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217
Łódzkie Studia Etnograficzne 63 2024
217– 2 34
ISSN 2450-5544 https://doi.org/10.12775/LSE.2024.63.12
Andrzej Lichnerowicz
angelo@kskpd.pl
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3297-8922
Social Committee Chronicles of Polish Demoscene
Maciej Grzeszczuk
maciej.grzeszczuk@fhkd.pl
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9840-3398
Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology
The Foundation for the History of Home Computers
Kinga H. Skorup ska
kinga.skorupska@pjwstk.edu.pl
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9005-0348
Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology
Challenges and opportunities
in preserving intangible
cultural heritage: lessons
from the Demoscene
Wyzwania imożliwości wzakresie ochrony niematerialnego
dziedzictwa kulturowego: wnioski zDemosceny
Introduction
The Art-of-Coding
1
campaign, initiated by individuals deeply engaged in the Demoscene
and broader digital culture, emerged in Germany in 2019. It quickly gained momen-
tum, with Demosceners from Finland and Poland joining the cause. This collaboration
achieved a breakthrough in April 2020, as Finland recognised Demoscene as part of
1
An initiative to enlist the Demoscene as the first digital culture on the list of UNESCO intangible world
cultural heritage, cf. https://demoscene-the-art-of-coding.net/.
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Andrzej Lichnerowicz Maciej Grzeszczuk Kinga H. Skorupska Challenges and opportunities…
its UNESCO intangible cultural heritage, a milestone soon echoed by Germany, Po-
land, and later by the Netherlands and Switzerland in 2023. This series of recognitions
pivoted the campaign’s focus towards achieving global recognition under UNESCO.
The early stages of the enlisting process in Poland revealed that this endeavour
was more than just a bureaucratic exercise. Delving into the 2003 Convention for the
Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage 2 inspired the formation of the Social
Committee Chronicles of Polish Demoscene (KSKPD). This initiative aimed not only to
secure a place for Polish Demoscene works on the national cultural heritage list, but
also to emphasise their preservation and documentation. 3
Although today’s Demoscene is a vibrant and active community that creates, pre-
sents, shares, and stores Demoscene productions with other community members,
the topic of their long-term preservation, including ensuring reliable access to future
members and the wider public, is an open question. Therefore, with this research,
we wanted to understand the perspectives of the Demoscene community in Poland
and abroad on the different goals, methods and media moderating the experience
of Demoscene productions. Our specific research questions are:
RQ1: What are the current and preferred methods of engaging with Demoscene
productions?
RQ2: What would Demoscene members like other members and the society to
learn about the Demoscene, its context and its productions?
Exploring answers to these questions may help us to better understand the chal-
lenges and opportunities around preserving Demoscene content, with all of its com-
plexity, both for the members of the Demoscene and for the general public. Moving
beyond the grassroots level of the community, we also draw connections to related
fields such as media art, net art, home computer and game console history, as well
as the overarching domain of digital heritage.
What is Demoscene?
The Demoscene is a distinctive digital subculture, which emerged in the mid-1980s,
at the same time as home computers were on their way to becoming common house-
hold items (Wasiak 2021). During this era, software, particularly games, was prima-
rily distributed on floppy disks through computer stores or direct mail orders from
2
“‘Safeguarding’ means measures aimed at ensuring the viability of the intangible cultural heritage,
including the identification, documentation, research, preservation, protection, promotion, enhance-
ment, transmission, particularly through formal and non-formal education, as well as the revitalization
of the various aspects of such heritage”.
3
KSKPD mission statement is “We want to cultivate the best traditions related to the Polish Demoscene
and preserve valuable materials for future generations involved in digital creativity and cultural research”,
cf. https://kskpd.pl/.
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Andrzej Lichnerowicz Maciej Grzeszczuk Kinga H. Skorupska Challenges and opportunities…
publishers. The US and the UK dominated software creation, making it challenging
to access official software in other countries. This scarcity led to the rise of ‘crackers’,
individuals who stripped software of its copy protections and redistributed it, often
tagging their work with handles reminiscent of hip-hop/graffiti culture. Driven by the
challenge of overcoming technological safeguards, these crackers soon started to
compete to see who could bypass protections first, a motivation to this day shared
by many crackers (Goode, Cruise 2006).
