Cultural Heritage of Humanity (Weltkulturerbe), bitches!
category: general [glöplog]
Hello girls and guys of the demoscene,
I've just learned that there are efforts taken, that the Demoscene should become Cultural Heritage of Humanity. In Germany this is known as Weltkulturerbe.
Pressrelease / Details are here:
https://efgamp.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2019-05-20-EFGAMP_Press-Release_Demoscene_UNESCO_Art_of_Coding.pdf
Homepage: http://demoscene-the-art-of-coding.net/
Greetings,
SvOlli
I've just learned that there are efforts taken, that the Demoscene should become Cultural Heritage of Humanity. In Germany this is known as Weltkulturerbe.
Pressrelease / Details are here:
https://efgamp.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2019-05-20-EFGAMP_Press-Release_Demoscene_UNESCO_Art_of_Coding.pdf
Homepage: http://demoscene-the-art-of-coding.net/
Greetings,
SvOlli
like the pyramids!
You're quick, chaps. Here's short version of the announcement in FB form:
Demoscene is digital art in perfection but could it be also cultural heritage? That's what we're doing to see in the upcoming years. We have today lauched campaign to add the Demoscene on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as a digital and social practice.
The organizations behind the campaign intend to get the demoscene and its digital works acknowledged as a culture of its own, as form as art worth preserving.
Of course this will take a long time, years. The campaign will need local heroes from different countries to spearhead each country's own application to the UNESCO list and organizations, associations, companies, demogroups and inviduals to support the campaign. Support can be "yeah you can add our to the list of supporters for the UNESCO application" or actual activity and running/helping the local campaign.
For closer look please see http://demoscene-the-art-of-coding.net/
We'll use #artofcoding as the Twitter hashtag and you can also subscribe the EFGAMP newsletter at https://efgamp.eu/ for more regular comms about Art of Coding and EFGAMP's our digital research/preservation activities.
Thanks for your attention and please spread the word.
Grendel / Byterapers, Inc.
http://demoscene-the-art-of-coding.net/
Demoscene is digital art in perfection but could it be also cultural heritage? That's what we're doing to see in the upcoming years. We have today lauched campaign to add the Demoscene on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as a digital and social practice.
The organizations behind the campaign intend to get the demoscene and its digital works acknowledged as a culture of its own, as form as art worth preserving.
Of course this will take a long time, years. The campaign will need local heroes from different countries to spearhead each country's own application to the UNESCO list and organizations, associations, companies, demogroups and inviduals to support the campaign. Support can be "yeah you can add our to the list of supporters for the UNESCO application" or actual activity and running/helping the local campaign.
For closer look please see http://demoscene-the-art-of-coding.net/
We'll use #artofcoding as the Twitter hashtag and you can also subscribe the EFGAMP newsletter at https://efgamp.eu/ for more regular comms about Art of Coding and EFGAMP's our digital research/preservation activities.
Thanks for your attention and please spread the word.
Grendel / Byterapers, Inc.
http://demoscene-the-art-of-coding.net/
I have just learned that there are efforts taken that the Budbrain Megademo should become Cultural Heritage of Humanity
also I found this link on twitter:
https://conf.nordicgame.com/sessions/the-demoscene-as-unesco-world-cultural-heritage/
https://conf.nordicgame.com/sessions/the-demoscene-as-unesco-world-cultural-heritage/
"Cultural Heritage, bitches" is gonna keep me entertained for the rest of the day.
Hello everybody,
I´m glad the word is spreading already! Grendel posted the core facts, thanks for sharing!
Today, we launched the website and are slowly spreading the word into all different directions. As this initiative will take some time, up to years, we are welcoming everybody to join our slightly crazy initiative!:)
Right now we have applications starting in Germany and Finland, but we are of course looking for more demosceners / demoscene-groups / demoscene-parties interested to also file an UNESCO application in other countries, or supporting the initiatives in a country where things are already going.
As we are just getting started we are looking for any help, means if you´d like to gather a group around you and support the initiative with an application in your country or just say "Thumbs Up" with your group, please don´t hesitate to reach out!
As the probability of an successful international application rises with the number of countries each country launching an application helps. But also if you don´t have the time for this maybe you can still send us your logo and say your group or event is supporting the initiative, as with a wide spectrum of supporting demosceners in our partner section we can show UNESCO the spectrum and activity behind the initiative with backing from the scene.
