows participants to show their self-

created games. Here the Sceners are allowed to do whatever they want in this competition. The

wild category allows the sceners to go wild. Do whatever they want. This could be a photograph

or anything that comes to mind. ‘New and Noteworthy’ is a category where the sceners are

expected to show a new development within the community. After all, the demos are shown at

the parties and the audience is expected to vote on their favorite demo, and later on, the demo

voted most in each category gets a trophy.

For me the coding aspect of The Demoscene is the key to the whole project. Without

the knowledge of coding, you don’t have much chance in creating a demo. Although there are

new programs that help a lot if a person does not know how to code, it is still vital if you wish

to exceed the potential of the program. I will not be getting deep in to how coding works, and

how coding is done. There are many free sites that have great C++ coding education. However,

without getting into detail, here is a brief outline on how it is done from the beginning.

First there is a trial and error process that you have to get through. A person who wants

to be involved in The Demoscene must learn how to code, how to write in a way that the

computer does what you tell it to do. Next with the coding knowledge must build an engine

(software) that will read the code and allow the computer to do what you wanted it to do. Next,

create graphics using the codes and software. These graphics will be used in the demo itself.

Then your final job is to put all the graphics and affects you have done together, trying to make

it as smooth as possible. When you understand how to do all of these, the steps increase, you

will need to understand other dynamics while creating a demo. You will need to understand the

3rd dimension in the art piece, there will be different camera angels during the art piece and so

on. To be able to do all of these, you actually need a high knowledge of math in addition to

coding.

The 4K intro is one of the most popular demoparty categories in the demoparties. The

4K intro is a file that is at most 4096 bytes in size. The 4K intro was one of the most attended

event in the parties I went to, and one of the categories that had the most number of applicants.

Figure 6 is a screenshot of the intros I had a chance to watch in Germany at the Revision party

2015 I attended. This is just one screen shot taken from a 2-minute video. Which is in total only

4096 bytes.

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“Two essential keywords that define the content are generativity and compression: both

the graphics and sound are generated algorithmically, and, in addition, the size of the code is

optimized with special purpose-built tools.”(Reunanen, Four Kilobyte Art, 2013, p. 6)

All of the visuals and music are done by using codes. The computer reads the written

codes in real time, understands the code and acts accordingly. This allows for the very small

size of the products. The only thing in the files, are lines and lines of code.

There is a small difference between intros and demos. Basically, an intro is much

shorter. It has less than 2 routines in the product. A routine is a change in the continuation of

the product, a change in the background, foreground, the object. A demo however is longer, has

more than 2 routines in one product.

4.2 The Meaning of the Prods.

The meaning of the products is the ability to achieve this very hard work of art. The

sheer amount of time people spend to do one piece is the answer for what it means to them. It

is an accomplishment, it is a showing of “strength” and a showing of what could be done. In

addition to the “because I can” notion, the products have a lot of humor in them.

4.3 Humor in The Demoscene

The humor factor in The Demoscene is very high. Groups constantly mock each other

in funny manners and with funny visuals. People who are known all around the community, for

example a person who is known to go to that specific party every year, might get a humorous

demo on himself. This happened in Germany at the Revision Party 2015. One of the well-known

organizers had a birth day the weekend of the party, so one of the groups decided to have a little

bit of fun. They used a couple of pictures of his head and played around with it. At the end,

embraced him and wished him a happy birth day. It was very funny to watch, even for someone

like me who had no idea who the person was. Later on, the person went up on to the stage to

thank the group who did the product.

Other than that, many other jokes were made, where groups were calling each other

names, and calling each other out for not having a good enough product and so on. The jokes

continued through the party. The Sceners are mostly a fun crowd. They love to talk, and to

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explain what they are doing there. Since the sceners don’t usually see and watch each other

during the year, their conversations are fun to watch as well.

4.4 The Groups

The demos are made by groups. Even though there are some individual demo makers,

the overwhelming majority does their demos with their groups. The demo groups are still active,

not as much as they were in the 80’s and 90’s, but many groups still come together regularly to

finish a demo they are making. However, the majority of demos are actually made and finished

during the demo party itself.

Demo groups are mostly 3 to 5 people. However, there are much bigger groups as well.

The much bigger ones usually go on making more than one demo at a time, competing in many

categories. Each group has its specific name, the name was chosen by the group itself, and most

have significance for the group members. Each member does usually identify themselves with

the group, since the ‘old timers’ usually don’t change groups, unless the groups no is no longer

together, or they have a dispute.

The groups usually have at least one, Coder – Programmer, Musician, Graphician, and

a leader. The leader usually is the oldest person in the group or the person who has started the

group. There are some new formed groups, but the majority of the groups were formed in the

90’s where The Demoscene had reached its apex.

During the research, the groups were not that evident in the Turkish and the American

parties. In both parties, famous groups were shown respect, and they were praised by showing

the groups best demos and so on. Yet the Sceners did not have the group environment I was

able to see in Germany. The Demoparty in Germany was much bigger than both the other

parties. In the Turkish and American Demoparties the Sceners were not creating demos, they

were watching other people’s demos, commenting and cheering. Although there were several

new demos presented in both the American and The Turkish Demoparties, the demo creating

environment was very different than that I saw in Germany.

In Germany groups had reserved tables for all of their Sceners to sit together. They all

had brought their computers and placed them at their group table. For three days, people from

the groups were constantly working on their demos. They presented their finished demos at the

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end of the party. It was interesting for me to see the making of the demos, and then see the final

product on a huge screen. In Turkey, I was able to see this as well. One of the sceners was

finishing an old project that he was working on for 3-4 years. He finished it during the party,

and I got to see it in the big screen at the end.

4.5 Hierarchy

It is hard to find a hierarchy in the demogroups. Most groups were formed by a group

of friends that were interested in computers. Hence the Sceners in groups are usually seen in

more or less at the same level. If there is prize money to be shared the money is usually shared

equally amongst the Sceners. However, it also should be mentioned that everybody knows that

without the coder there will be no demo if there was a hierarchy some groups would be adding

other sceners to their projects. This could be seen as a hierarchy, where the ‘help’ is not a part

of the group. He/she is only there to give assistance on a specific product. The additional help

always gets the same share in credits.

Of course, this is not a universal example. This idea of mine formed from the groups I

had a chance to talk to. All of them had the same idea in hierarchy, yet they also added the

larger groups are much different in terms of hierarchy. The larger groups have a lot of Sceners

in them, and they have the power to be able to make a lot of demos at a time.