As defeating standard protections became more straightforward and games were
leaked pre-retail (Breddin 2021), the competition shifted towards creating the most
technically or visually impressive introductions for these cracked games. Eventually,
some groups focused exclusively on these intros, a shift likely influenced by the in-
troduction of stricter copyright laws and increased police action. This new avenue of
competition laid the groundwork for the birth of the Demoscene, a phenomenon pri-
marily observed in Europe but also present in the United States, Latin America and
Australia. Demoscene’s hallmark is the creation of ‘demos’, audiovisual presentations
that differentiate from 3D animations or videos in their real-time rendering (Shor, Eyal
2004). Its essence, though, lies in pushing hardware and software limitations, often
by discovering undocumented graphics card modes, using floppy-disk drive’s pro-
cessor to parallelise calculations, and other technical feats (Breddin 2017; Wojtowicz
et al. 2021; Czerski 2014).
Fig. 1. A screenshot of the “Exodus” intro by Aberration Creations group. Entire executable
that generates graphics, music and animation for a 1m 40s worth of presentation fits into
exactly 4085 bytes (equivalent to 0,02 seconds of music stored as a CD quality MP3 song).
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Andrzej Lichnerowicz Maciej Grzeszczuk Kinga H. Skorupska Challenges and opportunities…
In 2008, the Horror Vacui Art and Cultural Association organised “DEMOSCENE:
Art straight from the computer”, a cultural event that first brought together Demo-
scene artists, art historians, and digital art enthusiasts. This event, and others like it,
have since sparked a growing interest in the Demoscene as an art form within both
popular and scholarly circles (Shor, Eyal 2004; Sawicka 2014).
Related Work on Preservation
The “viewing problem” is a primary concern in the longevity of digital artifacts (Besser
1999). Unlike analog or physical items, digital artifacts require a proactive approach
to preservation. However, even diligent efforts do not always guarantee the ability
to access documents stored on forty-year-old 8-inch floppy disks (Winget 2011). As
time progresses, the risk increases that devices from the early digital era will be-
come harder to find due to hardware breakdowns, decluttering of private collections,
or hobbyists moving on to new interests. Furthermore, possessing hardware alone
does not protect against the threat of lost heritage, given the challenges of ageing
components, outdated software, decaying media, and the lack of expertise or sup-
porting legislation (Heinonen, Reunanen 2009; McDonough et al. 2010; Swalwell,
de Vries 2013). While there is a justifiable focus on historical hardware and retro-
computing for its immediate importance (Grzeszczuk, Skorupska 2023), the preser-
vation of modern digital artifacts, often described as “born obsolescent” (Morrissey
2020), is equally crucial.
Retro-game communities were among the first to recognise the threats to the
longevity of digital games, a realization that came before the wider acknowledgment
of digital media’s fragility (Swalwell 2013). Their experiences have highlighted four
primary strategies currently in use for digital preservation (Winget 2011): refreshing,
migration, emulation, and reinterpretation or remix. These methods, drawn from
the gaming world, offer valuable insights into broader digital preservation efforts.
Refreshing
The strategy of refreshing in digital artifact preservation involves maintaining the ac-
cessibility of digital objects by safeguarding them against both media deterioration
and technological obsolescence (Waters, Garrett 1996). This approach encompasses
initiatives like establishing “computer museums” with Pelikonepeijoonit (Heinonen,
Reunanen 2009) being a perfect example, or academic laboratories like Piotr Marec-
ki’s “Ubu Lab” (Marecki 2019) or Nick Montfort’s “The Trope Tank” (Marecki 2016), all of
which aim to preserve the entire technical environment. This includes maintaining op-
erating systems, application software and media drives. A key aspect of refreshing is
the adaptation of legacy hardware to integrate with modern peripherals. An example
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Andrzej Lichnerowicz Maciej Grzeszczuk Kinga H. Skorupska Challenges and opportunities…
of this is equipping an Atari dating from the year 1985 with a WiFi module, 4 allow-
ing the older system to function within contemporary technological contexts. Such
adaptations are crucial in ensuring that these digital artifacts remain functional and
accessible, thereby preserving a vital part of our digital heritage.
