DEMO SKILLS IN TECHNOLOGICALLY WILD SETTINGS. The Demoscene C A N A N H A S T I K INTRODUCTION The demoscene unites technology and demonstration in equal measure. How- ever, the artifacts of the demoscene do not motivate participation or interaction, as they usually lack a narrative and are not generally politically oriented (Reunanen 2010, 48; Hastik 2022, 158). In the demoscene, creating software programs and code to generate demos aims to impress an audience, particularly the demoscene community. The scene integrates the demonstrative, not only as a “specialist art” but also as part of broader discourses on hardware, materiality, and coding prac- tices. As Botz (2011, 387–390) notes, a demoscene production is essentially rela- ted to the hardware used and thus embedded in general discussions about the materiality of the computer. In the broadest sense, demos are a collection of hardware-specific technical functions that can be almost as diverse as the actors who conceive, design, implement, approve, rate, and share these works along a kind of ‘demoscene production life cycle’, a process of creating value through the design and sharing of hyper-realities1; these are either digital demoscene pro- ductions that distort the reality they purport to depict, or do not depict anything that actually exists, or represent the current cultural state constituting the scene’s reality and the audience, in terms of a contemporary form of intangible cultural heritage” (UNESCO 2021). Finally, it remains a matter of debate whether de- moscene artifacts will endure as a contemporary new media art form through the continuation of traditional historical art genres, or whether “there is no such thing as ‘art’, there are only artists” (Gombrich 2001, 13) and their audience. For the demoscene, their works come to life through the artists (groups) who produce them, the audience that adores these artists (groups), and the experience of a work presentation at a scene event. Therefore, the demoscene phenomenon is sometimes compared to a performance in which artists act on a defined platform within specific artistic roles and want to present and show something (Walleij 1998; Botz 2011, 331–334). The demoscene is a demonstration culture generat- ing code on distinct platforms and communities around them. The scene is demonstrative in its expression, for a community that lives this as something natu- 1 The term hyper-realities refers to generating hyper-realistic works with their codes in which they combine surreal fantasy with science fiction, audiovisual experiments based on pure computational algorithms, but also building virtual communities connected to reality next to their real life realities (Baudrillard 1994, 6). NAVIGATIONEN T E C H | D E M O CANAN HASTIK ral, and established as a philosophy of life and culture. In the current perception, this scene is one of the oldest and most persistent European hyper-real communi- ties we can currently record – hyper-real, because people exist, know each other, and meet, especially at the events but mostly only via virtual channels. From their virtual meetings, the activities are transferred to the real. From their virtual meet- ings, the activities are transferred to the real and are finally immortalized in digital. The renowned real meetings are thus at once a meeting place, competition, and learning venue. Usually, everything starts in the virtual and ends in the real. This hyper-reality is therefore something that motivates and creates identity at the same time. Science often has a habit of interpreting cultural and social events without actively involving the actors. The demoscene is a master of a semiotic multimodal (Jewitt and Henriksen 2016) niche; according to Stöcker (2011), the production of the demoscene represents in its code, function, and presentation as a sign complex communication that can only be understood as multimodal – yet as real without the need for a million followers. Furthermore, the creative and state of the art work of the demoscene has been well documented in demoscene archives, e.g. the C-64 Scene Database (CSDB 2022), and is therefore very finda- ble and accessible. In its original form, on a program code level, these artifacts are mostly neither interoperable nor reusable (Hastik 2022, 170), but the “sceners” continue to establish their tradition with their ideals and their own FAIR principles (GOFair 2022). This article examines the development, creativity, and community of practice of the demoscene by focusing on the performative aspects of technology and demonstration. This leads to a summary of the settings of the demoscene subcul- ture and its activities which aim to impress and entertain the community by crea- tively using hardware and producing software programs and code, thereby demonstrating skills. THE DEMOSCENE As a historically grown digital-cultural phenomenon, the demoscene has been recognized as “intangible cultural heritage” since 2021 (UNESCO 2021). With its rich history dating back to the late 1980s, the demoscene – sometimes written “demo scene”, “DEMO scene”, or for short simply “Scene” or “scene” – never- theless seems to remain on the fringes of the scientific field. The reason for this lies in the technologically demanding and non-commercial works, which should al- so “receive more recognition as works of art” 2 (Deutschlandfunk 2019; transl. C. H.). The scene is far older than the internet, even if it has not registered more than 3,500 followers on the most frequented @pouetdotnet Twitter account (pouët.net 2012) and around 1,158 online users at Discord (2022) with several channels, e.g. for demomaking, demoscene media, demoparties and more. The 2 Original quotation: “als [digitale] Kunstwerke mehr Anerkennung finden” (Deutschlandfunk 2019). NAVIGATIONEN 46 T E C H | D E M O DEMO SKILLS IN TECHNOLOGICALLY WILD SETTINGS scene quickly adapts technological developments ad hoc, shows exemplary ar- chival achievements and is extremely committed to its community of attendees and participants. This community with its own infrastructures, e.g. web archives (ADA 2022), messaging systems, GitHub source archive (GitHub 2022), file serv- er (scene.org 2022), software tools, and copyright system3 (Pouët 2022), demon- strates a unique cultural and instrumental practice, culminating around distinct computer technology and the production, distribution, and competition of audio- visual works in real time. The development of the demoscene culture can be better understood if it is contextualized historically. With its roots in the early 1980s – when home compu- ting became widely available, computer games took over, and programming turned into a popular pastime – the demoscene provided fertile ground for the software piracy scene, first in the USA by the Apple II and Atari users (Levy 2010, 279), then in Europe with the Commodore 64 (C64), the ZX Spectrum and later the Amiga computer (Wasiak 2012; Reunanen 2014). The activity of removing copy protection from software products (especially computer games) – which is of course an illegal activity per se, but which was carried out by computer enthu- siasts in order to be able to share, exchange and distribute software with other technically interested friends – created a split in the scene. While removing the copy protection, so-called “crackers” or “cracker groups” also used this oppor- tunity to create a kind of splash screen in front of each cracked game as an ex- pression of their creative achievement, consisting of pseudonyms, logos and drawings that made them identifiable as the authors. Music was also very im- portant from the outset. It was coordinated with the artful and elaborate pro- gramming focused on visual effects and made the thunderstorm of visuals more eye-catching, memorable, and entertaining for the viewers. This form of signing or marking later gave rise to the popular demoscene forms of artistic work such as “intros”, “invitations”, and “demos”, which are cat- egories still used today for competitions worldwide. Even if the demoscene was very strongly influenced by the illegal cracker scene and experienced its upswing through it, it is ideally rooted and shaped by the legally active hobby computer and hacker culture of the late 1950s – known as the Tech Model Railroad Club (Levy 2010, 6). This early hacker culture emerged as a student organization with a scientific background but today it is a less popular hobby culture. Since the demoscene is retrospectively defined by its demarcation from the illegal cracker scene in the early 1990s, its cultural significance results from its splitting. The demoscene culture is thus a product of its activities and includes further condi- tioning elements and values relevant to the scene. Summarized as an unwritten law, this value system is based on the obligation to explore computer systems, to overcome their limitations, and to transcend technical possibilities. Again, due to 3 Which is far more strictly regulated in terms of the music used than in terms of the gener- ated programmed codes, aesthetics, economy, and social stratification. NAVIGATIONEN T E C H | D E M O 47 CANAN HASTIK the impetus and the developments of the cracker scene, a similar competitive orientation arose. Events are organized in which all active members come togeth- er to present, share, rate, and publish their works in hit lists or charts. The demoscene culture is characterized by these activities, settings, and works that convey its values, are celebrated by the community, and encourage imitation. With platforms such as the C64, Amiga, and Atari ST, demoscene works became more advanced. Graphic elements such as icons and animations emerged which were cited and evolved over time into “recognizable icons of platforms that rep- resent an emotional approximation of technological artifacts” (Wasiak 2013, 66). This led to a symbolic aesthetic typical of the demoscene that