Digital Symposium '95 Report



by dReAmFiSh! / DCS


    When I first heard about the party  I  was  very happy, I thought to myself
 "GREAT, at last, the UK will get  its  act  together  and show the rest of the
 scene that there IS life after  Anarchy!".   So  I made arrangements to get up
 there, Aquafresh said "Hey, I'm having my driving  test soon, if I pass we can
 drive up there."  "Smart", I thought.  It  will be cheaper faster be more fun.
 So, Aquafresh passed his test, I  ordered  my  ticket and proceeded to write a
 tune for the music compo.   After  a  little  chat  to  Silk (The Organiser) I
 decided that I would also Dj  at  the  event.   A  good  Dj friend of mine (Dj
 Entity) also offered his services.

    So it all started on Friday.  I  made  my  way to Dorset (of all places) to
 see my mate Dj Entity, we sorted  out  what  records we were going to take and
 headed  for Aquafresh's place.  When we  arrived  we decided to introduce Aqua
 to the sounds of Ambient jungle, I think he LOVED it!{

    7:30 am, I was woken by the  sound  of  Aquafresh shouting "GET UP YOU LAZY
 BASTARD!", cheers mate, I didn't have a heart attack!, honest.  Well, we piled
 all the gear into Aquas car a  drove  up  to  the event.  We arrived at around
 10:30 to be met by Buzz  (Hi  mate!),  we  set  up  our stuff and proceeded to
 compete with our sound system, winning of course!.   I met up with a few guys,
 namely B-Real, Majic Mushroom, Hybrid and a  few others I can't remember.  Not
 much really happened apart from meeting a few mates and such.

    It hit around 1:30 and the decks  arrived,  so Dj Entity and myself decided
 to make our talents public.  We played some VERY nice tracks, constantly being
 disturbed by various people like AQUAFRESH,  HOLLYWOOD and some guy who wanted
 to MC (no not you Wilsh!).  We  played  until around 3:00 when Trixter arrived
 and took over the decks (THANK GOD!).  It was then we realised that it was for
 NOTHING.  You could hear what  we  were  playing  only  5 meters away from the
 decks!, but it still created a nice atmosphere.

    Whilst playing I saw Dark (Hi Tim) arrive.   He setup his Amiga in place of
 mine so he could finish his picture  for  the compo.  When Trixter took over I
 decided to sit back at my machine to  watch Dark finish his picture, a fucking
 nice one at that. [Brilliant Picture Dark. -Mike/Anathema]
{

    I handed in my contribution to the  music  compo and decided to relax for a
 few minutes after my ordeal on the decks.   The music compo had some real nice
 entries, a couple of the entries were Jungle based too my liking, then my tune
 came on.  WOW!.  When it finished  EVERYBODY  clapped  and cheered and my tune
 more than another, I though I had the  compo  in bag, No worries. The day went
 on, chatted to a few more people.

    At about 6 the graphics competition took place, OH DEAR!.  There was only 7 
 entries, 2 were raytraced, 1  was  from  Grapevine  Issue  11 (1992), and some
 other okay pictures.  Dark's picture was 1. The WRONG file on the disk! and 2.
 Displayed with 1/4 of the picture  missing!.  This is where everything started
 to go REALLY wrong.  So far, apart from  meeting  some of my old mates and the
 party was shit, and getting worse.

    The Amiga intro compo  started  and  I  couldn't  be  bothered to watch the
 entries.  I had seen the Axis & TBL release before the compo, so I KNEW what I
 was gonna vote for. I just hung around chatting to some more people.



{

    The day just grew very long,  nothing  much  happening.  The PC intro compo
 was cancelled because there was  only  1  entry.   Then  there was the PC Demo
 compo, 2 entries.  The first was okay  with  some nice music and Gourad shaded
 morphing blobs.  The second  was  AWFUL!.   You  could  see  it re-drawing the
 screen.  THEN, oh THEN there was the AMIGA DEMO COMPO!!!  

 I think it's safe  to  say  that  the  UK  Amiga  scene is, officially, WANK!,
 BULLSHIT!.  There was 3 entries.  Now, this is what there were.