Migration
Migration, a key strategy in digital artefact preservation, involves transferring or
converting data from one technology to another while retaining the data’s essential
characteristics. This process often includes converting software, such as games and
demos, into a media-neutral format, such as a universally readable digital file. Addi-
tionally, if the source code is available or can be reengineered, the strategy may in-
volve recompiling or porting it to newer systems. However, these activities, particu-
larly reengineering, raise significant legal questions. These include issues around the
right of reproduction, which constitutes licensed use (Barwick, Dearnley, Muir 2011),
and the need to circumvent technological protection measures that often prevented
unauthorised copying (Harkai 2022). In the Demoscene context, while reproduc-
tion rights are generally respected, the licensing of Demoscene productions is not as
straightforward. This is largely due to the underground and somewhat anarchistic
nature of the Demoscene community (Czerski 2014).
Emulation
Emulation, a pivotal strategy in digital artefact preservation, involves replicating
the functions of one system (the emulated) using a different system running spe-
cific software (the emulator). The primary goal of emulation is to enable programs
or media designed for a particular environment to operate in a different, usually
newer, environment. In recent years, along with migration, emulation has become
one of the primary methods in the digital preservation world. Researchers distin-
guish between merely archiving data and preserving the behaviour of programs
(Guttenbrunner, Becker, Rauber 2010; Lorie 2001). A notable application of emula-
tion in digital preservation is by The Internet Archive, 5 which employs a web-based
4
An example of a hobby project to expand Atari ST with network connectivity via WiFi-to-serial-router
at 19.2 kbit/sec transmission speed: https://www.chzsoft.de/site/hardware/connecting-the-atari-st-
to-the-internet/ or the FujiNet project, offering not only a WiFi connection, but also virtual adapters
for many protocols including: TCP, UDP, HTTP, FTP, TNFS, HTTPS (SSL/TLS), SSH, TELNET, WebDAV and
JSON parser accessible even from the level of BASIC programming language. FujiNet was first created
for 8-bit Atari computers from 1979, later for Coleco ADAM, with Apple II and Commodore 64 support
in progress: https://fujinet.online/.
5
The Internet Archive is a non-profit with a mission of building a digital library of Internet sites and
other cultural artefacts in digital form (https://archive.org).
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Andrzej Lichnerowicz Maciej Grzeszczuk Kinga H. Skorupska Challenges and opportunities…
version of the MAME 6 emulator. This platform allows users to access and interact
with various software, including games and a select number of Demoscene produc-
tions. Emulation, while effective, also presents challenges such as ensuring long-
term functionality and compatibility, or stripping the technological and social con-
text of emulated digital artifacts, which are critical considerations for projects like
The Internet Archive and others in the field of digital preservation (Cloonan 2001).
Reinterpretation
In the realm of digital artifact preservation, interesting approaches can be observed
in the video game industry. For instance, in “Day of the Tentacle” players can inter-
act with the earlier game “Maniac Mansion” within the game world. Similarly, “Bor-
derlands 2” features a hidden room with an Easter egg from “Minecraft” showcas-
ing a pixelated environment and enemies. These instances are not just playful nods
to earlier games; they serve as a form of digital preservation, embedding pieces of
gaming history within new contexts. This concept is akin to the remixing practices
seen in various schools of Buddhist thought, where historical and cultural elements
are reinterpreted and recontextualised to create new expressions of tradition (Lorie
2001). Such practices reflect the influence of the digital age on cultural production
and interaction, as described by Lev Manovich, who suggests that cultural concepts
are increasingly influenced by the principles of computer technology, altering the way
cultural artifacts are created, perceived and preserved (Manovich 2002). This “com-
puterisation” of culture, evident in video games and religious traditions alike, under-
scores the evolving nature of digital preservation, where remixing and reinterpreta-
tion become key tools in safeguarding our cultural heritage.