4.6 The Creation of a Demo

The creation of a demo is actually very similar to what you would see in an artist. The

idea comes to the sceners, they share the idea with the group, they form some charts on how it

could be made, visually and otherwise, then start making the demo. This process is both good

and bad for the sceners. Some told me that they might waste a lot of time trying to do a very

hard task, and fail at the end, and end up not being able to produce a demo for that party

Code wise the creation of the demo is far from my understanding of codes. If you wish

to learn more on the coding of The Demoscene here are some things you can check out:

A great paper written by Boris Burger, Ondrej Paulovic and Milos Hasan (2002)

explains the inner working of the methods used in Realtime visualization in The Demoscene.

The paper goes in depth and explains how the sceners prepared the demos and also gives an

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insight as to what a Demoscene is, how it started and what the sceners do. The article is called

Realtime Visualization Methods in The Demoscene.

The paper written by Hansen, Nørgårdand Halskov (2014) also goes in depth and

explains how the demos are crafted. They explain the processes of creating a demo by

explaining certain programs and editors one may need to do the job. This paper is titled Crafting

Code at the Demo-scene and it is a great place to start if you want to learn the inner tricks of

making a demo.

4.6.1 Bit Music

Chipmusic, bit music, 8-bit music are just some of the names that are used for this genre

of music. Chipmusic became popular in the late 1980’s when personal computers started to

become popular around the world. As The Demoscene, chipmusic also started underground and

away from the pop culture of the time. Chip music was most popular amongst computer owners

at the ‘game playing age’. At the time, almost all of the games that were released had a chiptune

playing in the background.

Chipmusic is mostly acknowledged from their use in video games that became popular

in the 1980s. People who grew up in the 1980s may have memories of playing or hearing the

tunes from game consoles such as Game Boy or Atari. The music that was played in the

consoles of the time are called chip music (Polymeropoulou , 2014, p. 3).

During the research one of the main things that never changed was the music I heard

playing in the background. The constant sound of the 8-bit track never left my mind. At the

revision party, DJ’s would go on stage and make incredible mixes with chiptunes. Almost all

the demos I got a chance to watch had a looping chiptune in it.

4.7 Language in The Demoscene

There is a language that can be seen throughout the scene, but since The Demoscene is

a worldwide subculture, every group talks in their own language. However, in general English

is the main language that is used in international parties. The party in Turkey was more Turkish

oriented then the Revision party. However, there was a guest from Germany, and most of the

people were able to talk English with him.

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English is the widely used language in The Demoscene, and computer terminology is

also very frequently used. Words like Sprites, Ram, Rom, code loops, and other basic computer

and coding terms are used thought the scene. Much more technical words are used as well. In

general, the talking language in international parties is English, but when the size of the party

gets smaller, the languages changes to the language of the country.

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5. THE PARTY

5.1 The Atmosphere

I saw three very different atmospheres in the three parties that I attended.

First the party in Boston. This was the smallest of the three parties that I attended, with

the least attendance and with the least amount of demos shown. The party was held in one of

the smaller auditoriums of MIT in Boston. There were about 30 people in total, and mostly a

young crowd. People who attended the party were either computer engineering students at MIT

or artists that had some interest in pursuing computer based art. Of course, in addition to that,

there were also Sceners, and a very interesting oscilloscope, which was the first machine that a

demo was created.

The @party in Boston showed a bunch of older demos from the earlier days, particularly

some that had historical significance. They were explained to the crowd of youngsters and then

the organizers moved on to the events. The events were the most interesting aspect of the

@party. About 10 guest speakers came to talk about the new technologies that were coming

out, and what computer engineers were doing in these fields. For example, one of the speakers

showed us a Virtual Reality head set. At the time, these head sets were not as popular as they

are today. Some interesting facts on the device were given and then the attendants got a chance

to use the VR head set.

These types of events happened in all parties I attended, however in the @party this was

the main aspect of the party. The participants were not allowed to sleep at the party area, which

was not how I saw it in the other parties. The auditorium had a big screen that had a computer

attached to it, where all the demos were being played from.

Since the @party has a smaller group of people, they hold the party in the same place

around the same time each year. There I saw what I also had seen in Turkey, a meet and greet

situation of people that had not seen each other for a about a year.

The Turkish Demoscene was done in a much smaller place, with a smaller projector,

and it was packed. When you entered the computer room on the bottom floor of the engineering

building in Boğaziçi University. It was a confined space with a u-shaped room and a projector

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at the end of it. Everyone was looking towards the projector where there were demos playing

constantly. There were tables for everyone to put their computers and personal belongings.

The 7DX Demoparty I attended had a special meaning to the community, it was the 15th

and last of the 7D demoparty series that the Turkish Demoscene had been doing for the past 15

years. Since it was the last, the demoparty had a special meaning to the Sceners. The party had

its bits and pieces on the past 14 years starting with a small video done to show how the Turkish

Demoscene had started and where it ended up.

The party started with a general, where have you been sort of conversation between the

Sceners. Most had not seen each other for at least a year, since the demoparty in 2014. The

Turkish Demoscene, although it was still continuing the parties, had not been as creative as it

once was. There was only a small amount of new products shown in the party. The party was

mainly focused on older and famous creations of other bigger groups from around the world.

In addition to the Sceners that I saw in all parties, I especially saw an interesting group

of people that were interested in old computers, instead of demos. They were fixing, mending,

and operating older computers, such as commodores, Amiga’s and other systems, that were

brought to the lab and were fixed during the three-day period.

Bringing old Commodore and Amiga computers are a common happening in The

Demoscene, all three of the demo parties I attended, I was able to see old computers being

presented, run and shown off to people. Some had games open and people that were interested

were allowed to play, some had demos running nonstop, and others opened their computes and

were making hardware modifications as the arts continued.

The Revision party in Germany was a much different experience then the two other

parties I attended. The attendance was phenomenal. There were about 600 people at the party.

Since it was held in an old factory building, there was a huge amount of space and many long

tables for each group to work on, and a huge projector screen. The screen was from the ceiling

to the floor.

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The attendants were much more into The Demoscene subculture. Most were Sceners

and were active during and beyond the party. Most were constantly making new demos and

contributing to the subculture.

The environment was much different than what I saw in Turkey and the United States

as well. The main drink in Germany was beer. Beer, and other sorts of alcoholic beverages were

sold and the beer was very cheap. Everyone was drinking beer, and sometimes energy drinks

were being consumed as well. In Turkey, there was one drink available, and that was Red Bull,

an energy drink that the Turkish Demoscene had got a sponsorship form. There were cans and

cans of Red Bull at the end of the party. In the States, however Coca Cola and other soft drinks

were consumed.

