Moleman 2 – Demoscene – The Art of the Algorithms (2012)

HD, colour, 90′

Moleman 2 is about the demoscene subculture, told by mostly Hungarian sceneres, but it features also some other nationalities.

As an impact of the spreading of computer technology, some new art sections have been born. Some of them just digitized the analogue forms, but some produced whole new artistic forms. In former times, image-, and sound-based arts required not only intellectual but physical skills as well. Nowadays, computer programming allows us to create new-styled artworks using only our intellectual skills. We don’t need our physical skills for that anymore. Computer technics is the fastest developing part of our world, which produces more and more new opportunities for art. Moleman shows you now a digital subculture, where artists don’t use always the latest technology, but their aim is also to bring out the best from 30 year-old computer technics.

The demoscene is a computer art subculture that specializes in producing demos, which are non-interactive audio-visual presentations that run in real-time on a computer. The main goal of a demo is to show off programming, artistic, and musical skills.

The demoscene first appeared during the 8-bit era on computers such as the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC, and came to prominence during the rise of the 16/32-bit home computers (the Amiga and the Atari ST). In the early years, demos had a strong connection with software cracking. When a cracked program was started, the cracker or his team would take credit with a graphical introduction called a “crack intro” (shortenedcracktro). Later, the making of intros and standalone demos evolved into a new subculture independent of the software (piracy) scene.