Methods
In December 2023 we prepared a survey addressed to members of the Demoscene
community, examining preferences and practices regarding the way of experiencing
productions such as demos or intros. The survey was prepared in two language ver-
sions, English and Polish, and was distributed on the Demoscene Facebook group,
the Demozoo and Pouet websites and on the Demoscene Discord server. In the short
demographic part, we asked about the country of residence, past and recent (within
5 years) activity in the Demoscene, and the respondent’s role, selected from the op-
tions of a content creator, content consumer or person archiving Demoscene resources
for future generations (where one respondent could share all three). Then, we asked
6
MAME stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulators and started as just that. An emulator for Arcade
games, yet over time it expanded to cover a wide variety of (mostly vintage) computers (https://www.
mamedev.org/).
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Andrzej Lichnerowicz Maciej Grzeszczuk Kinga H. Skorupska Challenges and opportunities…
our respondents to specify, on a 5-point Likert scale, their preferences for consuming
Demoscene products, such as demos and intros, and how they actually engaged with
them most often. The options were: on the Bigscreen while attending a Demoscene
party (see Figure 2), on original hardware at home or at a museum, as an on-line video
from one of the streaming services, on an emulator, or remixed with modern products,
such as a minigame within another title. We also asked open questions about what the
respondent would like others to learn about the preserved Demoscene productions,
both in the context of Demoscene audiences and members of the general public. At
the end of the study, we subjected the open questions to a thematic analysis, and we
also unified the open answers regarding the country of residence and unified the lan-
guage. Due to a limitation of chosen tool, a survey allowed our respondent to mark
two or more answers on a Likert scale, we eliminated such cases from the analysis as
uncertain (4 cases out of 112 for the question about current content consumption and
5 cases out of 112 for the question about preferred form of preservation).
Results and Discussion Participants
During the two weeks – between 19 December and 31 December 2023 – that the sur-
vey was active, we collected a total of 112 responses, 81 and 31 for the Polish and Eng-
lish versions, respectively. The results of the survey were then analysed, described
and interpreted between the 1 January 2024 and 6 January 2024. The majority of re-
spondents came from Poland, then Germany (9), UK (6) and other countries in Europe
Fig. 2. A view of a 11.5 × 6.5 m Bigscreen and around 1000 sceners gathered
in Rundsport halle in Bingen am Rhein for the Demoscene party Breakpoint 2010.
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Andrzej Lichnerowicz Maciej Grzeszczuk Kinga H. Skorupska Challenges and opportunities…
(15), from outside Europe we had one respondent from Russia, two from the USA and
four who did not disclose their country of residence. At the beginning of the study,
we collected declarations regarding current Demoscene activity (for sake of ques-
tion 1 and 3, due to the Covid-19 pandemic we assumed “current” to involve a 5-year
period) in four categories: as a creator of Demoscene productions, as a consumer of
content, as a participant in Demoscene events, and as a person actively participat-
ing in preserving Demoscene products. The data broken down into Polish and Eng-
lish-speaking groups is presented in Figure 3:
The preferred mode of engaging with Demoscene productions (RQ1)
Most of our respondents consume Demoscene content via video recordings, then
original hardware and finally the Bigscreen at Demoscene events and emulators
(see Fig. 4 for details). Very few people actually consume content inserted into pop
culture products, which may be explained by the fact that there are still very few
products that offer this opportunity. When it comes to differences based on the lan-
guage, English respondents were less likely to indicate they “always” consumed con-
tent in some way, and more of them leaned towards consuming video content com-
pared to other mediums. Interestingly, also those who create content are less likely
to always consume it on original hardware (32% vs 47% for non-creators). Creators
are also more likely to always consume content on the Bigscreen (44% vs 29% for
non-creators). Unsurprisingly, there are significant differences between people who
have been to parties in the last 5 years and those who have not. While 47% of go-
ers indicated that they always consume content on the Bigscreen, 8% of non-recent
Fig. 3. Declared Demoscene activity among survey participants, broken down into
Polish- and English-speaking groups.
