pouët.net

I have been pondering the question: how demos sit between the human endeavors of 'sport' and 'art'.

It seems that a distinction is 'sport' has clear and commonly held definitions of both judgement and cheating. Judgement is performed by judges. Qualifying as a judge is well defined. Cheating is also defined. Today for a vocal group in the community the use of AI qualifies as cheating. In olden times, presumably there was a discussion on why ripped assets qualified as cheating.

In the case of 'art': judging is involuntary and unavoidable. cheating is incomprehensible.

I found Tom's interview on the Zine podcast interesting in exploring this perspective where he proposes a non voting-party. I think a non-voting party may be bias towards the 'art' interpretation of a demo.

Initially, I don't see it fruitful to compare demos to sport. If the scholastic art is judged by using votes (like it sometimes is in exhibitions), then it's probably no closer or farther from the sport than demos.

Cheating in the domain of a scholastic art is of course possible (especially if there's a competition or if there's a teacher giving grades) eg. by giving wrong information about work's creators, materials or methods.

What separates demos from many other forms of art might be its dual nature which includes both technical and aesthetic aspects as equally (or at least highly) important but separate: it's possible that a technical aspect of a demo is great while an aesthetic aspect is very weak – or another way around. In this sense demos may resemble architecture which also has a similarly separate aspects of aesthetics and usability.

However, if we accept that some demos are purely esthetic or purely technical and then it may be more difficult to come up with a coherent and integrative philosophical definition of the demo.

Somebody could make a counter claim now that also in eg. painting the technical aspect is important. But I would say it isn't. In the painting the technical side is clearly serving the end result and has no meaning comparable to a technical aspect in demos.

Demos do not need to be interpreted as "art". They are already art if we use such definition of the art which includes things like demos.

demoscene is judo

Not sport.

I would also add "craft" to it. The demoscene might be a blend of craft, art, and sport, depending on who you ask.

is the demoscene sports illustrated?
pouet is so deep these days.

well uh, we had uuuh, that website with the pictures?

Public voting != Expert/jury voting

Also I don't think there is a problem with cheating, but rather that everyone has their own private rules what is even considered cheating (precalculated videos, 3rd party engines, AI assistance, stock images etc..).

it's sport in the french meaning of the phrase. C'est sport.

next time i'll wear some tight spandex when i'm modelling!

We have a sport apparel model here! ;)

Never thought it as a sport. It has competition but I don't think it makes it a sport. Do we call the eurovision a sport because it also has competition?

For most it's also not the most important part behind releasing at parties. Biggest motivation is to show something you have been working and getting some place might be just an extra bonus.

I like another old definition I've read somewhere but might not apply any more. Demos were more like a pack of magic tricks, something to impress the audience and wonder but how is it possible? Same as you see a stage magician doing something that shouldn't be physically possible but you know there is a rational explanation behind it.

Aerobic or anaerobic?

La sociologie est un sport de combat

It's not that different to demoscene indeed. There is (hopefully) correlation between prod value and number of votes, but there is nothing preventing people to vote for their favorite group.

People support a football team and most of the time it’s not about the sport either

Is Tractor Pulling a sport? I've compared the demoscene to Tractor Pulling in the past

Is there though?

So votes make a prod "better"?

Well obviously the votes can’t “make the prod better” in any way because when votes come in, the prod had already been made. Votes inform of what a particular audience thought of the prod’s value. No more, no less. For whatever that’s worth. Oftentimes this competitive part of the scene doesn’t seem to make sense, but on the other hand I feel that for a substantial amount of scenepeople exactly this competitive part is the whole point.

Art to me doesn't seem to be competitive at all (I really don't see any creative medium should be seen as a product basically, to be consumed), at least to me at all. So all the hoopla involved with voting/view engagement doesn't make sense. Demos to me just seem to be what an artist wants to make, not to farm votes (which we all seen absolutely cases where you can deliberately craft demos to appease the masses)

The problem with places like pouet, is that votes govern visibility, so ones with no votes, get buried by the Algorithm as deemed by the masses. Demozoo is nice in that each and every prod is shown at its own merits, with no community involved.

The (deliberately) controversial or downright hated ones also attract attention and get linked to on the front page for long time and often. Hating on a prod helps it almost as much as loving it visibility wise.

That's not true. There is no chart with most downvoted prods on the front page. It would be interesting to have one, though ;)

When you comment on a prod, it brings it to the front page. I happen to oftentimes discover prods by seeing them on the front page because someone commented on them like 10 minutes ago. Front page = visibility. Tell me what’s “not true” about that and I’ll buy you a beer.

Well ok, but it's much less visibility than "top of the month" or getting 1st place at the major event.

Oh absolutely, we all seen prods also where people craft prods to be as divisive as possible. As I said it seems to be all based on modern engagement logic, like social media, a click is a click.

Emotions make money, and fame. You can make people ultra happy, or make yourself despised, engagement is king. Whereas trying to just do something can get buried as a result.