The Revision party was in a huge factory as I mentioned. Outside the factory there was

a campfire area where people gathered every night to build a huge campfire. It was a place

where people could socialize and talk to each other. This also shows the importance of

socialization in the parties. People go to the parties for three things:

1. To see new techniques done by other Sceners.

2. Trying to show off their own techniques

3. Catching up with old friends and meeting new friends, and having a social

environment.

The first two are about the products being shown during the demoparties. The Sceners

are constantly updating and changing and finding new ways to use the codes to get better results.

The social aspect of the parties were actually seen in all the parties I attended. The warm

welcome I received in all three parties, and the answers I got from the sceners was the answers

I wanted. Showing the importance of the last item of the list above.

5.2 The Attendants

There were a couple of different groups I got a chance to see while my research was

going on. First of all, the largest group among all the attendants were the Sceners --the people

who actually are in The Demoscene to do and create demos. They were the coders, graphic

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designers, musicians and many other people that are in The Demoscene subculture. They try to

go to as many parties as possible and try to give as much assistance as they can.

Next there were the people who are nostalgia fans. These people love old computers,

they fix them, collect them, use them and bring them to demoparties to show them off, get help

from other enthusiasts and fix problems that machines could have. Although they are a very

important part of the scene, they usually do not make demos, they are more interested in the

hardware and then the coding. Hacking – modifying the systems so that the computers can do

whatever is necessary is what they are interested in primarily. An example for this is making a

Commodore 64 USB accessible, which did not exist in the computers of the era. By adding a

component to the Commodore 64, they were able to scroll through the USB.

Finally, there are the organizers. They are into the scene as much as they can be. They

know how all the computers work, how to fix each problem, they are in constant contact with

the sceners. They are the people who the sceners call for assistance if needed. They not only

help people in the party area, but they also organize the categories and many other things as

well. Some of the organizers have a Demoscene career but this is not necessary.

5.3 The Party Structure

The party structure was pretty much the same in all the parties I attended. Except for the

difference in the number of attendants, the outline of the parties were very much the same.

The party starts with someone opening the party with a short speech, or a presentation

of the party. Next how the party will continue for three days is discussed. The different speeches

that will be presented and the categories that people will be able to participate in is shown and

the party begins.

The first day passes with people reminiscing about old times, saying hello to each other

and spending time with their old friends. The day continues with the constant showing of

demos, and many lectures on interesting – mostly technology related – topics. Towards the end

of the first day, if it is a big party some categories are shown and voted, if the party is small

party the day closes with a showing of popular and interesting demos from around the world.

The second day goes about the same as well. Lectures, demos and at the end of the day a

showing of less popular categories and voting of the products seen in these categories. There is

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constant music going on in the background. The music might be played by a DJ or just a play

list. Sometimes the music is in the from the content showing of demos from around the world.

The music is fast paced, electronic or techno music. In the Revision party, I attended there was

a constant group of people dancing to the music.

The final day comes, and it is the most anticipated day of the party. The beginning of

the day is not much different: Lectures, old demos and music. But at the end of the day, it is

time to show the most popular categories. The Commodore demos, the Amiga demos and the

PC demos, the 4K demo and many other popular products are all shown on the last day. The

crowd is usually at its top on this day. Everyone comes to watch the results of the final day.

After every category, there is a voting process that most people participate. The votes then get

to pick the winner of each category.

The categories at the end usually have the best products of the whole Demoscene. Joke

demos and many other humorous things can be found in this part of the party. After all the

products are shown, there is a small ceremony to give the prizes to the winners of each category.

After that, both of the smaller parties that I attended were over. However, the Revision party

continued into the night. A small dance party started where everyone began to dance in front of

the huge screen. No one was left at their computers, and everyone started to party!

5.4 The Party as the Social Glue

The parties are what hold The Demoscene together. The highly social demoparty is what

every Scener waits and longs for. Not only for the ability to show the others the

accomplishments that the Scener and the group have done, which is a huge part of the party,

showing off the abilities of the group, but also for the social aspect of the party: the ability to

talk to old friends and share things, which is what allows The Demoscene to become a whole.

“I attend parties to meet up with friends and be social” (Maro, 49,

2015)

The demo party is a place where the sceners are ‘at home’ most have been coming to

the parties for 10-20 years, every year. And that sort of commitment forms a bond with the

community, and you become the community. Many of the attendance have a bond with the

community that goes much further than the demo bond, it is a social bond, where the Sceners

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form a place where they can freely talk about the Commodore, the new types of demos out

there, where the advancements in the demos were important to people. This is a home away

from home, and it much more than just a party. The social aspect of the party is what drives the

sceners in to doing more and more.

5.5 Sleeping

The sleeping arrangements were similar in general, with some exceptions. One being

the @party I attended in Boston. The @party was held in one of the auditoriums of MIT. As a

rule of MIT people are not allowed to stay in the school auditoriums after a certain time. So,

the sleeping arrangements were not as you would see in other parties. The other two parties had

the same concept: sleeping in the party area. This was not mandatory, but was part of the whole

experience of the party. People brought their own sleeping mats, laid them on the floors and

slept there.

At the Revision party, the majority of the attendants slept in the party area but most

without a sleeping matt. If you did not have a sleeping matt the best way to sleep would be to

pull two or three chairs together and sleep on them. That was exactly what I did.

After around three am, people started to disappear. Some went home, others went to

sleep wherever they could. Many were sleeping on the chairs and couches that were available.

At around four am, I pulled myself three chairs, made a pillow out of the inner extension of my

jacket and laid down on the chairs. Since the party was in an old factory, when it got empty it

got cold. I wasn’t ready for the cold. So, I saw some towels that they were given out as gifts. I

got two of the towels, put them under my jacket and slept like that. I slept for about three hours.

The music was on the whole night. I woke up at about six or seven o’clock, when people started

to wake up and came back to the party area. At about nine o’clock the party was up and running

again. There were many people that had a little too much to drink the night before, so they were

still passed out.

Outside, at the garden area there were many food trucks that had come specifically for

this party event. One of them made great crêpes, so I had a nice breakfast with crêpes and started

my day. These food trucks have been coming for many years. In the 2014 party, many people

had complained that there weren’t any vegan food trucks available. So, this year the organizers

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had called a vegan food truck as well. They had all kinds of vegetable based foods, fired tofu

and many other things were sold there, and there was a constant line in front of it.

The party in Turkey, 7DX, had the same sleeping arrangements as the Revision party.