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Andrzej Lichnerowicz Maciej Grzeszczuk Kinga H. Skorupska Challenges and opportunities…
party goers indicated the same. Those who go to parties still consume content via
YouTube (42% indicated always, and 45% sometimes, for a total of 87%), just not as
exclusively non-goers (62% indicated always, and 24% sometimes, for a total of 86%).
Overall, most people think that content should be presented on the Bigscreen in
a demo party setting, then original hardware regardless of social context, then You-
Tube videos, emulators, and only few people consider inserting it into other pop cul-
ture productions, perhaps partly due to limited familiarity with this format as seen
in current ways of content consumption. Another reason for the limited interest in
this preservation method could be the belief that it results in the loss of context. Our
findings reveal that respondents consider its existence crucial for understanding and
appreciating Demoscene works. This insight is significant for creators choosing to give
tribute or a nod to demos in other cultural products, who ought to consider how to
include their technological and social background. There were no significant differ-
ences between the views of English- and Polish-speaking respondents, with the order
of preferred media the same across languages. However, English-speaking respond-
ents seem to be somewhat more open to the idea of Demoscene productions shown
as YouTube videos or remixed or reinterpreted within other pop culture products.
Those respondents who are active content creators are actually more open to
presenting content in any way than those who do not create content. 82% of active
content creators either agreed or strongly agreed that video recordings are among
acceptable ways to present content, compared to only 60% of those who did not cre-
ate anything in the last five years. Moreover, it was the non-creators who felt slightly
stronger about the need to present it using original hardware, with 72% strongly agree-
ing, versus 67% of creators. It would appear that those who create content value the
Fig. 4. Data on the actual consumption of Demoscene productions according
to the respondents’ declarations.
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Andrzej Lichnerowicz Maciej Grzeszczuk Kinga H. Skorupska Challenges and opportunities…
fact that it can be seen and experienced in any way, more than the medium. It is inter-
esting that by both groups emulators were rated lower than video recordings in terms
of how content should be consumed, as about 60% either agreed or strongly agreed
that it is a good way to consume content. This is only slightly higher than how people
declare they consume content, which may point to some barriers to using emulators
for this purpose. Although, a more significant barrier is visible for original hardware,
as while slightly over 82% of respondents either strongly agree or agree that it is the
way to consume content, only 76% of Demoscene party-goers always or sometimes
consume it this way versus 58% of non-goers.
It is worth noting that although the declared preferred way of consuming Demo-
scene productions is on the Bigscreen or on the real hardware, the actual way of con-
suming content for our respondents is usually through the video recordings. This may
be due to the much greater availability of this type of method in the daily routine
(not everyone has the time, resources and space to prepare and use a proper hard-
ware setup, while video content can also be watched even on a phone, in between
other activities), perhaps also due to limitations in the possibility of attending a party
(budget, pandemic, scheduling, other commitments).
This discrepancy between the preferred and actual method of content consump-
tion points to the importance of the performative aspect of Demoscene, such as the
ceremony around the Bigscreen events (Schechner 2017). This importance is con-
trasted with the limited availability of such events and the opportunity costs of en-
gaging in them, such as time (usually weekends), money (hotels, often international
travel). Still, as they largely function also as social gatherings, many of them continue
to thrive. The scene is adapting to the new reality of content distribution and consump-
tion and with YouTube, it has become more approachable to newcomers (Helsen 2021).
Fig. 5. Responses to the question on the way the respondents think the Demoscene produc-
tions (demos, intros) should be presented.
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Andrzej Lichnerowicz Maciej Grzeszczuk Kinga H. Skorupska Challenges and opportunities…
What should others know about the Demoscene? (RQ2)
Our respondents wished for other members of the Demoscene to document the context
of the work and its inception: the circumstances in which the work was created, the in-
formation about authors and their inspirations (“It would be great to also preserve mak-
ing-ofs or explanations from the authors. These are sometimes given in blogposts that
are linked to Demoscene sites like pouet.net, but they are not actively archived, which
sometimes makes them sadly disappear”, P90) as well as the specific constraints and
curiosities related to the production platforms (“Members of Demoscene usually know
the social context of the scene but often can’t know all the limitations of every indivi dual
platform. These should be pointed out to create a context for exhibited pieces”, P103)
One respondent, P91, mentioned longevity as a concern for other Demoscene members,
as “YouTube videos disappear etc. I think we should also perhaps document their origi-
nal context, technically, artistically and status quo”. These concerns are also supported
by the real experiences of people who try to reach historical but no longer active fi gures.