includes elements such as the copper bars and other old-school effects (demofx 2022) which were named e.g. after hardware properties such as the Amiga’s co-processor. While demoscene productions thus became increasingly advanced and enhanced with colorful designs – consisting of graphics and animations, music, and textual ele- ments such as messages and greetings – demo coding gradually became an inde- pendent discipline. Since creative freedom is limited by the technical resources, specific coded graphic tricks serve as a benchmark for comparison. Parallel to this development and to the events and competitions (Demozoo 2022), websites, fo- rums, and archives emerged, and newsletters, journals, and magazines were pub- lished. After it cut loose from the illegal cracker scene, the demoscene already looked back on a rich repertoire of artifacts produced for and presented on di- verse hardware platforms, which not only played a major role for the scene’s cre- ative output but became its main classifier. Classic hardware platforms play a ma- jor role in the scene. Besides the C64, which was the most popular platform in the 1980s, the dominant platforms of the 1990s were Amiga, DOS, and Atari, which were largely superseded by Windows from 2000 on (Stamnes 2012). In ad- dition to these main platforms, the demoscene always discovers, salvages, and “revives” old, extraordinary, and unique hardware, which they also (re-)engineer, explore, expand, and share. Over the years, due to expanded possibilities and more powerful computer hardware, the demoscene focused increasingly on aes- thetic aspects in their productions. The range of hardware types and competition categories became almost unlimited in terms of facets and combinations (Hastik 2022, 178). The strongest year to date of the Revision, the leading demoscene event worldwide, in Saarbrücken, Germany, was 2019, with over 160 submissions. In previous years, new categories had been established from time to time. Howev- er, some were neither permanent nor of particular interest to the community. Most works (Revision 2019) are submitted in the categories “pc demo”, “pc 4k”, “oldschool demo”, “4k procedural graphics”, “wild demo”, and “animation”. Dur- ing the period of social distancing from 2020 to 2021 the scene’s productivity fell. Despite the scene's affinity for technology and the collaborative working methods during the mostly long (pre-)production phases of their works in virtual teams, the demoscene appreciates their get-togethers and special community NAVIGATIONEN 48 T E C H | D E M O DEMO SKILLS IN TECHNOLOGICALLY WILD SETTINGS meetings with their competitions, be they real or virtual. For specific aspects, ex- perts come together in different virtual teams, exchange ideas, and share and combine their developments. The productions are often finalized but rarely cre- ated at the events. Only if there are not enough submissions for a category that the community starts to produce so-called “compofillers” (Pouët 2021) which are rarely technically and aesthetically elaborate. The demoscene thus creates both virtual-aesthetic as well as real spaces of experience with its works and events and establishes hyper-real forms of collabo- ration and cooperation for internationally networked teams. PHENOMENOLOGICAL ASPECTS AND PRODUCTIONS Although the productions and the scene are repeatedly placed in art-related con- texts, the main features of the demoscene do not correspond to the current un- derstanding of contemporary new media art, since its works usually lack a theme, plot, or message. However, there is an understanding that computer-generated digital art continues traditional historical art genres (Paul 2008), but also that art only emerges in the discourse surrounding a work, which means that it should be considered from an art-sociological and phenomenological perspective (Hart- mann, 2017). The demoscene artifacts can be seen in the context of early com- puter-generated graphics (Hastik & Steinmetz 2012, 35) and algorithmic art (Re- unanen 2010, 28). Due to its performative nature, the demoscene is also associated with other subcultural scenes such as rave culture (Maher 2012, 204), punk rock culture (Maher 2012, 181; Reunanen 2014, 4), or club culture (Wasiak 2012). The demoscene also has relations to the retro computing movement (Höltgen 2020, 21). Due to its growing role in media history and media art, as well as its high- level enhanced community of practice and the cultural relevance of this intangible cultural heritage (UNESCO 2021), the scene and its artifacts have already been presented in several exhibitions.4 It is reasonable to assume that the demosceners “were in front of trends just now coming to the fore in mainstream art” (Maher 2012, 204). One reason for the absence of demoscene productions in contempo- rary art discourse may be the lack of contextualization (Maher 2012, 204), which is related to scene language, verbal and aesthetic expression, and socio-cultural aspects (Hastik 2022, 159). 