The demoscene has become a national UNESCO-heritage in Sweden, thanks to an application that Ziphoid and me did last year. This has already happened in several European countries, as part of the international Art of Coding initiative to make the demoscene a global UNESCO heritage. I think this makes plenty of sense, since the demoscene is arguably the oldest creative digital subculture around. It has largely stuck to its own values and traditions throughout the world’s technological and economical shifts, and that sort of consistency is quite unusual in the digital world.
The main idea of the demoscene is to compete with productions that maximize a certain hardware, but that’s not what all demosceners like to do. My demogroup Hack n’ Trade for example, cares more about making weird stuff, and there are plenty of other groups like that. Some demosceners don’t release anything at all, but might do important work to keep the scene alive (BBS-trading, organizing parties, preserving software…).
I’ve written plenty of papers and blog posts about the demoscene, and I’ve often felt a gap between the stuff I write as a researcher and my personal experience of the demoscene. There is certainly an international demoscene with big events and huge releases that can be described in general terms, but what has mattered more to me is the local scenes, the small parties and the people you hang out with. Meeting up with a bunch of friends and making weird computer stuff “for no reason, really” is a great setting. That’s what I enjoy the most, in the end. For other sceners, it’s different.
There is a sort of diversity in the scene that is difficult to capture and generalize. The Swedish coder with a well-paid programming job and a busy family life might consider the demoscene as an escape to his teenage years, while the LSD-munching raver from France who trades illegal warez on BBSs and makes weird pixel art considers the scene as a free culture without corporate or art world bullshit. There’s room for both in the scene, because it is werdly conservative and open at the same time. And perhaps that is one of the reasons why it should be considered an intangible heritage.