And if you want to talk face to face: in case you are at Nordic Game Conference this week, there will be a panel discussion announcing our initiative to the game dev community (https://conf.nordicgame.com/sessions/the-demoscene-as-unesco-world-cultural-heritage/), to involve game devs with a demoscene background - and spread the word about the scene to get potentially new people interested.
Next appearances are planned for Evoke and Assembly, more on this soon.
All info (work in progress) -and contact details- under http://demoscene-the-art-of-coding.net/ And if you are interested in the process check especially the "About The Initiative" section, which explains the process in detail.
Thanks for reading, looking forward to your ideas & feedback and hoping for your support!
Tobias Kopka / Digitale Kultur e.V. aka melkor/haujobb
(tobias@curatomic.net)
I´m glad the word is spreading already! Grendel posted the core facts, thanks for sharing!
Today, we launched the website and are slowly spreading the word into all different directions. As this initiative will take some time, up to years, we are welcoming everybody to join our slightly crazy initiative!:)
Right now we have applications starting in Germany and Finland, but we are of course looking for more demosceners / demoscene-groups / demoscene-parties interested to also file an UNESCO application in other countries, or supporting the initiatives in a country where things are already going.
As we are just getting started we are looking for any help, means if you´d like to gather a group around you and support the initiative with an application in your country or just say "Thumbs Up" with your group, please don´t hesitate to reach out!
As the probability of an successful international application rises with the number of countries each country launching an application helps. But also if you don´t have the time for this maybe you can still send us your logo and say your group or event is supporting the initiative, as with a wide spectrum of supporting demosceners in our partner section we can show UNESCO the spectrum and activity behind the initiative with backing from the scene.
And if you want to talk face to face: in case you are at Nordic Game Conference this week, there will be a panel discussion announcing our initiative to the game dev community (https://conf.nordicgame.com/sessions/the-demoscene-as-unesco-world-cultural-heritage/), to involve game devs with a demoscene background - and spread the word about the scene to get potentially new people interested.
Next appearances are planned for Evoke and Assembly, more on this soon.
All info (work in progress) -and contact details- under http://demoscene-the-art-of-coding.net/ And if you are interested in the process check especially the "About The Initiative" section, which explains the process in detail.
Thanks for reading, looking forward to your ideas & feedback and hoping for your support!
Tobias Kopka / Digitale Kultur e.V. aka melkor/haujobb
(tobias@curatomic.net)
OK so I read up a bit, this is basically an effort to get the demoscene listed among a bunch of folk dance styles and the likes. I mean, be my guest, whatever rocks your boat, but.. what's the upside, exactly?
It's not like demoscene needs protection, and even if it did, I strongly doubt a bunch of bureaucrats in Geneva could do much protecting in practice :-)
Or is there like a direct relation between "yo we're totally UNESCO Certified Super Important" and "lots of easy grants & subsidies for demoparties"? In that case, great and bold move, cool idea, I'll try to help best I can.
It's not like demoscene needs protection, and even if it did, I strongly doubt a bunch of bureaucrats in Geneva could do much protecting in practice :-)
Or is there like a direct relation between "yo we're totally UNESCO Certified Super Important" and "lots of easy grants & subsidies for demoparties"? In that case, great and bold move, cool idea, I'll try to help best I can.
Sidenote: what Gargaj said.
@skrebbel to be officially recognized as a "culture" by the UNESCO will probably help a lot to organize party/events :)
Rez, in what way? Admittedly I only organized a few parties myself but none of the people involved (location owners, food truck people, participants, etc) would've done anything differently if demoscene had a "UN approved" sticker. Maybe this is different for Revision-size events though? Would Saarbrucken or Saarland suddenly tell D.Fox "here, have some free money!" if we're Intangible Cultural Heritage?
> "yo we're totally UNESCO Certified Super Important" and "lots of easy grants
> & subsidies for demoparties"?
That sure would be one upside. Probably not easy grants but anyway. Just today I said that "heck, there's so much research and interviews I could and should do about demoscene but where could I get the money for a 10 year project to create definite demoscene history" and my colleague put it "well, if this gets to Unesco list you would have great backing for a 10 year grand".
And I was very :O and "heck yes". :)
Thing is, demoscene itself runs just fine. But we don't have proper histories. Games history is being documented all the time - there's the museums, game researchers, commercial magazines. Game research is being taught in Finnish universities.
Demoscene has nothing, just some active persons doing little things. No disrespect to them, I love them, but there's very small amoutn of demoscene research and history compared to many other digital forms or mainstream culture.
