Breakpoint 2009 in retrospect
InteractivePosted by j 2009-04-16 14:41:33
Having spent a weekend at Breakpoint 09 (Bingen/Germany), i decided to rant about some of my impressions as a newcomer to the demoscene.
Sure i had been enjoying demo's since i discovered them on the scene.org servers a long time ago. It was therefore a pleasure to meet some of the guys responsible for what i consider to be the greatest form of digital art.
Admittedly, i was a little unimpressed with most of the demo's that i had seen at the party, since i thought previous years had better productions. Not that i could do it any better.
I should probably mention that i'm mostly into the PC demo's, in case any of the numerous AMIIIGAAAAA freaks should feel insulted.
Still's decision of not releasing their PC demo production (yet) may have had a lot to do with it. (edit: apparently they did show their demo as "ill")
Not surprisingly, Farbrausch and MFX (link to invitation demo since "Cognoscere" isn't online yet) had the best effect on me.
What the 4k and 64k demo people do is also pretty unreal.
The summit of the whole weekend however was the showing of ASD's Rupture, which got released on The Gathering, another demoparty that was going on simultaneously in Norway.
Demoscene style / Netlabel absence
Much like in the music (sub)cultures, the demoscene has its own mainstream attractions.
Since the competitions have a democratic voting system, i wasn't too shocked to find out that MFX's noise-based demo "Cognoscere" ended up a little underrated (imho).
It's understandable that not everybody is up for noise or similar more experimental expressions. The demoscene is however the only good place where things like these can be found.
Demoparties are places where creative people who make profound digital art get to interact in realtime.
Netlabels are underrespresented imho. Sure it's a demoscene gathering, but i was surprised to find out that most people had never even heard of netlabels.
WTH, there could be loads of convenient co-ops between netlabels and demogroups. Not that there aren't enough demoscene musicians already, but groups looking for something that breaks the demoscene "mainstream" are more than welcome to contact me. I could probably hook you up with any type of electronic musician you might be looking for. Needless to say, i'd gladly attempt experimental demo soundtracks myself.
Other than that, it could be interesting to have some netlabel artists present their music on events like these, maybe something for the organizers to think about.
"Welcome home"
The real party however was outside, in the company of 1000+ visitors from all over and a hot sun.
I didn't always feel like infiltrating every group i encountered, but ps/Enough Records persisted in introducing me to people i would otherwise never have met (much appreciated!).
Meeting up with Toxie/Ainc (who coded NTT040 - Tetroid 2012) was also more than a pleasure. Chances are we will collab on something new, but for your own sake don't hold your breath just yet.
There was an unspoken amount of respect in the demoscene atmosphere that i hadn't encountered before.
I could hardly believe that "Truck" (oldschool scener, can't miss him) actually welcomed me home. He had a good point.
There's no real way of summarizing what the people there were like. At some point Ra and i concluded that the only thing most of the people there have in common is something psychologically based, be it some form of ocd, isolation, autism or other out of the ordinary (?) personality factors that turn one into a computer art-fascinated freak/geek/whatever.
It would be wrong to label all of the attendees in such a superficial manner, but i certainly learned about my own relation as a person to this environment.
In conclusion, it was a ride to say the least. Depending on circumstances, i just might return next year, hopefully with something more interesting to present.
Greetings to all i exchanged words with. Let's hope they had some value.
Now would be a good time to link me up with the demo's you think i should see.
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