Demoscene Book Released!
category: general [glöplog]
Another Pouet thread already scooped this, but I thought you'd find this interesting enough, so I created this announce thread for it...
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The First Book ever about the Demoscene is ready to be released! Titled: "Demoscene: The Art of Real-Time". 72 pages, full colour, professional quality, various writers, lots of visuals/design. Published by Even Lake Studios & katastro.fi. The book is released at the Sonar festival in Barcelona 17-19.6.2004. This 'art style' book is for everyone, not just for demosceners. It has a longer in-depth history article, case articles and 100% demoscene designs. For more info please visit: http://www.evenlakestudios.com/books
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The First Book ever about the Demoscene is ready to be released! Titled: "Demoscene: The Art of Real-Time". 72 pages, full colour, professional quality, various writers, lots of visuals/design. Published by Even Lake Studios & katastro.fi. The book is released at the Sonar festival in Barcelona 17-19.6.2004. This 'art style' book is for everyone, not just for demosceners. It has a longer in-depth history article, case articles and 100% demoscene designs. For more info please visit: http://www.evenlakestudios.com/books
Solskogen 2004 will also launch the book and pre-orders can be made through Geekstuff (present at the party) at a reduced price. Come to Solskogen! :)
Nice. Really interesting... I'm toying with the thought to get it soon.
Scene Event 2004 will also be a place to get your hands on the book.
The sample pages look interesting but I am affraid it is not about the roots. I have an impression it is for the wide audience who wanna know what the demoscene is in fact. Some photos are too big. But it is an only impression from some subjective preview, anyway.
NB. Tomcat, please hurry up ;). Köszönöm =).
NB. Tomcat, please hurry up ;). Köszönöm =).
is it really the first demoscene book?
(hackerland comes to my mind right now, tho it wasn't exactly good =)
(hackerland comes to my mind right now, tho it wasn't exactly good =)
Was Hackerland translated into English?
shifter : any places in Amsterdam where they will stock it that you know of ?
There's also "PC Underground" (1995) written by members from The Coexistence, but it's not covering the social aspects of the scene, only coding (and a lot of the information in this book wasn't even demoscene specific).
Weyland: As of now... highly doubtful, as SE will be in Denmark.
I might want to check with some bookstore people though -try nagging the 1st floor @ ABC too :)
I might want to check with some bookstore people though -try nagging the 1st floor @ ABC too :)
First floor ? the comics & SF section ? hmm, not like I never go there :)
I'd think it wouldn't be out of place on the design/web/taschen displays near the entrance, thanks for the hookup
I'd think it wouldn't be out of place on the design/web/taschen displays near the entrance, thanks for the hookup
The book is definately trying to reach the roots in a way that the 'birth story' we all know so well, is captured and is true to the scene. And in the end we connect the demoscene culture into other things (digital art/culture in general), so that the wider audience will see how unique and connected the whole thing is (game industry etc). Trixter read the the thing before we started to work on the layout and he gave some good feedback along the way.
The history article is all about telling how the early 1980s cracking 'scene' turned into what we know as the demoscene. My own active scene career was around 1987-1993, so my approach is definately not nuskool. Btw, the book has a demoscene timeline which introduces a way to divide the history into three different eras: oldskool, middleskool and newskool. This will hopefully generate some discussion (which was the main idea).
The history article is all about telling how the early 1980s cracking 'scene' turned into what we know as the demoscene. My own active scene career was around 1987-1993, so my approach is definately not nuskool. Btw, the book has a demoscene timeline which introduces a way to divide the history into three different eras: oldskool, middleskool and newskool. This will hopefully generate some discussion (which was the main idea).
Somehow i suspect that the book will only cover katastro.fi-related groups like Orange, CNCD, Complex and TPOLM, and therefore will give biased picture of the demoscene, but we shall see.
1-5575527-5-4 PC Underground : Unconventional Programming Techniques {} 34.95 Book&Cd 1995
I have articles that can beat your articles!
I mean to publish them quite soon, I just need to polish them a little.
I mean to publish them quite soon, I just need to polish them a little.
Please read the book FAQ. It will answer some of your questions related to the content and the choices we had to make (and why they we're made).
http://www.evenlakestudios.com/books/faq.htm
Please post the URL, if you find a place where to get that "Hackerland" book. Totally missed that one.
http://www.evenlakestudios.com/books/faq.htm
Please post the URL, if you find a place where to get that "Hackerland" book. Totally missed that one.
No, it's certainly not the first "demoscene book". And certainly not a deep view of our world. I haven't seen it, but as I looked at the sample images, it's more like a small art album than a real book about the scene.
And yes, I am hurrying up. :)
And yes, I am hurrying up. :)
http://www.hackerland.de/
unfortunately "hackerland" is rather bad cause, probably on pressure from the publishing house, evrimsson & merlin-m try to cover certain aspects, for example modern hacking, that they dont really have a clue about. they got criticized a lot for it by the CCC and many others.
the sequel "hackertales" is FAR FAR better; it covers some really interesting issues about the amiga bbs & warez scene of the early 90s, where the authors really have a clue about. enjoyed reading it a lot. so, if you are thinking to get those and can speak german (afaik there is no translation), get "hackertales" and not the other one.
unfortunately "hackerland" is rather bad cause, probably on pressure from the publishing house, evrimsson & merlin-m try to cover certain aspects, for example modern hacking, that they dont really have a clue about. they got criticized a lot for it by the CCC and many others.
the sequel "hackertales" is FAR FAR better; it covers some really interesting issues about the amiga bbs & warez scene of the early 90s, where the authors really have a clue about. enjoyed reading it a lot. so, if you are thinking to get those and can speak german (afaik there is no translation), get "hackertales" and not the other one.
really just 72 pages?