With this campaign we might be able to get that recognition and be able to love our history in public, get some proper research done, create better histories, study and document the whole thing. Probably we don't be able to build a demoscene museum but hey, a few exhibitions would be sweet too. And even if doesn't go through, at least we tried!
-Grendel / Byterapers, Inc.
> & subsidies for demoparties"?
That sure would be one upside. Probably not easy grants but anyway. Just today I said that "heck, there's so much research and interviews I could and should do about demoscene but where could I get the money for a 10 year project to create definite demoscene history" and my colleague put it "well, if this gets to Unesco list you would have great backing for a 10 year grand".
And I was very :O and "heck yes". :)
Thing is, demoscene itself runs just fine. But we don't have proper histories. Games history is being documented all the time - there's the museums, game researchers, commercial magazines. Game research is being taught in Finnish universities.
Demoscene has nothing, just some active persons doing little things. No disrespect to them, I love them, but there's very small amoutn of demoscene research and history compared to many other digital forms or mainstream culture.
With this campaign we might be able to get that recognition and be able to love our history in public, get some proper research done, create better histories, study and document the whole thing. Probably we don't be able to build a demoscene museum but hey, a few exhibitions would be sweet too. And even if doesn't go through, at least we tried!
-Grendel / Byterapers, Inc.
Right! So UNESCO would directly fund research and history-writing etc?
In addition to what Grendel said: the Unesco label itself doesn´t bring anyone money. But it definitely helps to raise awareness.
If you think about very practical tangible things our hope at Digitale Kultur e.V. is that it will potentially help everybody with fundraising from official institutions, like the city supporting a venue, a region helping funding tech setup or travel, that kind of stuff - if you want to go down that road of fundraising from the public side for example. In Cologne we had some years the support of the city and it definitely helped - hopefully to be brought back some day soon. Not that we depend on it, but it helps setting up a better event - and if there´s too much money, then it goes into the compo prices, as tradition demands.
And to add a second point, it´s definitely right, the demoscene is fine with itself (if we can say so, as it´s composed of so many opinions and experiences) and doesn´t need an official approval or stamp of legibility to justify ourselves. On the other hand a little bit visibility in fields we don´t usually reach out to and more accessibility to attract fresh blood and new influences never hurts.
At least that is why we founded DKEV in 2003 (aside of having a legal body for running evoke of course) and why we always did these outreach initiatives in Germany and around (like museum or event exhibits, talks, demoshows, articles - that kind of stuff. As for us it´s a logical next step, as we have fun telling new and old people about the scene and maybe they feel attracted to join and stick around. To just speak from a strictly demoscene-driven perspective.
In other regards there is so many arguments more (the scene is special in so many regards) - and we will stress this with your support over the upcoming months and years, but now gotta run to Nordic Game Conference, hope to maybe see some of you around.
tobi / mlk^hjb
PS: Love we got you entertained :)
If you think about very practical tangible things our hope at Digitale Kultur e.V. is that it will potentially help everybody with fundraising from official institutions, like the city supporting a venue, a region helping funding tech setup or travel, that kind of stuff - if you want to go down that road of fundraising from the public side for example. In Cologne we had some years the support of the city and it definitely helped - hopefully to be brought back some day soon. Not that we depend on it, but it helps setting up a better event - and if there´s too much money, then it goes into the compo prices, as tradition demands.
And to add a second point, it´s definitely right, the demoscene is fine with itself (if we can say so, as it´s composed of so many opinions and experiences) and doesn´t need an official approval or stamp of legibility to justify ourselves. On the other hand a little bit visibility in fields we don´t usually reach out to and more accessibility to attract fresh blood and new influences never hurts.
At least that is why we founded DKEV in 2003 (aside of having a legal body for running evoke of course) and why we always did these outreach initiatives in Germany and around (like museum or event exhibits, talks, demoshows, articles - that kind of stuff. As for us it´s a logical next step, as we have fun telling new and old people about the scene and maybe they feel attracted to join and stick around. To just speak from a strictly demoscene-driven perspective.
In other regards there is so many arguments more (the scene is special in so many regards) - and we will stress this with your support over the upcoming months and years, but now gotta run to Nordic Game Conference, hope to maybe see some of you around.
tobi / mlk^hjb
PS: Love we got you entertained :)
Demoscene preserves itself and is already a culture since the 80s so no need for unesco or any other mainstream institutions ..
Quote:
Demoscene preserves itself
We can't even preserve our own links, dawg.
Still old releases gets archived daily, to both puclic and private sites ..