 1. A MUSIC DISK.

    Hum, I bet your wondering what a MUSIC  DISK  was doing in a demo comp.  It
 had a nice intro, quite funny yet it  was  STILL a music disk.  The crowd just
 went mad, everyone thought it was a joke or something!.

 2. MANIACS!.

    OH DEAR!.  This must be the worst  entry  out  of the lot.  It was the most
 complete but the worst.  If  your  gonna  release  a  demo, your gonna try and
 compete with what is out  at  the  time.   It  was  a  STUNNING ECS demo which
 started with, guess, go on, guess..  { 
    YES A ...  GLENZ VECTOR!   WOW!..   then  after around 4 minutes waiting we
 were displayed on the best  effects  the  scene  will  ever see..  it was..  a
 LIGHT SOURCED VECTOR CUBE.. OH DOUBLE WOW!!!..  That wasn't all!.  They topped
 it off with a DOT  LOGO  ROTATING  AND  ZOOMING!..  My heart stopped!!..  Well
 after the crowd had finished cracking  open  there ribs with laughter, we were
 ready for entry number 3. Lame Code, Lame Gfx What more can i say than LAME!

 3. A TRIPPED OUT CIRCLE.

    That was it, no music, no text, no scroller, just a tripped out circle with
 some mad colours!.

    Silk decided that NONE of the entries  were worth shit.  Now i decided that
 I  would pack up my Amiga and wait  for the results.  The results..  NOT to my
 liking.

 Music Comp..

    1. Big Jim / Valhalla PC
    2. Can't remember
    3. Joint with Hollywood and someone else.
    4. ME!   {

 GFX Comp.. 

    1. Fish / LSD!!

 Amiga Intro Comp..

    1. Axis

 Can't remember the rest of the results.
 
 [That's what I like to see..Accurate  and Concise representations of the Party
 results :) -Outspan!]

 PC Demo Comp..

    1. The demo with the Gourad Blob!
    2. The OTHER thing!

    Now I was more than a little upset to  find  out that I had come 4th with 6
 votes!.  There was WAY more than 6 people  cheering when it was played so WHAT
 HAPPENED.  {

    As for the GFX comp being one  by  a  picture  of 3 years old that had been
 released before!, I don't know!.  No disrespect to  Fish / LSD but it was just
 pure madness.  Well, as soon as  the  results  come through we decided to fell
 the sinking ship.

    It was the worst party I have  ever  been  too.   I have been to the Quartz
 Party (In my mind, the BEST party the UK ever had!), and the Destiny Communion
 (A shit party but there was far less lamers around and the atmosphere was much
 better).  The only thing the party  had  going  for  it was the meeting of old
 mates.
 
    All I can say is at the end of the day, the UK showed its TRUE colours.  We
 have lost all sense of what the scene  is  about, and it's filled up with such
 lame fucks!.  The only thing we  have  left  is musicians, but that ain't much
 use without any coders or  graphic  artists.   I  am now considering joining a
 euro group or quoting  all  together.   Sorry  for  the  harshness of this, it
 doesn't  apply to a lot of the scene, but  when it come down to it we can't do
 shit but complain.


{

 Now for party messages...

 Hydra / LSD - Hi, thanx for  lending  me  you MultiSync monitor in place of my
 fucked up scart shit, hehehe.  Nice chatting to you.  Keep in touch.

 Tango / Nerve Axis - Cheers for  the  tape  and  the ascii, I STILL can't read
 it!.

 Hollywood / Axis - Your FINALLY getting the Jungle vibe mate.  Keep it up.

 Style / Anathema - Real nice chatting mate,  glad you liked my tunes.  So when
 do I get my package then? [Next Year Hopefully -Mike/Anathema]

 Hybrid / DCS - HARMONIC DISASTER!, HOW  DARE  YOU!  hehe..  At last we met and
 only spoke for 3 minutes, your tapes shall be done.

 ShapeChanger - Biggest board in the UK!, are you trying something!

 Marrs / Fear - Hi mate,  cheers  for  the  tape  so soon after the party, your
 remix request is underway.
{

 Dark / DCS - Don't quit the scene just yet. [I'll Second That -Mike/Anathema]

 Crash / Nerve Axis - Well, at least you had a good time!  hehe...