4 E.g. Electronic Kindergarten in the Wiener Werkstätten and in the Kulturhaus 2001 (Divi- sion 2001), DEMOSKENE. KATASTRO.FI at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Hel- sinki 2003 (Demoskene.Katastro.fi 2003), Typography Films – Writing as an Image in Motion at the Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe 2013 (Scheffer et al. 2014), or His- tory of the demoscene in the Museum of Technology and Industry in Warsaw (retronav- igator 2014). NAVIGATIONEN T E C H | D E M O 49 CANAN HASTIK According to the two leading demoscene archives, pouët.net (launched 2000) and Demozoo (launched 2013)5, the number of works registered in their databases has increased since 2016 by 26,000 to 88,258 and by 105,553 produc- tions to 141,676 works (Hastik 2022, 249). There are also numerous smaller and more specific archives, e.g. The Hornet Archive (Mann 2022), websites by pro- jects (farb-rausch 2004), groups and artists (viznut 2018), and file archives (Atari FTP Archive 2015). In addition to the categories defined by Borzyskowski (2000), today these are more diverse, up to 35 variations or even specializations being based on “demo”, “invitation”, “cracktro”, “discmag”, “procedural”, “64k”, and “4k”. In particular, a categorization according to storage space and computing ca- pacity is used for sub-classification and can be combined as desired with the con- ceptual categories, e.g. “artpack”, “discmag”, or “slideshow” (Hastik 2022, 177). With the advent of further technological platforms, categories can no longer be differentiated purely conceptually. Not only new environments provoke new concepts where resources are used extensively. But still the demoscene challeng- es these resources, forces efficient utilization and a reduction to the essentials. Thus, categorizing works according to storage space requirements is a useful cri- terion. The size and volume of the works in bytes allows them to be classified based on their “algorithmic elegance” (Gonring 2009, 111) and hardware specifi- cations which are regarded as an essential quality criterion of the works. An algo- rithm is mathematically elegant if it is efficient, computes the desired results quickly, accurately, stably, and reliably, is simple, and transparently maps the shortest path to solving the problem (Deuflhard 2008). But unlike the size, con- ceptual aspects of the works cannot be differentiated and thus categorized so clearly. To define further work characteristics, a standard vocabulary is required with which characteristics typical of the demoscene can be distinguished. Botz characterizes the art of the demoscene not only in terms of size, but also in terms of established norms and traditional effects (Botz 2011, 387). The level of quality and complexity of the design produce its value in relation to the hardware possi- bilities. Hardware limitations ensure more creativity. The quality of the artwork is thus negotiated between the elegance of the code and the aesthetics. This is where the community becomes important; it drives the production of works and elicits maximum performance by its members. THE DEMONSTRATIVE DIMENSION OF THE MATERIAL The scene consists of a wide range of members who differ significantly in their ac- tivity and passivity. It mainly gathers graphic designers, musicians, and program- mers, but others also add required skills. To develop and produce projects, they organize themselves into groups that merge and separate depending on the pro- ject idea, and their members often appear under different names, usually pseudo- 5 Both archives offer similar access to the stock in terms of content. NAVIGATIONEN 50 T E C H | D E M O DEMO SKILLS IN TECHNOLOGICALLY WILD SETTINGS nyms (Borzyskowski 2000). The dynamic and productive structure of the demo groups is thus barely comprehensible and traceable for outsiders to the scene. The graphic artists show their skills at creating images and textures, the mu- sicians contribute with their compositional creativity, and the programmers, also called “coders”, demonstrate their technical programming knowledge (Hastik and Steinmetz 2012, 36). There are only a few publications that provide rudimentary insights into demo groups by presenting individual portraits (Kringiel 2006; Scholz 2007) or by tracing some interactions of specific actors (Wasiak 2013). The exact number of groups and members can only be vaguely estimated. A look at the rel- evant archives provides a rough picture. Demozoo recorded 14,575 groups and 48,990 sceners in October 2016, with synonymous spellings also being counted in the number of groups. By summer 2022, the database registered as many as 25,648 groups and 97,840 sceners. The most popular scene archive, pouët.net, recorded 11,964 groups and 21,579 portal users in October 2016, 13,360 groups and 25,422 users in December 2022. On the one hand, the real actors and their multiple scene identities are