People slept on the floor or wherever they could find. There I wasn’t able to sleep on the chairs.

The chairs that had no arm rests; they were all taken, and the other chairs were computer chairs.

So, they had arm rests and wheels, which made it impossible to sleep on. I slept on a table. A

technique I had mastered during my high school years. The party in Turkey also started to wind

down are around three am. Some went home, others had brought their sleeping mats. Food was

provided by the organizers. `Pide` (a sort of Turkish pizza) and juice were given in the

mornings, pizza and soft drinks at night.

5.6 Communication

The communication between the Sceners during the party is interesting. In each party,

a special IRC (Internet Relay Chat) system is setup online, where anyone can join via the

internet. This IRC allows people in the party to communicate during the demo showings and at

any time they wish. This also allowed people to communicate easily with the organizers, ask

questions to anyone and to freely talk with a bunch of Sceners at the same time. Most parties

had also live broadcast streams online where people that were not able to attend could watch

from their own homes.

In addition to this, most sceners are open people, they love to talk about their work and

what they are doing. Most are very helpful and want their story to be heard, they want the Scene

to become bigger and attract more and more people.

In the Revision Party, there was a Newbie table, which I was seated at. Here some

Sceners came to explain what was going on. Small tours were given to explain the newbies how

the party system works and what goes on behind the screens. And since I was a newbie everyone

was eager to help me on a subject I needed help on.

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6. THE WHY?

6.1 The Reason Behind The Demoscene

Many different answers were given to the question “why are you here?” these are some

of the answers:

“I love to be able to add to a community, to change things that could

not have been changed for years, there is still a lot of things that can be

done in this area, I want to see it all” (Maker. 35)

“It’s a life decision I took when I was 18, computers are my life, and so

is The Demoscene” (Sick, 50)

“The rush in finishing a demo, showing it at a party, and hearing

hundreds of people cheering is why I do it” (Rigo, 48)

“The community” (Dener, 32)

“Computer art is my life, and The Demoscene has been my life”

(Kate.33)

“The heritage of the computers, knowing, understanding the history of

computers and being able to use the history is the best feeling I can

imagine” (Ruck,43)

“The parties!” (Maro, 49)

“It’s how I know life as it is, I started to be in the community when I

was 15, my brother got me in to it. Coding and art is all I know” (Rigo.

48)

“It started with the question how? Then it went on with why? And I

found myself here!” (Jack, 46)

There is no one answer to the reasons behind the sceners being involved in The

Demoscene, each individual has a different say in the game, and has an important part in the

group they are in. Most of the Sceners do have a common past with the computers they used

and the way they got in to Demoscene, but other than that, the reasons for their staying is

limitless. It is like asking an artist why he/she does art. There is never a single answer to this

question, and The Demoscene is no different.

There are many reasons for Sceners to be in The Demoscene. Everyone has his/her own

reason for being in it. It is hard to pinpoint a main reason for them to be in the scene. I saw a

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general questioning and passion for computer arts as their initial motivation to enter The

Demoscene, but later as time goes by, it changes from questioning, to competing, to changing

and it eventually changes to being in a community: working together, competitively perhaps,

but working on the same structures. In addition to being a community, the sceners are passionate

about the past, about the “old” computers. This passion has led them to become a close and

complete community.

One reason is almost impossible to pin point as it is in many other subcultures. Different

people feel differently and see The Demoscene from their own perspective. There is no one

main idea that everyone sees. Each individual likes the scene in his own way, some like the

artistic aspect of the scene, while others are much more in to the computers; fixing, reusing,

modifying...

In my opinion The Demoscene is a mixture of many feelings. Nostalgia is one of the

biggest amongst these feelings. Acting as a group, as the sceners would 15-20 years ago allows

them to reminisce about the old days, as a group this feeling becomes deeper. However, being

a cohesive group, having the same interests and feelings adds to the cohesive texture of the

group.

6.1.1 Nostalgia

Nostalgia is seen as a psychological – neurological disease, the symptoms of which

include anxiety, insomnia and irregular heartbeat. (Routledge, 2006, p. 976). Although these

are the medical symptoms seen in real patients, I would say that I was able to see all these

symptoms in the parties I went to. Of course, not as medical symptoms but as social

rationalizations of these symptoms

The affection people had towards the old machines was very interesting to see; the joy

people had while playing with an old computer was very interesting. After my research, I stared

to see this much more than I used to. I now see people in their 30’s wanting to buy a Commodore

to play games on. It is a trip down the memory lane. It is the idea of remembering those days,

back in the 80’s, where there was nothing else to do other than playing games on this highly

technological equipment’s of the time. The travel back in time, is what drives people these days.

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6.2 The Future of The Demoscene

“There is Two things I’ve learned about the C64 scene after twelve

years I’ve been involved. One is that you should never try to predict the

future of demos, the other is that every C64 coder I have met has no

idea about what the word ‘impossible’ means” (Polgar, 2008, p. 130)

The future of The Demoscene is hard to see, not just in terms of attendance wise, but

also in terms of the way Demoscene will develop. Every year new things are being done in The

Demoscene world, making it hard to predict the future.

The near future is seen as a bright future for The Demoscene. In the next 10 years, most

of the people I talked to told me that the next 10 years the scene will become interesting again.

It might not be at the top as it was in the 90s, but it will be much better than it is today. This

idea was actually the exact opposite of what I had heard and saw in The Demoscene. What I

saw was that the younger age group was not interested in The Demoscene. For them The

Demoscene was too slow a prosses. The new age youngsters are used to doing things fast.

“When you press a button, they want an immediate reaction. That’s not

how it works in the scene” (Rigo, 48, 2015)

Making a demo is a much slower prosses and you need patience. So, in my mind The

Demoscene is bound to get more and more unpopular. However, a group of my interviewees

saw this in a different way. They did predict that in the long run, the scene would get smaller,

but in the next 10 years there would be a rise. The reason for this is that the youngsters of the

80’s and 90’s will become older, and will have left their jobs in the next 10-20 years. What will

they do with the free time they have? They will get back into The Demoscene. With the spare

time in hand, my interviewees said that most of them will come back to creating new products

in The Demoscene, and The Demoscene will become much more active than it is today.

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CONCLUSION

The first and foremost argument in starting this research was that The Demoscene is, in

fact, a subculture, and that it had its own way of being a subculture. Understanding the word

‘subculture’ is where it all starts: a subculture is a cultural group within a larger cultural group.

