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.