unclear, and on the other hand, no further data on the user accounts are recorded; hence these numbers cannot be read as actual membership figures for the demoscene. But even if the counts are obviously very inaccurate, it is clear that the scene is alive, has an ongoing need to negotiate its status in society and prove its relevance. The community is not only the engine of the scene; with its developments and production output it also illustrates and documents its viability and collaborative practice in complex interpersonal net- works. The “hands-on” approach and central motivation of the actors is: What does exist and how can a problem be solved? As already mentioned, the demoscene is a fascinating topic for research in many ways, e.g. with respect to sociological, aesthetical, art historical, and media-theoretical aspects. There are interesting treasures to be found, especially regarding social structures, group ac- tivities and dynamics, and the distribution of roles within the groups and within the scene in general, as well as regarding translocal and transnational cooperation, the localization of the groups, and their geographical distribution. Reputation in the demoscene is gained by creating artworks on historical, limited, and excep- tional platforms; this fact is the baseline for the entire community structure. The demoscene events, also called demoparties, are considered the centre of the sce- ne. Many scene artists meet here and show their works to the public, but events have long been broadcasted live online as well. The scene’s language and its dis- tinct discussion culture is special and it quickly adapts established methods of online communication. The number of participants, either online or at events, is usually around 1,000 active members. Demoscene forums serve not only to ar- chive the productions, but also to discuss them and provide support. The com- ments are statements; they are a mixture of subjective opinions, such as short, positional, emotional statements with imagery, often sprinkled with irony, sar- casm, humor, and emphasis, represented in repeated letters (vowels, exclamation marks, and more) (Hastik 2022, 165). The demoscene has its scene-specific or- NAVIGATIONEN T E C H | D E M O 51 CANAN HASTIK thographic style, e.g. leet speak (Urban Dictionary 2022), which emphasizes the statements and represents technical insider nuances. The main language of com- munication is English, including neologisms and subject-specific terminology used to describe artwork features, creative production techniques and programming tricks. The scene positions itself culturally in the nexus between real gatherings and virtual hyper-realities. It becomes clear that the demoscene follows its very own production and communication practices, which are strongly linked to hardware specific aspects and topics. Almost every kind of material can be considered a working platform and tool influencing the creative output. The resulting cultural and technological articulations provide a context that lends itself to a variety of in- depth explorations. THE DEMOSCENE IN ITS “WILD” FORM Regarding the terminology and history associated with the nexus of technology and demonstration, the terms “tech demo” or “mother of all demos” are not commonly used or referred to in the demoscene. The slogan “Demo or Die” nevertheless refers to a series of works by different artists, groups, and concepts in the demoscene. It remains unclear what these exaggerated work titles could refer to and what the possible motifs of interpretation are. Perhaps it is a demys- tification of the computer, a first attempt towards a serious error culture as a cre- ative principle, or other aspects of material-digital aesthetics. Nine works on pouët.net are named “demo or die“, even if Demozoo literally draws a slightly different picture. The series Demo or Die! Vol. 1 to Vol. 6 by Abyss (Pouët 2005c) is a demopack release, a demo compilation video DVD from the years 2005 to 2009. The latest production Demo or die by Genshiken & Red Fez Studi- os from 2016 is a very pleasing Linux demo (Pouёt 2016). Its source code has also been published on bitbucket.org (yawin123 2017). One of the many non-classical demo types and competition categories is the “wild demo”. To show and negotiate the intersections of technology, individual and society, politics, performance, and aesthetics as well as the human and tech- nical scope of action, the ‘wild’ category with its community network is exempla- ry. The heterogeneity of this category and the examples chosen in the following are at the same time very well suited to outlining the demonstrative aspects and specifics of the scene. For example, the works “SHizZLE” (Pouët 2005a), “T42 - Tennis for Two 2011” (Pouët 2011), and “Code Red” (Pouët 2013) were under discussion in the pouët forum. These three works have been released in the wild demo category, which is basically a hodgepodge. Anything that doesn’t fit