-public
For me the point is something else. I'm interested in many forms of art, not just the Demoscene.
So when I'm talking to people doing or curating "analog art" and trying to explain to them what I do, they are always interested. But that's only in a "yeah, that interesting and nice to know" basis. But nothing sparks a flame to get them moving towards me. To do something together. So this feels to me like Demoscene is just "art light". No big exhibition outside of demo parties, for example.
So this is more about getting some kind of respect from the people that you wouldn't expect it from. People who do "serious art". And maybe they are broadening your mind, explaining you something about your work you just didn't notice. Because they have a completely different angle to view at "art stuff".
Fun fact: (being an Atari 2600 coder) About a year ago I handed my father half a dozen of cartridges: "do you remember these, from back when I was a kid?" - "Year of course, those where fun times." - "Well the difference is, that I coded those." And at that point I could get to make him understand something about my hobby, he couldn't grasp before. And at that point I could see something on his face: pride. He was proud of his son. And I would really like to tell him, that what I'm doing is officially considered cultural heritage of humanity.
So most about demo coding is about attitude and respect. How would it be to expand the range of being recognized at and getting respect from not only "our kind of people", but beyond? Personally, I'd dig it.
P.S. @gargaj: you're welcome. ;-)
So when I'm talking to people doing or curating "analog art" and trying to explain to them what I do, they are always interested. But that's only in a "yeah, that interesting and nice to know" basis. But nothing sparks a flame to get them moving towards me. To do something together. So this feels to me like Demoscene is just "art light". No big exhibition outside of demo parties, for example.
So this is more about getting some kind of respect from the people that you wouldn't expect it from. People who do "serious art". And maybe they are broadening your mind, explaining you something about your work you just didn't notice. Because they have a completely different angle to view at "art stuff".
Fun fact: (being an Atari 2600 coder) About a year ago I handed my father half a dozen of cartridges: "do you remember these, from back when I was a kid?" - "Year of course, those where fun times." - "Well the difference is, that I coded those." And at that point I could get to make him understand something about my hobby, he couldn't grasp before. And at that point I could see something on his face: pride. He was proud of his son. And I would really like to tell him, that what I'm doing is officially considered cultural heritage of humanity.
So most about demo coding is about attitude and respect. How would it be to expand the range of being recognized at and getting respect from not only "our kind of people", but beyond? Personally, I'd dig it.
P.S. @gargaj: you're welcome. ;-)
Quote:
Demoscene preserves itself
Preservation isn't enough. Imagine the stuff from ancient Egypt would have just been preserved? Old stuff kept in shape. Boring. What makes it interesting is learning about it, from it.
And almost nobody does this about the demoscene. Or have you ever seen a demo explained in depth like this?
The main driving force behind any cultural phenomenon like painting is of course publicity. Imagine you'd never heard of any painting as an art, any great painter etc. -- not at all. And then you're shown with Malevich's "black square". Your reaction might be like 'what the fuck?'.
But since many people hear and read -- from their birth, in schools etc. -- that the painting is a great art, there are great painters, their different styles etc.etc.etc. most of people naturally get "zombified" about the art. Some start loving it, some start buying and collecting. In museums one can look at some art objects -- for money and for a short time, etc.
And now turn that to the demoscene. What if there would be great demos that would be only accessible for money in museums? What if some groups would start writing demos for money? What if at the parties, after the compo there would be an auction to sell winning releases to the collectors? No more free releases to everyone.
Is it the future the demoscene really deserves?
But since many people hear and read -- from their birth, in schools etc. -- that the painting is a great art, there are great painters, their different styles etc.etc.etc. most of people naturally get "zombified" about the art. Some start loving it, some start buying and collecting. In museums one can look at some art objects -- for money and for a short time, etc.
And now turn that to the demoscene. What if there would be great demos that would be only accessible for money in museums? What if some groups would start writing demos for money? What if at the parties, after the compo there would be an auction to sell winning releases to the collectors? No more free releases to everyone.
Is it the future the demoscene really deserves?
What Scamp would say.
Quote:
Imagine you'd never heard of any painting as an art, any great painter etc. -- not at all. And then you're shown with Malevich's "black square". Your reaction might be like 'what the fuck?'
In fact, exactly this feedback is already repoduced on a routine basis for many demoscene productions. You simply need to find some reasonably unobscure demos on YouTube and read regular people's reactions to what they are seeing. "WTF is this" is an incredibly common refrain, even without any special pre-conditioning.