Daniel “dely” Koźmiński, in an interview.
7
says: “They respond to e-mails efficiently, they
associate some facts, and when they are asked about some topic, they say: ‘Oh, yes!
I did something like that once! But unfortunately, I simply don’t remember anything and
I’d love to help you, but I can’t because I have a hole in my memory’”. Another historian
of the topic, Paweł Grabarczyk, during a discussion panel on digital heritage at Machine
Intelligence and Digital Interaction 2023, mentioned an interesting, although disturb-
ing, phenomenon where projects that are dedicated to securing history against loss are
often not protected against it themselves and disappear from the Internet when the
person leading the topic is gone or their motivation runs out (Grzeszczuk et al. 2023).
Some Demoscene members would appreciate access to contact information, both to
the Demoscene production authors, groups and the organisers of Demoscene parties to
“enable easy flow of information, help take first steps and give support in creating Demo-
scene productions”, as stated by P53. In contrast, P30 claims that current Demoscene
members “by definition, should be in touch with the community and learn about Demo-
scene through contact with the Demoscene community”. The same respondent mentions
that “Demoscene is underground in nature, and over-promoting it partly kills the spirit
of Demoscene”, cautioning against making it too forthcoming. This is in line with see-
ing Demoscene as a participatory culture (Clinton, Purushotma, Robison, Weigel 2006),
where a large share of the community is encouraged to actively contribute to it, as cre-
ators, makers or organisers; in turn, this explains some members’ reluctance to share it
with the general public, who may represent the consumer culture. Some more qualita-
tive insights based on thematic analysis are visible in Fig. 6.
7
The full text of the interview from 16 December 2023 is available on the website of the Foundation for
the History of Home Computers at: https://fhkd.pl/2023/12/o-archeologii-protosceny-atari/.
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Andrzej Lichnerowicz Maciej Grzeszczuk Kinga H. Skorupska Challenges and opportunities…
Demoscene members believe that the general public should know more about
some aspects of its culture, especially the general context, and the specific limitations
that the creators work with to make their demos. To add to this note, the wish is for
the general public to know that “on real equipment they look much better than on
YouTube”, as noted by P62 pointing to a deeper importance of the connection between
the intangible software and the tangible hardware, whose symbolic importance to
this community is not limited to their function as data machines. Often the rescued,
repaired and used hardware also carries a meaning on its own, as exhibited by the
overlap of the retrocomputing and Demoscene communities. Hardware preservation
and remix is a social practice with similar core values of the maker culture, sharing
the drive to explore the limits of what was and is possible (Takhteyev, Dupont 2013).
This connection to technology is also underlined in the opinion of P103 who states:
“Every Demoscene production exists in its context of time, technology and in the refe-
rence of other demos. It’s often difficult or impossible to exhibit one single piece with-
out pointing out this context”. The creative process itself with its imposed limitations
is also very important, as the public should be aware of “technical limitations (disk
space, amount of memory), amount of work put in”, as stated by P62. This is further ex-
plained by P75, who urges to emphasise to the general public how “the effects shown
on the screen are created (…) in real time (…) [how] hardware limitations work (espe-
cially when it comes to demos on old computers) what people have to contend with
when creating their productions”. There is clearly a concern that without the know-
ledge and understanding of these constraints the general public will not be able to
appreciate the skill and artistry behind these demos. One respondent, P76, would dis-
seminate the knowledge of Demoscene in the form of “more documentaries available
Fig. 6. Results of thematic analysis of the open question on what other members
of the Demoscene would be able to learn about these preserved productions
and the realities that shaped them.
