The creativity of our demoscene now belongs to the digital heritage of Polish culture.

And now, buckle up because it’s going to be classy. Thanks to the involvement of the Polish demoscene community, Andrzej Lichnerowicz and Kaja Mikoszewska of Chronicle of Polish Demoscene Committee created and submitted an application for entry into the National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Today, a signed document has reached us. The application was accepted.

The Polish demoscene is officially Polish cultural heritage.

We are bursting with pride that we are effectively participating in the international Art of Coding initiative, aimed at recognizing demoscene creativity as craftsmanship and art, whose development is part of the contemporary history of humanity. Poland joins the successes of Finland and Germany, and our experiences open the door for other countries whose demoscene communities are also working on their applications. The goal of this cooperation is to list the world demoscene on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity — and it will be the first digital culture in history on this list.

I am extremely happy that Poland, right after Finland and Germany, recognized the digital culture of the demoscene as immaterial cultural heritage. It is a huge milestone, as it confirms on an institutional level that the demoscene is a major influence on digital culture east and west, north and south, crossing all borders and boundaries. We are super-grateful for the success of the Polish scene and community behind Kronika Polskiej Demosceny, which pushed the successful application with great passion and energy. Ogromne gratulacje!.

Tobias Kopka Art of Coding co-founder

Success, what now?

For the demoscene, such a decision means primarily that its works now officially become part of culture, Polish and global — this is not a small thing. We can continue to develop, practice the traditions we like, and change those that no longer suit us over time, remaining a wonderfully wild, avant-garde subculture.

The only obligation on us, which has not changed over the years, is to continue creating and passing our customs on to the next generations of people interested in the demoscene.

See what history we are creating, from early cracking, through harnessing not entirely obvious tools as means of fantastic expression, to laying the foundations for many contemporary creative industries — and finally, again pioneering, this time in the field of digital culture, as a community whose quirky traditions and sometimes bizarre creations are internationally recognized as a significant contribution to the development of humanity. Who would have thought!

UNESCO’s mission includes, among other things, developing and implementing legal norms, with special emphasis on the protection of cultural heritage. Therefore, we can count on the protection of our works, collections, and special skills from, let’s say gently, unwanted commercialization by entities unrelated to the demoscene.

If we want, we can call our works — art without a shadow of shame.

And besides, incidentally, we (the demoscene) contribute to deepening the understanding of the value of digital art and the craftsmanship associated with its creation.

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For the Committee, the success of the application means moving to the next actions and more time to continue the projects started.

We are still conducting historical research on the beginnings of the demoscene, led by Łukasz “Zenial” Szałankiewicz. We also support Daniel “dely” Koźmiński in his work on the monograph of the Atari demoscene.

We have cooperated with Jagiellonian University, we are in discussions with researchers from the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, University of Turku in Finland, University of Zurich in Switzerland, and University of New South Wales in Australia. The first publications of our research results should appear at the beginning of 2022.

Daniel “dely” Koźmiński, Przemysław “Tiges” Ostrowski, and Bartosz “Biter” Rakowski are building a collection of high-quality recordings of Polish demos. In doing so, we are designing a video analysis system and developing ways to present productions in terms of emulation, including through a browser. We believe that nothing replaces experiencing demos on the hardware they were written for, but at the same time, we feel the need to popularize demoscene art through various channels (among other things, to attract more people who will enrich the demoscene with their skills).

Working on preserving digital culture artifacts, we look with curiosity at the government portal Kronik@ that is just being launched.

We also support the efforts of committees from other countries, including France, Denmark, and Switzerland, to enter their demoscenes on national lists of digital cultural heritage, as part of the Art of Coding initiative.

By the way, we remind you that the Committee is not only very busy but also inclusive and open to cooperation. If anyone wants to support us in our activities, we invite you to contact us. Just give us a few weeks now for the holidays, to cool down after the success of the application and to plan official actions — there’s no shortage of work and every enthusiastic pair of hands is worth its weight in gold :)

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Andrzej Lichnerowicz and Kaja Mikoszewska extend heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported the creation of the application for the entry of the demoscene into the National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage, especially the team leader for intangible cultural heritage, Ms. Katarzyna Sadowska-Mazur, and the Leader of Digitization of the European Commission Grzegorz Zajączkowski.

Łukasz Szałankiewicz thanks those who supported consultations during the creation of the archive of demoscene works and the development of their historical context, especially representatives of specific platform scenes: Tomasz and Piotr Pacyna, Daniel Koźmiński, Adam Wacławski, Bartosz Rakowski, Krystian Włoski, and Adam Sobczak.

Applause for our partners! Organizations and institutions supporting the Committee’s activities for the preservation and cultivation of demoscene traditions (which are now officially part of the national cultural heritage!).

Dec 15, 2021