It can be a social group based on economic, ethnic, regional affinities or it can be a social group

that has come together to make art, because a common past. There are many different ways

subcultures can be formed. The Demoscene is a socially formed subculture. It started with the

introduction of computers in ordinary people’s homes and it is this common past within the

group that has a huge impact on the social bonds observed within the group. Understanding this

common past is crucial in understanding where The Demoscene is coming from, and the social

bond within the group. The common past is not and does not necessarily have to be an ‘old’

date, though most Demoscene groups has around a 30 year behind them. Starting in the late

1970s as personal computers (PC’s) began to enter people’s homes, younger people began to

learn programming, coding, and computer languages, understand its dynamics and dig into the

computers further.

Of course, for a subculture to be called a subculture, a common past in not enough.

Symbols within the group are as important as the common past. Within the group, symbols have

a significance, a meaning to the members. This can be certain types clothing, or a certain type

of music, a language, or many other kinds of symbols. The Demoscene is filled with symbols

that might not mean a lot to an outside observer; a language or a certain type of joke, for

example, that the members within the subculture understand. The Demoscene has both of these

and many other attributes making it a subculture. The language that the sceners use is the

computer language, of course, not the language of their normal interactions amongst the

members. Sceners use this language to explain situations or technical aspect of The Demoscene.

When talking about The Demoscene Sceners tend to use words that outsiders, like me, do not

understand immediately. I needed to go back several times, to understand some of the things

my interviewees tried to explain to me. The sceners do all their work with the computer

language, working with it, and using it to do their artwork. Music is another factor that brings

a group together. Sceners listen to electronic music and use it in their art work. Electronic music

is one of the main combining factors of the scene, almost all Sceners are electronic music fans

(Hebdige, 1979)

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The Demoscene is one of those subjects where a first-hand experience is the key to

understanding the real Demoscene life style, group dynamics and its purpose. During my

research, I was able to understand, see and spend time with the Sceners during their yearly

gatherings called Demoparties. In these demo parties, I was able to see the groups in action, see

the Sceners interacting with each other and what they did during their gatherings. This allowed

me to understand The Demoscene in a much better way than I would if I had just done some

reading about the subject.

The sceners were warm and friendly people, I had no trouble understanding and

interacting with them. Most, if not all, were very eager to explain what they were doing, they

were eager to tell their side of the story which led not only to great conversations, but also

allowed me to understand who these people were. This internally set my research subject, as

the people of The Demoscene, who they were, what they were doing. My research helped me

understand a subject that I was not able find in the articles I had looked through. Most articles

were computer oriented, explaining the backstage of The Demoscene: how it is done, the

programs used, the history of computers and many other technical subjects. I wanted my

research to include the technical side of The Demoscene, but as an anthropologist I wanted to

understand the people, who they were, what they did there and why they were here. These were

my base questions. One of my main objectives when getting into this research was to explain

the inner workings of The Demoscene, not from a technical stand point but from a social one.

Here the main focus is not just the products in hand, but also the people who make these

products.

The Demoscene is not a well-known community around the world. It is also not well

known in Turkey. Hence another aim of my research was to raise awareness of The Demoscene

community, both in Turkey and in the world. By doing one of my researches in Turkey, I hoped

to grab the attention of the Turkish audience. I started this research with the objective of

understanding The Demoscene and informing people about it. I think I have succeeded in the

first part of this dual objective.

The Demoscene has many layers to it. Is not a simple subculture which can be

deciphered in a few months of research; it is much deeper than that. I tried to look at social

subjects like the nicknames that were being used throughout The Demoscene, the social status

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of the Sceners within the Scene. Their lives and livelihood were also intricate parts of my

research.

The findings that I have concluded were based on social and human behavior. As an

anthropologist, I was mainly focused on the human factor in The Demoscene. I was also able

to understand somewhat what the sceners did on their computers, but it was never my main

objective to understand the PC language that the sceners used. I tried to see how they used this

language in their ‘normal’ lives, and how the scene had affected their lives in general. The

sceners tend not to use the PC language in their normal conversations, but the language is used

when talking about the products they have produced. During the parties, most of the

conversations were either about their lives or their products they have made.

The Demoscene has a unique way of changing people’s real names into nicknames.

This, of course, is a tradition that has been with The Demoscene since the beginning of

computing when The Demoscene was more into hacking and illegal activities then it was into

art. The Demoscene, as other subcultures, has a past as well -- a common past as I mentioned.

This common past has its dark corners. The Demoscene started by hacking games and

distributing them illegally. In time, The Demoscene grew into the art subculture we see today.

Even though the subculture is now completely legal and the need for nicknames has long been

gone, the tradition has persisted and all Sceners use nicknames when in The Demoscene.

Nicknames also add a persona to the Scener. It creates a new person, who is far away from his

family, job and ‘normal’ life. Maybe, a person who is still young and vibrant. A person who

can sleep on the floor without any problems. All of these are why the nicknames have persisted.

Art subculture was the best way I was able to explain The Demoscene, but it is not a

universally accepted terminology. Some of the sceners do not see their work as art. They see it

as a show of talent. Not art. This is an inner debate within The Demoscene and it is hard to pin

point who is right and who is wrong.

Most of the sceners had jobs and families, this is one of the main reasons The

Demoscene is getting smaller and smaller. The Sceners do not have enough time to give to

Demoscene, so it is losing its form since the early 2000’s. This is the period when the young

first-generation computer users became older and got jobs and families.

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The Demoscene consists of Sceners that form groups to create their products. The

groups do not especially have a hierarchy, that is universal. However older group members are

often considered to be higher up in the rankings. The demogroups allow the sceners to create

their products, as groups. There is usually a coder, a designer and a musician in each group.

The numbers may differ from group to group. Some groups are small, with 4 to 5 members,

other much bigger and have 20 to 30 members.

Demoparties are one of the main ways that the sceners are able to interact with each

other; actually, the only way most sceners see each other. After the 2000s where the sceners

have gotten jobs and families, the sceners began to see each other from party to party. Of course,

there are still many that see each other in a much more shorter time frame, many of the active

groups that make demos for parties meet on a weekly or a monthly basis.

During the research, I attended 3 parties. All of them had different attributes and

different concepts to them. The Revision Party in Germany was by far the biggest of them all.

With about 600 attendants, the party was huge. During my research, I actually tried to live (for

3-4 days at least) like a Scener. I slept at the party area, ate, drank and did everything I could in

the party area, just like a Scener would do for the duration of the party. Some Sceners had

brought beds with them, others their huge computers. Each Scener was unique, had a different

view and understanding of The Demoscene. I saw that every Scener was as enthusiastic to be

there as any other. The main motivation was the group itself. To keep the group alive, to keep

the sub culture running, to try to get younger people involved, and to try to make people

understand what they do in these parties. The Revision Party had a special “Newbie” table (a

slang computer term meaning new comer, or just new), where the new comers were sat.