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Andrzej Lichnerowicz Maciej Grzeszczuk Kinga H. Skorupska Challenges and opportunities…
on popular platforms (YT) explaining to people not connected to this phenomenon
what the phenomenon of this movement/community was/is all about”. According to
P30, the general public ought to get to know “general information about the Dem-
oscene and its most outstanding works as part of the promotion of the Demoscene
as digital art”. The same respondent (P30) cautions against treating all scene pro
-
ductions the same as “copyright and rights related to the author’s personal image (…)
should be agreed individually with the authors” and mentions that “excessive public-
ity of the Demoscene in today’s commercialised internet defined by social media is
not needed by the Demoscene only by promoters and consumers of the Demoscene,
outside the scene, who see personal interest and publicity in it”. This is not the only
voice against fighting for spotlight among the general public, as P47 says: “I don’t care
about promoting Demoscene to people who are not interested in it. (…) It’s a waste
of time and effort to explain what it’s all about to someone who won’t understand
it anyway, can’t evaluate it. It is better to act among people interested in the sub-
ject than to play in a Demoscene kindergarten with no future”. It appears that know-
ledge about the authors themselves was not as important, although this aspect may
be implicitly understood as something that is already there and therefore was not
mentioned in this open question. However, as many Demoscene members use nick-
names and artistic handles, this aspect may be of less importance to this community.
Limitations
In our research, we have surveyed the preferences of a portion of Polish- and Eng-
lish-speaking communities; therefore more research is needed to verify these prelimi-
nary insights. Moreover, we did not ask about the extent and nature of the engage-
ment in the Demoscene or the exact frequency of consuming Demoscene content,
Fig. 7. Results of thematic analysis of the open question on what members of the general public
would be able to learn about these preserved productions and the realities that shaped them.
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Andrzej Lichnerowicz Maciej Grzeszczuk Kinga H. Skorupska Challenges and opportunities…
just the fact of having been a contributor within the last 5 years. We do not know
whether the frequency of viewing Demoscene productions influences the preferred
form of their presentation. We also do not account for the differences between the
subsets of the Demoscene, that is creators working with 8-bit platforms, such as
Atari or Commodore, 16-bit computers, such as Amiga or early PC, and modern hard-
ware, consoles, etc.
Conclusions
First of all, it is important to note that, because of the artistic and creative nature
of the community, it is its content creators, the Demosceners, who ought to be sup-
ported in preservation efforts, to disseminate and archive their works for the general
public and future generations. Given this, we can offer some insights into the needs of
the community when it comes to the context information and documentation. These
include (1) information about the content authors, together with a way to contact
them, which should be available both with the archived version of the demo and at
the Demoscene events; this may also help with the licensing process should the art-
work be chosen to be included in another cultural production; (2) information on the
creative constraints, the hardware used to create and exhibit the work, together with
its limitations and challenges, and the self-imposed limitations related to the creative
process and the size of demo file; (3) a recording of the demo archived to secure the
demo against challenges such as incompatible hardware and volatility of video plat-
forms, as YouTube, although not preferred, may be better than no strategy at all, as
it is still an acceptable, relatively easiest to achieve and widely used option to enjoy
the Demoscene content for many Demosceners; (4) information about the context
of the work, both historical and in relation to other Demoscene works which may
have served as its inspiration; and finally (5) the reception that the work has received
among the Demoscene, and the changes/inspirations it may have stirred in its wake.
While the need to communicate information about the authors of the work did
not often appear in the answers to open questions, knowing the Demoscene, it can
be assumed that it might be obvious to those who commented that such informa-
tion is usually contained in the productions themselves, either in text scrolls that are
part of the production, or in text information files attached to the demo file. How-
ever, authors usually sign their work with Demoscene aliases and group affiliations;
while scene members are able to decode this information and associate it with spe-
cific, personally known people, this information and those connections will become
illegible to people who do not have the social context, so care should be taken to ap-
propriately augment this information.
The social context is not the only one that fades with time. In-depth knowledge of
the technologies used, hardware requirements and how to keep demos operational
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Andrzej Lichnerowicz Maciej Grzeszczuk Kinga H. Skorupska Challenges and opportunities…
disappears as well. Considering how much members of the Demoscene are commit-
ted to creating an authentic experience when interacting with productions, the trans-
fer of knowledge and education to new generations seems to be necessary to ensure
access to the original form in which the work was intended to be seen, or seen by the
author – before it is too late.
