pouët.net

Now that Sweden has joined the club*...

Has said UNESCO award in previous countries so far given more public awareness, made funding or getting grants of any sort or research or publishing easier, spawned exhibitions, or created new jobs or professions, etc.?

Kindly report your personal experience. =)

For me personally the whole UNESCO stunt gave mostly validation when dealing with any "authorities". Where authorities is roughly anyone from the oldschool hierarchy-driven analog world I'd say. From EU, through national govt, local authorities to academia.


It opened some doors for academic research with people in otherwise disconnected fields like antropology, media art that normally would be prolly observing from a distance. It sparked my interest in research, and allowed me -- as someone not tied to any academic hub -- to be taken seriously and have recognized affiliation so much needed in any scientific paper :)


It did give some opportunities for grants, but I have personally only used it once to publish an album and properly pay people for the work like DTP, and were not interested in any further financing. I imagine demoparty orgas might be able to use it if the chose to.

I can confirm that it sparked some more interest from larger public news- and tech outlets in Switzerland, and that it's somewhat helpful in getting cultural funding to run a demoparty or outreach activities, and papers give the opportunity to cite "credible sources" when applying for grants.

What it doesn't do is suddenly opening a pot of gold that's gatekept by some shadowy culture commission.
But it's something to work with, and I have yet to see any sign of harm from the recognition.

I also think its intresting times ahead... finallly! Then I want to adress two things.

I sometimes see that scene names circulating, are not necessarily representative for what the scene is, and that we are there today with cultural heritage status. Yes, roots from early pioneers, we all love and respect, but the continuation should be credited to people beeing active today is my oppinion. There are networks inside the scene and they are not necessarily objective, but based on feelings :-P

Then I wonder myself, what comes with this , not only the "nice-to-have-a-legal-footprint" to acknowledge our parents scepticism to our "waste of time" (BBS:es, coding, creative, nerding processes...). Does it come any responsibility back to the demoscene with the UNESCO?

Not directly harmful (aside from the coercive appropriation of taxpayer money), but a bad sign that it has entered conservation status. And this certainly reacts back upon the scene and its creative output.

Please leave this thread at reports of positive personal experience.

You may want to open a parallel thread about the potential and actual downsides.

The way I see it, the most prevalent and obvious benefit is to shut up snobs who think only paintings and sculptures can be art. Not only the demoscene, but also the gaming industry has also struggled for such recognition for decades. So yes, exactly what browalia said.

Increased public visibility brings up interest like https://www.pouet.net/topic.php?which=12808

When it got added to the dutch list I realized what kind of nonsense is on that list so I can't see much value in it.

Some examples:

* https://www.immaterieelerfgoed.nl/en/kaaibakken
* https://www.immaterieelerfgoed.nl/en/page/1128/poffertjes-day

Or basically any entry on this map: https://www.immaterieelerfgoed.nl/

https://www.unesco.de/staette/brettspiele-spielen/

Cultural heritage status also comes with disadvantages though.

Yes, but please do open another thread for the downsides.

institution people that we (as Associação Inércia) talk to who have no prior knowledge of what the demoscene is do appear more pleasantly surprised when we mention it has been recognized by UNESCO in such and such countries.

but it's quite hard to quantify how much it actually helps. can't ask them for a comparing evaluation with and without having mentioned that demoscene has been recognized by UNESCO.

(technically unesco hasn't recognized demoscene anywhere, it's just local committees so far)

Aaand France has joined the party:

“The demoscene recognized as intangible cultural heritage in France”

https://mag.mo5.com/268476/la-demoscene-enfin-reconnue-comme-patrimoine-culturel-en-france/

I get to tell people that some shitty leftover concept art and soulless AI monstrosities converted to 16 colors are actually considered cultural heritage. The look on their faces is priceless.

You got a point here...

the major elements of culture: symbols, language, norms, values, and artifacts. (=> check)

has it left its mark on society and revolves around a community that's been going on since the digital dark ages ? (=> check)

qualifies perfectly. next :-)

Yes, there are positives coming from more public awareness... for me it was for example an opening point to publish works in my professional field that are regarding the demoscene phenomenon.

I have participated in events that were made better or where it helped financially to be organised.

I have read valuable publications published with grants due to the UNESCO thing.

All local Polish experiences.

In Finland partially due to the intangible cultural heritage recognition we have received more grants for a lot of interesting activities, most recent one being a documentary. Yle news article in Finnish about the documentary: https://yle.fi/a/74-20141193