“Frontiers Workshop: Limitations Driven Creativity Through Demoscene Lenses” by Wojtowicz, Taylor, Fouquart, Kirkby, Mattila, et al. …
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- Frontiers Workshop: Limitations Driven Creativity Through Demoscene Lenses
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Demoscene is a community of creators focused around digital ingenuity. Its roots are in software cracking culture. Starting back in the 80s, crackers were adding small introductions to games. Crackers then started competing for the best visual and music effects, and it became a whole new culture — the demoscene. A demo is like a music video, but the computer generates all visuals in real-time. Since the very beginnings of 8-bit computers e.g. Commodore 64, Atari XL/XE – demoscene was always about pushing the hardware beyond its limits. But in modern times, one can feel overwhelmed with – it would seem endless – software and hardware driven creative possibilities. Creative limitation can be thought of as a way to achieve a novel effect or goal that is not otherwise possible using conventional, readily accessible, methods. As counterintuitive as it may sound, adding constraints and limits can actually boost your creativity. You can come up with artificial limitations or use a tool that limits you. It works in any area: music, art, etc. Oulipo, Sonnets, Dogme 95 Manifesto, to name a few. Programming is no exception.