Future Work
In future work, we would like to explore the community’s view on methods, tools, and
vessels to preserve Demoscene productions in the long term. Since the Demoscene
is definitely not a monoculture, with a diverse approach to hardware used, differ-
ent creation methods and creation of social networks, we are interested in equally
diverse perspectives on the current and future evolution of the Demoscene. We are
especially curious about the view of the community on the impact of this evolution
on the preferred and sustainable methods for preserving its cultural heritage for fu-
ture Demoscene members as well as the public. We are also interested in practical
questions arising around the licensing of Demoscene productions that should clearly
regulate means of distribution and preservation, with or without derivatives and re-
mixing to align with the preferences of the authors. We would like to understand,
study and evaluate how to exhibit Demoscene productions and their cultural, artis-
tic, and technical context in a way that is true to their heart, in accordance with the
core values of the community, but at the same time, in a way that will make it easier
to share them with people who are not yet familiar with the Demoscene community.
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to extend their sincere appreciation to the participants who gene-
rously shared their personal perspectives and experiences for the advancement of
this study. Additionally, we want to recognize the massive effort of the community
of enthusiasts whose dedication to the collection, maintenance and preservation of
data is commendable, often undertaken in the absence of substantial systemic or in-
stitutional support.
Summary
The Demoscene is a pioneering digital culture and an art form. Its roots in Poland date back to
the mid-1980s. In 2019, the Polish Demosceners, alongside their Finnish and German counter-
parts in the Art of Coding campaign, embarked on an initiative to advocate for the recognition
of the Demoscene by UNESCO. This move highlighted the tension between the inherently decen-
tralised and demarcating nature of the Demoscene and formal requirements of cultural heritage
preservation. In this paper, we present a brief overview of the Demoscene, combining personal
observations from the UNESCO enlisting process with insights gathered from a supportive study
conducted among Demoscene community members. The results of this study are presented in
the context of digital preservation challenges in various domains, offering a comparative per-
spective. The paper concludes with some insights into what information to store alongside the
Demoscene productions themselves and outlines potential further work, addressing both cur-
rent and emerging challenges faced by the Demoscene community.
Keywords: Demoscene, digital culture, digital art, preservation, computer interaction
Andrzej Lichnerowicz Maciej Grzeszczuk Kinga H. Skorupska Challenges and opportunities…
Streszczenie
Demoscena to prekursorska kultura cyfrowa i forma sztuki. Jej korzenie w Polsce sięgają połowy
lat 80. ubiegłego wieku. W 2019 r. polscy uczestnicy Demosceny, wraz ze swoimi fińskimi i nie-
mieckimi kolegami z kampanii Art of Coding, podjęli inicjatywę na rzecz uznania Demosceny
przez UNESCO. Decyzja ta podkreśliła napięcia, jakie istnieją pomiędzy z natury zdecentralizo-
wanym i demarkacyjnym charakterem Demosceny a formalnymi wymogami ochrony dziedzic-
twa kulturowego. W artykule przedstawiamy krótki przegląd Demosceny, łącząc osobiste obser-
wacje z procesu wpisywania na listę UNESCO ze spostrzeżeniami zebranymi podczas badania
przeprowadzonego wśród członków społeczności. Wyniki tego badania zostały przedstawione
w kontekście wyzwań związanych z ochroną zasobów cyfrowych w różnych dziedzinach, pre-
zentując perspektywę porównawczą. Artykuł kończy się kilkoma spostrzeżeniami co do tego,
jakie informacje należy przechowywać wraz z samymi produkcjami Demosceny, a odnosząc się
zarówno do obecnych, jak i pojawiających się wyzwań stojących przed społecznością Demosceny,
nakreśla kierunek potencjalnych dalszych prac.
Słowa kluczowe: Demoscena, kultura cyfrowa, sztuka cyfrowa, konserwacja, interakcja komputerowa