The demoscene is a computer art subculture presently more active in Europe which evolved out of the video game cracking scene in the late nineteen-eighties. It is centered around demos, or realtime, generally noninteractive, demonstrations of prowess in graphic arts, musical composition, and code which run realtime on computers. One core aspect of the demoscene is an emphasis on overcoming technological hurdles with creativity and skill. As a result, two common demo competition categories are 64 kilobyte and 4 kilobyte demos, which include visuals and music in files equivalent in size to a single page of unformatted text.

Many demosceners also do “Wild” demos, that is productions on other electronic devices, often constructing the devices themselves. lft is famous for his custom microcontroller demo platforms, Darklite for their “Build Your Own” series, tejeez for his oscilloscope demo, and North American demoscener Luis Gonzalez put together an Arduino demo platform. Swiss party Buenzli/Demodays even has a overhead projector category!

Tammo “kb” Hinrichs of demogroup Farbrausch will give an overview of the demoscene with an emphasis on the “wild” end of things.

This talk is sponsored by @party, a Boston area demoparty. Please visit our website at atparty-demoscene.net.

dorkbot-boston is a monthly gathering of people doing strange things with electricity. Artists, designers, engineers, students, scientists, hackers and anyone else interested in the creative use of electricity are encouraged to attend. dorkbot meetings are free, family-friendly and open to the public. Bring your projects, in whatever state they are in, and bring 10 friends!

To participate, please visit dorkbotboston.com and join our mailing list.