Occasionally a Scener would come over and talk to the newcomers, explain to them what they

do, encourage them to compete in the competitions that occur during the party. I have observed

this motivation to keep The Demoscene going in all parties. There is a huge online community

dedicated to teaching how the demos are made, trying to help new comers understand The

Demoscene.

The sceners have two motivations that I could see during the parties I attended. The first

is the ability to do better than the one before them. The ability to show the world what he can

do with codes, with ‘out dated’ computers. In each party, there are many things that the sceners

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have discovered and are showing for the first time. This motivates them to do more, to dig

harder and to do better, find new things, and show them to the world.

The next motivation is to get bigger again, for more people to know about The

Demoscene. During the Revision Party I attended, one of the ‘Newbie’s’ went on the stage and

competed with a Scener. He lost, but was given a huge standing ovation by the crowd, and later

on continued his Demoscene activities. In the 2016 Revision Party, which I could not attend,

he intended to submit a demo of his own. He was a computer engineering student, familiar with

coding, but had learned The Demoscene language during the party.

The Demoscene as I explained is a very open community, a community that wants to

return to its peak times as it was in the 1980s. The motivation of the Sceners to achieve this is

seen in the parties they attend and create.

The Demoscene gave me an interesting adventure and a very interesting anthropological

thesis topic. It was one of the more interesting and ‘fun’ researches I have done. For this, I thank

The Demoscene community for being open and interesting.

The Demoscene is a dying subculture. With this thesis, I hope to help this subculture as

much as I can. This subculture is underrated and not well known, I hope to spread the word,

and maybe interest some people. By this, I hope to have helped The Demoscene in a small way,

by attracting interesting people to the scene.

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APPENDIX 1: REFERANCES

Bauko, J. (2012). Investigation of nicknames. Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne, 1819(1), 105-118.

Bubenko Jr, J., Impagilazzo, J., & Solvberg, A. (2003). History of Nordic Computing. IFIP WG9.7 First

Working Confrence on the History of Nordic Computing (NiNC1) (pp. 289-301). Trondheim:

Springer.

Burger, B., Paulovic, O., & Hasan, M. (2002). Realtime Visualization Methods in The Demoscene.

Retrieved from http://old.cescg.org/CESCG-2002/BBurger/

Can. (2015, March 21). (K. A. Inal, Interviewer) Istanbul, Turkey.

Carlsson, A. (2009). The Forgotten Pioneers of Creative Hacking and Social Networking - Introducing

The Demoscene. Re:live Media Art Histories 2009 (pp. 16-20). Melbourne: The University of

Melbourne & Victorian College of the Arts and Music.

Dener. (2015, March 21). (K. A. Inal, Interviewer) Istanbul, Turkey.

Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretetion of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers.

Gelder, K., & Thorton, S. (1997). The Subcultures Reader. New York: Routlage.

Goodman, D. (1987). Digital Visions: Computer and Art. New York: Abrams .

Hansen, N. B., Nørgård, R. T., & Halskov, K. (2014). Crafting Code at the Demo-scene. DIS '14

Proceedings of the 2014 conference on Designing interactive systems (pp. 35-38 ). Vancouver,

BC, Canada: ACM.

Hastik, C., & Steinmetz, A. (2012). Demoscene Computer Artists and Community. CERC2012

Collaborative European Research Conference (pp. 42-48). Darmstadt, Germany: Cover

Pictures © Ulrich Mathias.

Hebdige, D. (1979). Subcultre: The Meaning of Style. London and New York: Routledge.

Heikkil, V.-M. (2009, 07 11). countercomplex. Retrieved from Putting The Demoscene in a context:

http://www.pelulamu.net/countercomplex/putting-the-Demoscene-in-a-context/

Jack. (2015, April 3). (K. A. Inal, Interviewer) Saarbrucken, Germany.

Jenkins, H. (1992). Textual Poachers. New York: Routlage.

Kaploun , V. (2013). From Geertz To Ryle: The Thick Description Concept And Institutional Analysis Of

Cultures. Working Paper WP20, 24.

Kate. (2015, June 19). (K. A. Inal, Interviewer) Boston, USA.

Kottak, C. P. (2012). Anthropology: The Exploration of Human Diversity. New York: McGraw-Hill

Higher Education.

Lal. (2015, June 20). (K. Inal, Interviewer) Boston, USA.

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Macdonald, N. (2001). The Graffiti Subculture: Youth, Masculinity and Identity. New York: Palgrave

Macmillan.

Maker. (2015, April 3). (K. A. Inal, Interviewer) Saarbrucken, Germany.

Maro. (2015, April 3). (K. A. Inal, Interviewer) Istanbul, Turkey.

Marques, I. (2014). Playing new music with old games: The chiptune subculture. Game as Art Media

Entertainment, 67-79.

Mendoza, N. (2006). Digital art and open source: How is Open Source utilised in The Demoscene?

Trondheim, Norway: NTNU.

Paul, C. (2015). Digital Art . London: Thames and Hudson.

Polgar, T. (2008). Freax: the brief history of The Demoscene. Winnenden, Germany: CSW Verlag.

Polymeropoulou , M. (2014, 1 2). Chipmusic, Fakebit and the discourse of Authenticity in the

Chipscene. Retrieved from WiderScreen : http://widerscreen.fi/numerot/

Rap. (2015, March 21). (K. A. Inal, Interviewer) Istanbul, Turkey.

Reunanen, M. (2013). Four Kilobyte Art. Helsinki, Finland: WiderScreen 2–3/2013 as ”Neljän kilotavun

taide”.

Reunanen, M. (2017). Times Of Change In The Demoscene A Creative Community and Its Relationship

with Technology. Academic Dissertation, 102. Retrieved from

http://www.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/130915/AnnalesB428Reunanen.pdf?sequence

=2

Reunanen, M., & Silvast, A. (2009). Demoscene Platforms: A Case Study on the Adoption of Home

Computers. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Rigo. (2015, March 21). (K. A. Inal, Interviewer) Istanbul, Turkey.

Routledge, C. (2006). Nostalgia: Content, Triggers, Functions. Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology, 91(5), 975-993.

Ruck. (2015, April 3). (K. A. Inal, Interviewer) Saarbrucken, Germany.