into any other category can be found here: platforms could be anything a demo runs on, without any size limit, and thus allows one to get the maximum out of the chosen hardware with a maximum showing time of 8 minutes – at least according to the competition regu- NAVIGATIONEN 52 T E C H | D E M O DEMO SKILLS IN TECHNOLOGICALLY WILD SETTINGS lations of Revision (2022). “SHizZLE” is a 512-kilobyte wild demo on a Pokémon micro handheld game console with flash card by Team POKéMe & friends that has been released at Breakpoint 2005 in Bingen, Germany, and ranked in first place in the “Console/Real Wild” category that year (Demozoo 2021). Team POKéMe is an international group mainly organized by p0p, a German demoscener mostly responsible for graphics and together with Lupin for coding. In addition, JustBurn from Portugal developed the emulator, asterick from USA programmed another emulator development and debugger, DaveX from France provided the first working homebrew code, and Dark Fader from the Nether- lands provided additional tools (Pouët 2005b). The conceptual level of the work is also described in great detail in the credits: Image Fade is realised by Lupin with coding and GBADoctor for graphics, while the SHizZLe intro part is coded by p0p and graphically enhanced by ravity. Moreover, Infinite Sprites were devel- oped by Orion, Wormhole by Lupin, Voxel and Blobs by dox, Sine Dots and Plasma by Orion, Tunnel and Fire by Lupin, Bump Mapping code and graphics by dox, Leaf Scroller code and graphics by ph0x, Lens Effect and Rotozoom by ph0x and rack, 3D animation by Code, Booby Scrolly by Lupin and p0p, and XBOX Rumble by Lupin and ravity. As the list of credits shows, mostly common visual ef- fects – which belong to the standard repertoire and allow comparability to other demos – are implemented. Furthermore, the distinct technological constraints require strong skills in reverse engineering, emulators, debuggers, and flash cards. Music is produced by Fridge. SHizZLe received the second-highest developing rating and was nominated for the Scene.org Awards (in 2005) for breakthrough performance. This award honored the best demoscene releases from 2002 to 2011. In the meantime, the work has slipped somewhere into the top 150 most famous demos on pouët.net. In fact, the determination of the ranking within the type and competition category is only very vague. While the website (poke- me.shizzle.it) had over 200,000 visitors within a few hours and was temporarily inaccessible due to the high volume of access, the video on YouTube has just over 21,000 clicks to date (edgartheface, 2007). During production, the active mem- bers exchanged views on IRC EfNet, channel #pmdev. Later the community moved to http://pokemon-mini.org and finally to Discord, where the topic “Pokemon Mini” is still being discussed in various channels and referenced due to exceptional hardware restrictions. Another example is “Code Red”, a wild demo of 4 kilobytes produced by MEGA – Museum of Electronic Games & Arts for the Revision Easter Party 2013 in Saarbrücken and labeled “a first ever homebrew rom for the Entex Adventure Vision […]” (Pouët 2013). Adventure Vision is a unique console from 1982, de- scribed by MEGA as “one of the rarest objects of technological history” that they aim to introduce “as a new demoscene platform” (MEGA 2013). Again, with this project strong reverse engineering, programming, and debugging skills were needed to develop a custom bios. The underlying design concept is described scene by scene in the credits (Pouët 2013). Each cut scene presents a graphical NAVIGATIONEN T E C H | D E M O 53 CANAN HASTIK effect usually produced by a coder and a graphic designer. Intro is coded by sy2002, Scrolly by Mr.Blinky, and Graphics of the three first scenes are made by p0p. Mad Checkers is coded by JAC!, 3D Stars by dndn1011 and Wa. MEGAzoomer is made by sy2002, p0p, dndn1011 and Wa. Checkerboard is de- veloped by JAC!, Mr.Blinky, and p0p. Twizt is coded and designed by Mr.Blinky and p0p. 3D Objects are coded by dn1011, Mr.Blinky, and p0p. Boobie Girl is coded by Mr.Blinky, p0p & Chibicibi. Music is composed by Skyrunner. Other projects from the context of the scene are T42 - Tennis for Two 2011 (Pouët 2011) and currently MEGA65 (https://mega65.org). Both projects are as contradictory as their hardware. T42 – Tennis for Two (MEGA) is the only exist- ing 100% analog and fully playable reconstruction of Tennis for Two by William Higinbotham from 1958 (Brookhaven 2022). It was a project with only three members. The technology is so extraordinary and the development cannot work virtually because it is built with analogue circuits. These types of projects are rare but usually reach a respectable status, such as Craft by LFT from 2008 (Pouët 2008). The T42 video also has just over 4,000 views on YouTube, while LFT’s Craft video (lftkryo 2008) has already garnered over 300,000 views to date. In particular, the socio-cultural