088 #mountainbytes

Last week the MountainBytes 2023 event took place at the Lorzensaal in Cham, a weekend full of shows, competitions and workshops, celebrating our favorite international computer art subculture focused on self-contained computer programs.

There was music and visuals, reuniting and dancing, and of course creative coding on a large variety of platforms. Years of planning and most of the energies of our small Swiss community were focused on this event - so glad that many people from here and abroad were able to join us in person.

2020 invitation by seism

It was not forgotten that our first day marked one year since the beginning of an invasion that started another war. The last part of our evening demoshow on the first day was dedicated to works that reflected on the painful events in the Ukraine and solidarity with their people.

We were honoured to host the Meteoriks Awards (the "Oscars" of the demoscene), whose 2023 nominees - including Seven Days by 61Q0 at the top of this post, or Orders of Magnitude by P_Malin / Bitshifters in the photo above - were announced at MountainBytes. The entire event was recorded, and I will share more reports as they come out:

• Day I / Day II + III on SceneSat
• The results of a beginner's workshop are at https://make.echtzeitkultur.org/event/4
• All the official releases can be found at https://demozoo.org/parties/4407/
• Social media coverage at #MountainBytes (Mastodon, Twitter)

The non-profit association Echtzeit - Digitale Kultur runs workshops and presentations around the year supporting demoscene artists. Please get in touch if you would like to run a show or competition or workshop, or even if you just have any questions about something you see.

Visit Art of Coding to learn about an initiative to enlist the demoscene as first digital culture on the list of UNESCO intangible world cultural heritage. This is being actively pursued in several countries, including in Switzerland.

See demoparty.net or Demozoo for similar upcoming events around the world.

As with great data art, great demos start with a sketch! These were made by visitors at MountainBytes - to whom I would like to extend my gratitude, along with all our sofasceners online, the compo contributors and organisers keeping the flame alive.