Ruffino, P., & Carbone, M. B. (2014). Video Game Subcultures: Playing at the periphery of

mainstream culture. GAME: Games as Art Mesia Entertainment, 124.

Ryle, G. (2009). The Concept of Mind. New York: Routledge.

Sick. (2015, April 3). (K. A. Inal, Interviewer) Saarbrucken, Germany.

Spertus, E. (2002). Why are There so Few Female Computer Scientists? Cambridge, MA: MIT.

Spradley, J. P. (1980). Participent Observation. Florida: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

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Starks, D., & Leech, K. T. (2011). A Research Project on Nicknames and Adolescent Identities. New

Zealand Studies in Applied Linguistics, 17(2), 87-97.

Thornton, S. (2013). Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Oxford: Polity Press.

Varma, R. (2010). Why so few women enroll in computing? Gender and ethnic differences in

students' perception. Computer Science Education, 301-316.

Wasiak, P. (2012). Illegal Guys: A History of Digital Subcultures in Europe during the 1980s.

Computerisierung Und Informationsgesellschaft. Retrieved From Zeithistorische

Forschungenstudies In Contemporary History: http://www.zeithistorische-forschungen.de/2-

2012/id%3D4746

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APPENDIX 2: PICTURES

Photograph 1 - A Commodore 64 computer. A demo is being shown. Boğaziçi University, Turkey. March 2015.

Photograph 2 - A Commodore 64 PC running a game. Boğaziçi University, Turkey. March 2015.

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Photograph 3 - A Commodore advertisement from 1981. Shows the affordable price of the Commodore computers at 600$.

Boğaziçi University, Turkey. March 2015.

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Photograph 4 - A nostalgic Apple PC is seen in the bottom right corner. On the big screen, a Demo is being shown which was

released in 2010. Boğaziçi University, Turkey. March 2015.

Photograph 5 - An Amiga Atari gaming PC being fixed. Boğaziçi University, Turkey. March 2015.

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Photograph 6 - A car racing game being played, as part of a competition. Boğaziçi University, Turkey. March 2015.

Photograph 7 - This is where all the sceners would go out to smoke and to chat. Boğaziçi University, Turkey. March 2015.

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Photograph 8 - The two images above are from the same artwork. The keyboard that is seen is an Amiga computer. The

computer was mounted on the wall, and the animation was projected onto it. Boğaziçi University, Turkey. March 2015.

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Photograph 9 - The Demoscene Party Event picture. Boğaziçi University, Turkey. March 2015.

Photograph 10 - Some of the Redbull drinks that were consumed by everyone during the party. Boğaziçi University, Turkey.

March,2015.

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Photograph 11 - This was written on the top of the entrance door. It says: You Scener, if you sleep, you will die… Boğaziçi

University, Turkey. March 2015.

Photograph 12 - The main party area of the Revision Party. Saarbrucken, Germany. April 2015.

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Photograph 13 - The main party area in the Revision Party. Most attendants have brought their own computers, some

desktops. Saarbrucken, Germany, April 2015.

Photograph 14 - The revision party from the outside. Saarbrucken, Germany, April 2015.

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Photograph 15 - Main campfire area of the party. There is a large campfire area on the left where the group of people are

standing. After sundown, most sceners came here to chat, and spend some time away from their computers. Saarbrucken,

Germany. April 2015

Photograph 16 - These two astronauts are the presenters of the party, they announced the winners, and the events that

was going to take place. Each year there is a different theme to the party, in 2015 the theme was space, hence the astronaut

and the spaceship on the screen. This is also a good way to see the size of the screen with the people standing next to the

screen. Saarbrucken, Germany. April 2015.

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Photograph 17 - The symbol of the Revision Party, that does not change. Saarbrucken, Germany. April 2015.

Photograph 18 - This was one of the competitions that were done during the party. The objective was to change the

background shape, color and movement in real time by using coding language. This event is called the shader showdown.

Saarbrucken, Germany. April 2015.

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Photograph 19 - The main entrance and the place where sceners got their beverages, and many other things needed during

the party. Saarbrucken, Germany. April 2015.

Photograph 20 - The newbie Tables, where the new comers sat. Saarbrucken, Germany. April 2015.

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Photograph 21 - This is how the products were announced before they were showed. Here you can find information such as:

The name of the product (5711 ‘till infinity). Who was it done by (Dr. Alan Grolsch), the demogroup he/she is in(DSS), a short

explanation to what it is (The short paragraph at the bottom), the competition the product was submitted in (ASCII/ANSI (a

type of computer code)) and the previos product that was shown(Ascii Like its’s 1995). Saarbrucken, Germany. April 2015.

Figure 1 - This is a still frame from an OldSkool demo presented in the 2015 Revision Party. It is a 3-minute-long product and

was made on an Amiga 500. It was made by unique and it is called Interparallactic. This screen shot was taken from

YouTube. The Link: https://youtu.be/1F0ErSgsq1A

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Photograph 22 - Me sitting and sleeping area. Saarbrucken, Germany. April 2015.

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Photograph 23 - Beneath the party area, a hallway to the bathrooms, Saarbrucken, Germany. April 2015.

Photograph 24 - A device made during the party to be showcased at an event. Saarbrucken, Germany. April 2015.

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Photograph 25 - Final dance party at the end of the Revision Party. Saarbrucken, Germany. April 2015.

Photograph 26 - Sceners waiting for the most awaited competition, the PC demo competition. Saarbrucken, Germany. April

2015.

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Figure 2 This demo was released in 2015 by the group called RedSector at the party I have attended. It is a demo made on

the Amiga computer. Main animation happening is the writing scrolling from right to left. The writing explains when the

demo was done, where it was first released (Istanbul) and so on. The name of the demo is Cresta. This screen shot was taken

from YouTube. The link is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64KZyz6V5Uc. 2015.