"but there was simply no time for carrying out any international hunting operations for missing contact information or making hundreds of phone calls."
posting a message or two on pouet, scene.org and a few mailinglists (asm oldskool, for exampl) and asking people for submissions wouldn't have been all that time-consuming.
nevertheless. cool to see this thing happening. I'll be hunting for the book at kiasma as soon as its out ;-)
posting a message or two on pouet, scene.org and a few mailinglists (asm oldskool, for exampl) and asking people for submissions wouldn't have been all that time-consuming.
nevertheless. cool to see this thing happening. I'll be hunting for the book at kiasma as soon as its out ;-)
Heh, I kinda presumed that we end up having this "first" discussion :) I really don't care who's officially first and where. Building up the hype around your handle/group/product is what scene is/was all about. Getting too serious belongs to some other communities (I won't name 'em ;) So, in the end I hope everyone releases their products as 'the first real thing' :). In the end it is the community who decides if your demo/intro/party/book/whatever is worth it. Please, wait until you see the book and judge by yourself. I'm sure some people won't like it and some will find it very cool and useful.
The only thing that matters is that we don't sit on our arses at home and cherish the scene just within' our own community, we have to try to bring it out to the open! The Mindcandy DVD, dozen brilliant websites with good articles, all the cd-roms and music compilations, parties, maybe even all the demo making tools (remember the "Red Sector demomaker ruins the scene" discussion ages ago when dealing with this .werkkzeug1 issue), Freax book, our book are all the same. People spending their time (for free) trying to promote and document the thing they love (the demoscene) and to help the others to do the same. Those who try to make money out of it are something different, they will be shot down quickly. Like the ones who tried to sell demos as PD in the 1980s and 90s. In many ways for me Trixter was the 'first one' to do something serious about documenting the scene AND getting the message widely published, not just on webpages etc. Plus he's done it for a long long time online etc.
On one thing I disagree: this is a real book about the scene! It was done 100% by demosceners, it was checked by 100% demosceners, the text is 100% about the demoscene and it's main goal is to help the demoscene to be a better known phenomenon than it is today.
Art book in this case means original design instead of a screenshot documentary (it has screenshots, but we used 'em more as art). The main goal is that the book should generate the following reaction from a non-scene reader when you hand out the book: "wow, this looks really cool/interesting, I have to take a closer look to the whole phenomenon" or "ah, this is what you've been doing, welcome to the job interview". This I hope will help people to get their own things and projects thru. The book is a tool for you to get that reaction.
So, I hope we end up having many Mindcandy DVDs to present demos live easily, I hope we get the Freax book soon so that we have a reference book to tell us and fans "who released routine x first" and to read a very detailed story about our history (with all the handles/products/dates) and I hope people will find "Demoscene: The Art of Real-time" book interesting since it tries to establish demos as art and us as artist and show how unique, exciting, creative and long lasting the demoscene culture already is (especially to the readers who really don't want to know who released the routine x first and don't want to spend that much money to get the big picture), and that people can use it advance their own activities.
The only thing that matters is that we don't sit on our arses at home and cherish the scene just within' our own community, we have to try to bring it out to the open! The Mindcandy DVD, dozen brilliant websites with good articles, all the cd-roms and music compilations, parties, maybe even all the demo making tools (remember the "Red Sector demomaker ruins the scene" discussion ages ago when dealing with this .werkkzeug1 issue), Freax book, our book are all the same. People spending their time (for free) trying to promote and document the thing they love (the demoscene) and to help the others to do the same. Those who try to make money out of it are something different, they will be shot down quickly. Like the ones who tried to sell demos as PD in the 1980s and 90s. In many ways for me Trixter was the 'first one' to do something serious about documenting the scene AND getting the message widely published, not just on webpages etc. Plus he's done it for a long long time online etc.
On one thing I disagree: this is a real book about the scene! It was done 100% by demosceners, it was checked by 100% demosceners, the text is 100% about the demoscene and it's main goal is to help the demoscene to be a better known phenomenon than it is today.
Art book in this case means original design instead of a screenshot documentary (it has screenshots, but we used 'em more as art). The main goal is that the book should generate the following reaction from a non-scene reader when you hand out the book: "wow, this looks really cool/interesting, I have to take a closer look to the whole phenomenon" or "ah, this is what you've been doing, welcome to the job interview". This I hope will help people to get their own things and projects thru. The book is a tool for you to get that reaction.
So, I hope we end up having many Mindcandy DVDs to present demos live easily, I hope we get the Freax book soon so that we have a reference book to tell us and fans "who released routine x first" and to read a very detailed story about our history (with all the handles/products/dates) and I hope people will find "Demoscene: The Art of Real-time" book interesting since it tries to establish demos as art and us as artist and show how unique, exciting, creative and long lasting the demoscene culture already is (especially to the readers who really don't want to know who released the routine x first and don't want to spend that much money to get the big picture), and that people can use it advance their own activities.
weyland, de slegte? :)
couldn't agree more with Rawer :) !
Quote:
The only thing that matters is that we don't sit on our arses at home and cherish the scene just within' our own community, we have to try to bring it out to the open!
Isn't that what killed the demoscene in the first place?
Promising book though. If Freax is likely to be a guide with tons of background info, this might be the coffee table counterpart. Can't wait to leaf through it.