Researchers

This is a brief alphabetical list of people that have conducted some sort of demo culture research lately, ranging from final theses to books. Should you want in or out of the list, please contact us.

Gleb J. Albert

See the about page.

Daniel Botz

Daniel Botz is a German art teacher, assistant professor at Munich University and VJ artist. In 2008 he finished a PhD thesis (in German) on the aesthetics and history of computer demos.

Anders Carlsson

Writer of an article dealing with chip music and an introductory conference paper on the demoscene (see the bibliography). Has a blog about chip music and 8-bit computers. In the scene circles goes by the name Goto80.

Doreen Hartmann

Doreen Hartmann received her M.A. (2006) in Comparative Literature, Media Studies and Computer Science from the University of Paderborn (Germany), where she teaches in the field of Media Aesthetics. Her PhD thesis, Digital Art Natives – Praktiken, Artefakte und Strukturen der Computer-Demoszene, was published in 2017. Her general research interests are digital media & (sub-)cultures and new media art.

Canan Hastik

Canan Hastik is one of the most active demoscene reasearchers of the last few years. She develops ontologies and approaches to the systematic preservation of demoscene art. Canan’s PhD thesis, published as Knowledge Design of Digital Subcultural Heritage, is one of the few doctoral thesis dealing with the demoscene. Her homepage: http://canan.hastik.de/index_en.html

Hanna Kaivola

Hanna Kaivola (maiden name Hanna Lönnblad) wrote her final thesis (Lönnblad 1998) about computer demos for the Department of Musicology at Helsinki University.

Mikko Karaiste

Mikko “Wal” Karaiste wrote his MA thesis Amigaskene, alakulttuuri tietokoneen puitteissa: kuvauksia alakulttuurin ja teknologioiden yhteenkietoutumisesta on the conventions of the Amiga scene.

Riikka Kurki

Riikka Kurki is a graphic designer and a graduate from the Institute of Design of Lahti polytechnic. Her final thesis (Kurki 2002) concerned the postmodern identity, gender role communities, the demoscene and the decoscene. Homepage http://www.riikkakurki.com/.

Hege Nordli

Hege Nordli is a Norwegian sociologist, who has studied female hackerdom and gender inclusion partly through the demoscene, especially demo parties (see Nordli 2003a and her PhD thesis Nordli 2003b).

Tamas Polgar

Tamas “Tomcat” Polgar is a Hungarian demoscener who ran the demoscene history book project Freax. His research on the topic started in 1996.

Markku Reunanen

See the about page.

Petri Saarikoski

Petri Saarikoski is a researcher, teacher and freelancer journalist who resides at the School of History at the University of Turku. He has written several articles about the culture of home computing, some concerning the demoscene (see Saarikoski 2001a). His dissertation on Finnish home computer enthousiasts from the 1970’s to middle 1990’s was reviewed 23.10.2004. He received the “Humanist Doctor of the Year” award of University of Turku for his work. Homepage http://luoti.wordpress.com/.

Ulf Sandqvist

Ulf Sandqvist from University of Umeå has written several papers on the history and development of the gaming industry. His demoscene related papers, likewise, discuss the scene in relation to the industry.

Antti Silvast

See the about page.

Lassi Tasajärvi

Lassi “Rawer” Tasajärvi is a digital media curator and consultant. He edited, published and chiefly wrote the demoscene art book Tasajärvi et al. (2004) and also curated the demoskene.katastro.fi exhibition (2003). Homepage http://www.evenlakestudios.com/

Jukka Vuorinen

Jukka Vuorinen is a sociology researcher in University of Turku. He runs a post-graduate research project about crackers as a social phenomenon.

Patryk Wasiak

Patryk Wasiak (1978) received an M.A. degree in Sociology from Institute for Applied Social Sciences and a M.A. degree in Art History from Institute of Art History at Warsaw University. He has just finished writing his dissertation concerning transnational informal networks of visual artists in Soviet Bloc. In one of chapters he described East European mail-art scene and video-zine Infermental (a loose predecessors of “swapping” and diskmags). He was a holder of Volkswagen Foundation scholarship and Herder Institut research fellowship. Currently he is working as a freelance journalist. He is gathering materials for a series of articles about home computing in Poland during the 1980s and early 1990s. His fields of interests are: hardware and software black market, but also early cracking- and demoscene as well.