Figure 3 - This demo was released in 2011. By two groups called Fairlight& Alcatraz. This demo was produced on the PC. It

was not done by any nostalgic computer. It was done with a modern PC. This is a 5-minute video, with sounds and many

visual effects. There are little to no words in this demo. The name of this demo is called: Uncovering Static. This screen shot

was taken from YouTube. The link is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oPpcSZa3NE

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Figure 4 - This demo was released in 2011, by Batman Group. This demo was done on the nostalgic Amstrad CPC. The

concept of this Demo is about Batman the movies. There are many images, put together to form a demo. In addition to that

there is music and animated effects. This screen shot was taken from YouTube. The link is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqjZNnjNu3Y

Figure 5 – This demo was released in 2015 at the Revision Party, and it was called Connections made by musk/brainstorm,

metoikos/Vaahera, Damarie/ Vaahtera. İn this PC demo there was no size limit or any other limit except the demo being

done one the PC platform. This screen shot was taken from YouTube. The Link: https://youtu.be/ZKKuXK1YXZ8

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Figure 6 - A pixel art done on an Amiga 500 device, which was submitted in an OldSkool Demo competition. This painting, as

the others in the demo, was done by painting each pixel individually. This is one of a series of paintings done by the same

artist - Ghostown called The Lost Pixekkers Vol 2. This demo was released at the Revision Party in 2015. This screen shot was

taken from YouTube. The Link: https://youtu.be/1F0ErSgsq1A

Figure 7 - This is a still frame from a PC 64k Demo that came first place in the Revision Party 2015. The 64k implies the size of

the file, in this competition the sceners are only allowed to submit a file that is 64 kilobytes in size or smaller. This particular

Demo is around 5 minutes long, and has many planets that are moving and in addition to that there is constant music in the

background. The name of the demo is fermi paradox and the group who created is Mercury. This screen shot was taken from

YouTube. The Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vJuowAITCQ&t=587s

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APPENDIX 3: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Demographic Questions:

• The interviewee’s:

o Age

o Sex

o Where they live

o Their marital status

o If they have kids or not

o Economic status

o Education

o Their families’ economic status

2. Work related questions:

• Where do they work

• Why they work there

• How long have they been working?

• Does the job they are doing, in any way contribute to The Demoscene

• Why they are doing that job

• Where they see themselves in 10 years

• The effect The Demoscene Parties have to their financial status.

3. Questions about The Demoscene

• A short historical background of The Demoscene from their perspective

• Why, How, when they became involved in The Demoscene

• What is The Demoscene to them

• Is art important for them?

• How would they describe what they are doing?

• Is it art?

• Why and How they became a Scener

• Their first computer

• How they learned about The Demoscene

• What they do in the Demoparties

• Are the affiliated with a demogroup

• Were they ever affiliated with a demogroup

• Why did they leave the group/why are they still a part of the group?

• What if they were not a part of The Demoscene

• Do they feel nostalgic while attending a demoparty?

• How much time do they spend a week/year thinking or doing things for The

Demoscene

• Where do they see The Demoscene in 10 years?

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4. Demoscene and Art

• Is art in any way a part of their lives, do they attend openings, do they enjoy art in

general

• What is art for them

• Why do they do The Demoscene, does it have anything to do with it being an art

• When did they see The Demoscene as an art form?

• Can they express themselves with The Demoscene, do they have such a need?

5. Gender in The Demoscene

• What is the male to female ration in The Demoscene

• How does this ration corollate with computer studies?

• Why are there more men in the computer industry?

• To women participants:

i. What is it like to be a woman in The Demoscene

ii. Why is The Demoscene such a mail oriented subculture

iii. Did you ever feel uncomfortable?

iv. Is there a ‘thing’ that women do in The Demoscene

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APPENDIX 5: CV

KEREM INAL Phone number: + 1 (718) 972-5030 and + 90 (535) 686-2209 E-mail: kereminal@gmail.com Address: 303 Beverly Rd. Apt. 9D. Brooklyn, NY Date and Place of Birth: November 22, 1994; New York

- TALENT and ABILITIES

COMMUNICATION: Excellent. As an Anthropologist I have learned to understand and interpret different situations and cultures, enhancing my communication ability.

LANGUAGE: Turkish and English: excellent speaking, reading and writing. Russian: good speaking.

COMPUTER PROGRAMS: Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint; SPSS, NVivo, MaxQda; Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign. I am currently learning Python programming language and have interests in learning/understanding other computing languages.

PHOTOGRAPHY: I have been taking pictures since my childhood. I had an exhibition in my high school. I have been a part of the press in three separate speed boat races held in Istanbul, Turkey.

EDITING and DESIGN: In December of 2017, I shot the catalog pictures and designed the catalog for Suzan Batu and Eti Behar’s exhibition, Hafif Uyku. I was also the camera assistant and editor for Suzan Batu’s artistic short film, The Sümerbank Goddess as part of the same exhibition.

- WORK EXPERIENCE

- TÜBİTAK (SCIENTIFIC and TECHNOLOGICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL of TURKEY) — A RESEARCH on THE REMAINING FOREST VILLAGES - 06-12-2015 – 11-15-2017

Data analyst. I was also responsible for the technological part of the research, creating a web

site, creating a survey and gathering all the pictures into the website.

- HABITUS RESEARCH - 04-01-2015 – 01-01-2017

- An ethnographic research company where I worked as a field researcher. The company mainly does research for commercial companies. -

- ATAŞEHİR TEMPORARY ANIMAL CARE FACILITY - 01-10-2013 – 01-02-2014

A facility in Istanbul Turkey where stray animals are taken care of. In addition to this, the facility also finds homes for animals.

- BAĞIMSIZ BASIN AJANSI (BBA) - 01-06-2013 – 01-08-2013

An independent news agency located in Istanbul, Turkey. I worked as an intern for 2 months.

PRESS - STIHL OFFSHORE RACING

- 09-26-2010 – 09-27-2010, 08-06-2011 – 08-07-2011, 10-21-2011 – 10-22-2011

I went to the races as a part of the press at the dates shown above. My job was to help the press in any way possible and take pictures of the events.

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- EDUCATION - YEDİTEPE UNIVERSITY, ANTHROPOLOGY DEPARTMENT, İSTANBUL, TURKEY

- Undergraduate (2012 - 2017)

- - TED KOLEJI, İSTANBUL, TURKEY

- Primary School, Middle School and High School (2004 – 2012)

- - P.S. 295, BROOKLYN

- Primary School (2000-2004)

- ACADEMIC - April 2016 — Organization of the 5th National Anthropology Students’ Conference at Yeditepe

University, İstanbul, Turkey.

- April 2016— Presentation of the paper entitled ‘The Demoscene Subculture’ at the 5th

National Anthropology Students’ Conference at Yeditepe University, İstanbul, Turkey.

- May 2015— Presentation of the paper entitled ‘How we use Anthropology: A mapped

explanation’ at the 4th National Anthropology Students’ Conference at Istanbul University,

İstanbul, Turkey.

- RESEARCH AND WRITING

In 2016 I started conducting research for my graduation project. I went to three different

events in Turkey, Germany and the US. My research was about The Demoscene Subculture. I

did one on one interviews with many people. After my research was concluded I wrote my

graduation thesis and graduated. I am now in the final phases of shortening and editing my

thesis to submit it for publication.