structure of the MEGA65 project is extremely complex, in accordance with the challenges. Skype, Discord, GitHub, Twitter, Fa- cebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitch and Patreon are used as communication structures. Skype is mainly used for internal community and small groups to sup- port speech and text-based dialogue-oriented communication. Discord is open to the whole community and all developers. It is very attractive for communities be- cause of its range of functions. As the closest format to IRC (Internet Relay Chat), it supports real-time communication, community building, and management. And if the community goes somewhere else, the project will move and go with them. GitHub provides the MEGA65 manual in Latex, as well as all programming and VHDL (Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language) source codes. It is used by grassroots developers to handle issues, feature re- quests, and bugs. Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are used for superficial and commercial activities; YouTube is used to build fan bases and by influencers who produce commercial stuff such as livestreams, update videos, or coding manuals; Twitch is used for development streams and works best for livestreams. This community has built up since 2015. Under the hashtag #mega65 on YouTube, one will find over 100 videos from 19 channels. On average, each of the videos has up to 10,000 views. The communities, their materials, and their media are almost arbitrarily het- erogeneous. The only connection between the profiles presented here is in fact one person (deft). This person always manages to advance projects that are ex- tremely complex in terms of their requirements under a new virtual identity and then release these projects. This form of grassroots movement in which members activate others to build a community and collaborate on a product is certainly special but not unique to the demoscene. Kennedy’s (2022) description of the NAVIGATIONEN 54 T E C H | D E M O DEMO SKILLS IN TECHNOLOGICALLY WILD SETTINGS grassroots movement nevertheless applies to the efforts of the demoscene as well: “By rejecting the notion of indisputable ‘best practice’, neoliberal develop- ment embraces the needs, values and knowledge of the community to solve local problems. This is grassroots development. […] It is bottom-up and locally ac- countable, acknowledging that the process of development is just as important as the results.” SYNOPSIS OF THE RITUALS This article shows that the demoscene is not about a demonstration of technology in the classical sense like the so-called “tech demos”, but about a demonstration of individual, human, and social skills in a highly technological and hyper-real set- ting. This overview of the demoscene outlines the community of practice of the demoscene, its structures, attitudes, competitive orientation, and reward con- cepts, as well as its forms and channels of communication, its aesthetics, scene language, and subgroups. People of a certain subcultural community share the same attitudes, form groups, engage in scene activities, and follow the scene’s ‘elite’. This elite, usually particularly active group leaders, is taking on a key role for the community. They are mediators, moderators, and trendsetters who establish, promote, and main- tain interaction with the community. The content produced is thematically fo- cused and competitive. It is presented, discussed, and reused at social gatherings. With this blueprint, the demoscene creates a transfer of cultural and technological articulation from their practice into virtual communication formats and back to real life gatherings which can be understood as a hyper-real cycle. The impression arises that the demoscene runs counter to the current development of hyper- realities especially influenced by mainstream social media, because the scene al- ways locates itself vehemently back in reality. Therefore, the demoscene stays an interesting starting point for further investigations into the field with questions remaining: Does this technological activism that emerged from subcultural prac- tices imply that actors have an urge to locate themselves in the real out of hyper- reality? – a question that addresses the interface between the digital, the real, and the virtual as a technical and technological demonstration. And additionally, how do the so-called demoscene demos – especially the wild demos – reflect current states of science, society, and culture – or what are the implications of these? REFERENCES ADA. 2022. “Amiga Demoscene Archive”. Accessed October 5, 2022. https://ada.untergrund.net/?. Atari FTP Archive! 2015. “ftp.pigwa.net – respect.for.the.legend.” Accessed Oc- tober 10, 2022. http://ftp.pigwa.net/. Baudrillard, Jean 1994. Simulacra & Simulation. University of Michigan Press. NAVIGATIONEN T E C H | D E M O 55 CANAN HASTIK Borzyskowski, George. 2000. 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