Demoscene: Artistic rebels

After reading Hugi#22, I realized I would have to get off the fat ass that is called my behind, and start writing something. If only to beat my lust for recognition back into its cage.

Primarily inspired to write a reply to the article "generative art and the new demo" by "lots of random letters and numbers", I decided to load up a text editor.

Is it true that a artistic movement actually needs to be aware that it is one as the author seems to be implying? I couldn't disagree more; I think it is rarely that the artists themselves ponder on the philosophical questions and issues related to their art. It rather seems those interested in the art, and the artcritics (you know, the kind that go like: "oh no, totally unrepresentative of his new kubic look, this should probably depict a lumberjack going postal, but doesn't quite capture his usual post-modern style of waxing bunnies) are the ones who truly ponder on the philosophical aspect of the movement. Probably because artists are often far more concerned with the technique and quality of their work, rather than the meaning behind it. At least I am. That's why as a writer, I never really write (seriously) about music or animation, it simply is of no interest to me to write about these subjects. When I write, I want it to be about subjects I am not too directly involved with on the level of creating. Undoubtedly there are exceptions in the artist world, but I do doubt there are many.

As for why we create art? An ageless question, and one without a definite answer. Personally I create art because I simply enjoy the process and the result. In my music, meaning only gets assigned after the actual production (if meaning gets assigned at all), because it's much too much a fluid process, that takes instinct and feeling, and as such, I can hardly kill the process by thinking about it too much. With animation this is different, because I have to carefully plan the process before it starts looking aestatically pleasing. The same essentially also applies to demos, as there's coding involved, which is certainly not the intuitive process that composing or drawing is. Still, I think there is a little more intuition involved with democoding than with animation, because unlike with animation, you can instantly see the resulting effect that you've just coded. But I digress...

At the fundamental level of all art, lies, as I'm sure we can all agree, expression. Be it consciously expressed, or suddenly arriving from your subconcious without ever leaving you an explanation as to how it got there. There is of course a difference between the two; you don't consciously express yourself in the latter form, you just start playing around, and you arrive with a pleasing end-result. So when we ask ourselves why we create art, we must first understand that this question can only be dealt with when it concerns art we think out, rather than feel out.

There can be no question about it that demos were first and foremost created to show the capabilities of the people involved. To show off. Certainly, there has been no other true artistic movement which has been composed primarily of such young people, and motivational differences between such a movement and more traditional movements are inevitable, not only due to the age difference, but also the generational difference. How does growing up with computer/networking technology affect an entire generation? As psychologists agree, the Nintendo generation, (that means us people!) is inherintely a deeply rational generation. Never before did an entire generation adopt reason and logic as their guidelines in just this intensity. Nonetheless, there is a distinct irrational undertone to our generation. While our perspectives on life are definitely rationalist to the extreme, our lives themselves are filled with the irrational. We are willing to dive deeply into the irrational if it delivers onto us new experiences. Things that nobody has done before me, that nobody has experienced or seen. Because that is, as many psychologists agree, the main driving force behind this generation, the desire of the unknown, the lust for the new. And without a doubt, this too, is one of the main aspects of the demoscene. Why else would for most of their history, demosceners be driven to invent some new effect or method to do things? Do something nobody has done before, and you reign supreme.

This is the essence of the demoscene, and with it, all computer art. The irrational, merging with the rational.

That, and it just looks "cool".

Don't be too quick to dismiss that last bit mind you, there have been entire streams of artists that defined art not as beauty, but as resistence. While that is of course a great ideal, which is somewhat recognizable in the demoscene (think of how most of the world, until recently, or even today, still think as computer animation/music/art as being secondrate to their more traditional counterparts, we go even further than defining these as being art, we see things as art that nobody else even considered), we do understand that art must have aesthetic value. It really does have to look cool. Personally, I don't think the why of it all is really all that interesting. I'm far more interested in how we as individuals will evolve during our lifetime, and how our being among the first to accept various computer processes (such as code, and its result when compiled) as being art will affect us and our position in life in the future. How will society change? Will it start re-defining what art is? Will art, in the eyes of the average human being, change from just being a pretty picture to look at, to a creative process and/or result? Questions such as these truly excite me. What will a future society look like? How will computers affect the natural evolution of our language and human being? Endless questions, that only the ever forward creeping border of tomorrow can answer for us.

In the meantime, we can only truly understand the past and present. Are demos being considered more and more to be an artform outside their creative circles? I see more and more people becoming interested in them, and most of them not because of their real-time nature, but because of the synchronized design, and abstracted computer effects. And is that not what we have always aimed for? For laymen to appreciate our art? Understanding is second.

- Avalanche / Surprise! productions