Abstract
The chapter deals with the domestication of technology from a hobbyist viewpoint. The authors discuss how a specific hobbyist group, the demoscene, adopted home computers over the past few decades. The demoscene—or just the scene, as its members called it—represents a European, technically-oriented, and creative community that has existed since the mid-1980s. Based on written primary sources from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, the authors highlight various aspects of the complex process of the computer’s adoption. They argue that the demoscene did not accept personal computers without criticism, even though members enjoyed strong ties to computers and developed high-level skills. The main themes guiding the analysis are the concept of a “scene,” referring to thematically-focused communities of technology users and the concept of a “script,” denoting the perceived possibilities for the use of new technology.
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Notes
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- 2.
Petri Saarikoski. 2004. Koneen Lumo: Mikrotietokoneharrastus Suomessa 1970-luvulta 1990-luvun puoliväliin [The Lure of the machine. The Finnish microcomputer hobby from the 1970s to mid-1990s], Nykykulttuurin tutkimuskeskuksen julkaisuja 83, 190–206. Jyväskylä: Jyväskylän yliopisto; Anders Carlsson. 2009. The forgotten pioneers of creative hacking and social networking – Introducing the demoscene. Paper presented at the Re:live: Media Art Histories. Conference proceedings, Melbourne, 16–20; Antti Silvast, and Markku Reunanen. 2010. The demoscene – An overview. Editorial for the Rhizome special issue on the demoscene, May 17.
- 3.
Douglas Thomas. 2002. Hacker culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- 4.
Markku Reunanen. 2010. Computer demos – What makes them tick? Licentiate thesis, Aalto University, School of Science and Technology, Helsinki, 24–26, 48.
- 5.
Hege Nordli. 2003. The net is not enough: Searching for the female hacker. Trondheim: Norwegian University of Science and Technology; Saarikoski, Koneen Lumo; Daniel Botz. 2011. Kunst, Code und Maschine – Die Ästhetik der Computer-Demoszene [Art, code and machine – The aesthetic of the computer demoscene]. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.
- 6.
Everett M. Rogers. 2003. Diffusion of innovations, 5th ed. New York: Free Press; Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen. 2003. The domestication of new technologies as a set of trials. Journal of Consumer Culture 3(3): 363–385; Nelly Oudshoorn, and Trevor J. Pinch. 2003. How users and non-users matter. In How users matter: The co-construction of users and technology, ed. Nelly Oudshoorn and Trevor J. Pinch, 1–28. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; Markku Reunanen, and Antti Silvast. 2009. Demoscene platforms: A case study on the adoption of home computers. In History of Nordic computing 2, IFIP advances in information and communication technology, ed. John Impagliazzo, Timo Järvi, and Petri Paju, 289–301. Berlin: Springer.
- 7.
Reunanen and Silvast, Demoscene platforms.
- 8.
Reunanen, Computer demos, 71.
- 9.
Rogers, Diffusion of innovations, 36, 35.
- 10.
For further developments in the context of ordinary technological “trials,” see Lehtonen, The domestication of new technologies as a set of trials, 363–385.
- 11.
Rogers, Diffusion of innovations, 24.
- 12.
Michaela Pfadenhauer. 2005. Ethnography of scenes: Towards a sociological life-world analysis of (post-traditional) community-building. Forum: Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research 6(3): 1–15.
- 13.
Steve Woolgar. 1991. Configuring the user: The case of usability trials. In A sociology of monsters: Essays on power, technology and domination, ed. John Law, 57–100. London/New York: Routledge; Madeleine Akrich. 1992. The de-scription of technical objects. In Shaping technology/buildingsociety: Studies in sociotechnical change, ed. Wiebe E. Bijker and John Law, 205–224. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; Madeleine Akrich, and Bruno Latour, A summary of convenient vocabulary for the semiotics of human and nonhuman assemblies, in Bijker and Law, Shaping technology/building society, 259–264; Oudshoorn and Pinch, How users matter. For a more recent development concerning the active figuration of technology by their users and their designers, see Sampsa Hyysalo. 2009. Figuring technologies, users and designers – Steps towards an adequate vocabulary for design–use relation. In Use of science and technology in business: Exploring the impact of using activity for systems, organizations, and people, ed. Frans Prenkert, Enrico Baraldi, Håkan Håkansson, and Alexandra Waluszewski, 291–313. Bingley: Emerald Publishing Group.
- 14.
Oudshoorn and Pinch, How users matter, 9.
- 15.
Akrich, The de-scription of technical objects, 208.
- 16.
Woolgar, Configuring the user, 57–102.
- 17.
For a corresponding study of a personal computer, see Christina Lindsay, From the shadows: Users as designers, producers, marketers, distributors, and technical support, in Oudshoorn and Pinch, How users matter, 29–50. In other cases, such “re-figurations” by users have also reflected back to the level where technologies are designed by their producers, see Hyysalo, Figuring technologies. Our study, possibly due to the limitations of the source material, could not unfortunately observe similar examples.
- 18.
Alf Rehn. 2001. Electronic Potlatch – A study on new technologies and primitive economic behaviors. Stockholm: Royal Institute of Technology; Alf Rehn. 2004. The politics of contraband – The honor economies of the Warez Scene. Journal of Socio-Economics 33(3): 359–374; Jukka Vuorinen. 2007. Ethical codes in the digital world: Comparisons of the proprietary, the open/free and the cracker system. Ethics and Information Technology 9(1): 27–38.
