Computer Games Culture Conference 3, Lódz, Poland, 24.-25.5.2014: "Behind the Scenes"

[Gleb J. Albert]

Dear fellow researchers,

Markku just pointed out this really exciting event to me:

http://www.kulturagier.uni.lodz.pl/?lang=en_US

This year's topic is "Behind the Scenes", and the CfP sets the aim to "explore the phenomenon of micro-communities (so called “scenes”) centered around particular aspects of computer games. Best known examples of these micro-communities are: demoscene, chip music, game jam, indie, modding, retrogaming, shareware and “let’s play” scene. We are interested in general accounts of said phenomenon, as well as particular case studies."

This is an excellent opportunity for demoscene researchers (and the city of Lódz is quite interesting too). Markku and I will be definitely going, and are looking forward to seeing some of you there!

Best,
Gleb


--
Dr. des. Gleb J. Albert
Historisches Seminar, Universität Zürich
Forschergruppe "Medien und Mimesis"

Universität Zürich
Historisches Seminar
Culmannstr. 1
CH-8006 Zürich
Switzerland

Tel. +41-446346187
<http://uzh.academia.edu/GlebJAlbert>
<http://www.fg-mimesis.de>
<http://twitter.com/glebalbert>

[Marq]

sunnuntai 1. helmikuuta 2015 13.31.36 UTC+2 Gleb J. Albert kirjoitti:

Dear fellow researchers,

Markku just pointed out this really exciting event to me:

http://www.kulturagier.uni.lodz.pl/?lang=en_US

And there we were! A little report on the event here (the same blurb as on the DSR site):

The Kultura Gier Komputerowych 3 conference was held in Poland on May 23-24 at the University of Łódź. This time the theme of the event was “Behind the Scenes”, which lured also demoscene researchers in. See the full program here. Our representatives Markku and Gleb were there, in addition to which Patryk Wasiak and Paweł Grabarczyk gave presentations on demo-related topics. Here’s a little recap of the presentations in chronological order:

• Patryk Wasiak: Początki polskiej demosceny i “polski model komputeryzacji” (The Early Days of the Polish Demoscene and the ‘Polish Model of Computerisation’). The presentation placed the birth of the Polish demoscene in the context of the introduction and popularisation of home computers in late-socialist Poland, encompassing phenomena like state-sponsored computer education and pirate software streetmarkets. It credited the scene with creating computer “brand communities” in Poland, i.e. collective identities formed around computer platforms.
  
• Markku Reunanen: Generations of Consumer Computer Graphics as Seen in Demos. The keynote dealt with various generations of consumer computer graphics starting from the 1970s, using demos as illustrative examples of how hardware has been pushed and misused creatively. The main paradigms presented were character graphics, bitplanes, hybrids, chunky modes, fixed-function pipeline and finally shaders.
  
• Paweł Grabarczyk: Born Retro - Reflexive Demos on Forgotten Platforms. The essence of this presentation was “born retro demos”, i.e. new productions for old platforms that didn’t have a scene back in their heyday. Another interesting concept was Technical Evaluation Context (TEC), which encompasses various factors that matter when demos are evaluated by the scene.
  
• Gleb J. Albert: The 1980s Cracking Scene: Counterculture, Youth Subculture, or Part and Parcel of the Games Industry?  The presentation gave an insight into the early cracking scene and its conceptualisation. It challenged the two predominant narratives - viewing crackers either as subversive “digital activists” akin to hackers, or as criminal teens becoming the future personnel of the IT industry after “growing up” - and proposed instead a perspective on the cracking scene as being entangled with the early computer games industry from the very beginning, focussing on the multiple interactions between both spheres.
  
• Markku Reunanen, Anders Carlsson and Tero Heikkinen: PETSCII - A Character Set and a Creative Platform. In this presentation Markku, Anders and Tero described PETSCII, the character set used on 8-bit Commodore computers, and its creative uses based on their first-hand experiences on various retro projects.

Some of these studies will be extended to research articles later on. The upcoming issue of Replay, the Polish Journal of Game Studies is one potential candidate. We thank Maria B. Garda, Paweł Grabarczyk, and the rest of the organising team for an excellent conference experience.