- 19.
John Irwin. 1977. Scenes, 23. London: Sage, quoted in Pfadenhauer, Ethnography of scenes, 3.
- 20.
Reunanen, Computer demos, 29–30.
- 21.
Levy, Hackers, 115–118; Thomas, Hacker culture, xvi; Rehn, The politics of contraband, 359–374.
- 22.
E.g., Oudshoorn and Pinch, How users matter.
- 23.
For more discussion on computer “platform wars,” see Saarikoski, Koneen Lumo, 128–137.
- 24.
Turkle, The second self, 50–76.
- 25.
Reunanen and Silvast, Demoscene platforms; Reunanen, Computer demos, 100–102.
- 26.
Lindsay, From the shadows.
- 27.
Oudshoorn and Pinch, How users matter.
Bibliography
Akrich, Madeleine. 1992. The de-scription of technical objects. In Shaping technology/building society: Studies in sociotechnical change, ed. Wiebe E. Bijker and John Law, 205–224. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Akrich, Madeleine, and Bruno Latour. 1992. A summary of convenient vocabulary for the semiotics of human and nonhuman assemblies. In Shaping technology/building society: Studies in sociotechnical change, ed. Wiebe E. Bijker and John Law, 259–264. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Botz, Daniel. 2011. Kunst, Code und Maschine – Die Ästhetik der Computer-Demoszene [Art, code and machine – The aesthetic of the computer demoscene]. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.
Carlsson, Andres. 2009. The forgotten pioneers of creative hacking and social networking – Introducing the demoscene. Paper presented at the Re:live: Media Art Histories. Conference proceedings, Melbourne.
Hyysalo, Sampsa. 2009. Figuring technologies, users and designers – Steps towards an adequate vocabulary for design–use relation. In Use of science and technology in business: Exploring the impact of using activity for systems, organizations, and people, ed. Frans Prenkert, Enrico Baraldi, Håkan Håkansson, and Alexandra Waluszewski, 291–313. Bingley: Emerald Publishing Group.
Irwin, John. 1977. Scenes, 23. London: Sage.
Lehtonen, Turo-Kimmo. 2003. The domestication of new technologies as a set of trials. Journal of Consumer Culture 3(3): 363–385.
Levy, Steven. 1984. Hackers: Heroes of the computer revolution. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday.
Lindsay, Christina. 2003. From the shadows: Users as designers, producers, marketers, distributors, and technical support. In How users matter: The co-construction of users and technology, ed. Nelly Oudshoorn and Trevor J. Pinch, 29–50. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Nordli, Hege. 2003. The net is not enough: Searching for the female hacker. Trondheim: Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
Oudshoorn, Nelly, and Trevor J. Pinch. 2003. How users and non-users matter. In How users matter: The co-construction of users and technology, ed. Nelly Oudshoorn and Trevor J. Pinch, 1–28. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Pfadenhauer, Michaela. 2005. Ethnography of scenes: Towards a sociological life-world analysis of (post-traditional) community-building. Forum: Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research 6(3): 1–15.
Rehn, Alf. 2001. Electronic potlatch – A study on new technologies and primitive economic behaviors. Stockholm: Royal Institute of Technology.
Rehn, Alf. 2004. The politics of contraband – The honor economies of the Warez scene. Journal of Socio-Economics 33(3): 359–374.
Reunanen, Markku. 2010. Computer demos – What makes them tick? Licentiate thesis, Aalto University, School of Science and Technology, Helsinki.
Reunanen, Markku, and Antti Silvast. 2009. Demoscene platforms: A case study on the adoption of home computers. In History of Nordic computing 2, IFIP advances in information and communication technology, ed. John Impagliazzo, Timo Järvi, and Petri Paju, 289–301. Berlin: Springer.
Rogers, Everett M. 2003. Diffusion of innovations, 5th ed. New York: Free Press.
Saarikoski, Petri. 2004. Koneen Lumo: Mikrotietokoneharrastus Suomessa 1970-luvulta 1990-luvun puoliväliin [The Lure of the machine. The Finnish microcomputer hobby from the 1970s to mid-1990s], Nykykulttuurin tutkimuskeskuksen julkaisuja 83. Jyväskylä: Jyväskylän yliopisto.
Silvast, Antti, and Markku Reunanen. 2010. The demoscene – An overview. Editorial for the Rhizome special issue on the demoscene, May 17.
Thomas, Douglas. 2002. Hacker culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Turkle, Sherry. 1984. The second self: Computers and the human spirit. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Vuorinen, Jukka. 2007. Ethical codes in the digital world: Comparisons of the proprietary, the open/free and the cracker system. Ethics and Information Technology 9(1): 27–38.
Woolgar, Steve. 1991. Configuring the user: The case of usability trials. In A sociology of monsters: Essays on power, technology and domination, ed. John Law, 57–100. London/New York: Routledge.
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge Gerard Alberts’s and Patryk Wasiak’s comments. We would also like to thank the contributors of our online demoscene research bibliography, Demo Research, who made the gathering of the rich research literature possible. We acknowledge the funding provided by the Kone Foundation for the Kotitietokoneiden aika ja teknologisen harrastuskulttuurin perintö project.
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Silvast, A., Reunanen, M. (2014). Multiple Users, Diverse Users: Appropriation of Personal Computers by Demoscene Hackers. In: Alberts, G., Oldenziel, R. (eds) Hacking Europe. History of Computing. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5493-8_7
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