 Icon / ??? - My you are a  big  lad!   Wouldn't wanna meet you in a dark alley
 way!.  hehehe..

 Baby / Mad Elks - Nice techno modules mate, mind if I remix a few?

 The guys next to me! - OH GOD!.   When  you  go to a party, you don't just sit
 there and play GAMES and DEMOS all day!.

 Big Jim - Nice tune mate, the look on your face when you won man!  haha.

 B-Real / DCS - I ain't got much stuff on the Harthouse label, but if you wanna
 send me some vinyl, I'll be most grateful.

 Red Devil / DCS - You left at JUST the right time.

 Majic Mushroom - Nice too meet you again mate, did you enjoy my Dj'ing?
{

    Right, that's it folks.  All I have left  to  say is that the UK had better
 get there fingers out of there arses or we will just hold this lame reputation
 forever!.  I am personally doing to do something  about it and I hope you will
 to.  There is STILL talent in the UK, we must bring it together!

 - dReAmFiSh / DCS
}

---------------
The Digital Symposium 1995
The Digital Symposium 1995



A Report by Dark/DCS & Anarchy



    The `Digital Symposium' was held at Warwick University on the 21st October.
 It could be summed up in one word, but  instead I will give a report on why it
 was so bad.

    Prior to the event, I had discussed  with  some other guys about just how a
 scene party could take place in  the  UK  anymore,  as in simple terms, the UK
 scene is dead.

    Anyway, I went along to  the  party  with  Deadlock/ex-Anthrox to see if it
 would live up to the old çgDTL parties I enjoyed going to in the past.

{

    After spending a fortune on train fares,  we approached the hall. The first
 thing that struck me was the size of the building, which was tiny to say the
 least, but then when you saw the amount of people present you could understand
 why.

    The price  of  the  entrance  was  TEN  pounds,  which  was  way  too steep
 considering none of it had gone into  any  `features' at all. Instead of a big
 screen, all you got was  a  slightly-larger-than-normal  TV. There was a place
 selling food, but not alcohol. The position  of  the building meant that to go
 anywhere else for food, drink and so on would mean an extremely long walk.

    The releases were generally poor, with  the exception of Axis's intros. The
 graphics competition was a complete  shambles,  with rendered pictures in with
 the hand-drawn entries. The demo  competition  isn't even worth mentioning. At
 these `events' people had to crouch underneath the  TV set for others to get a
 glimpse of the work!

 The atmosphere of the whole event was dull. The hall was generally filled with
 nobodies and lamers playing games.

{
    The people who had been to parties  3-4 years ago mostly sat around looking
 extremely bored. This was true for  me  and  Deadlock who left mid-way through
 the competitions due to the crapness of it.

    In fact, I was, and still am on  the verge of quitting the scene simply due
 to this abysmal event.

    The whole point of a party is to have  fun,  so why did I feel like (as one
 guy said to me) `I was  at  a  sewing  convention'.  I'll tell you why: the UK
 scene is dead. The only guys left  who  have  a chance are those involved with
 European groups. Me and some others who  have  been on the scene for over four
 years could only recognise a handful  of  people  there. There were only a few
 there who had been part of the scene 2 years ago, let alone longer.

    People who attended events such  as  the  Destiny Communion and the Digital
 Party in 93 thought that was bad,  but  thinking back, they were actually fun.
 The Amiga was thriving then, there were  still  BIG names in the UK, you could
 walk around the party place seeing groups  of a HIGH standard working on great
 new productions. Nowadays, the UK scene  isn't  getting any new talent, people
 are going back to the early 80's in terms of coding, design and so on.

{

    Anyone who has ever attended a European party will tell you the difference,
 it is an entirely different experience which has  to be seen. The GASP party I
 attended a few months ago in France was considered a flop by some: compared to
 this event it was absolutely incredible.

    So, to sum it all up then, it  was  shit.  I came away from it in amazement
 that a once prosperous scene could degenerate  so badly into what I saw there.
 I was truly disheartened by the  whole  event.  A  few  years ago, we were all
 clamouring for more  demo  parties  in  the  UK.  Now  there  has  been one, I
 seriously don't believe that it's worth it anymore.


}
------------------
Digital Symposium report
Digital Symposium report



by Wade Of Eltech



    Well as a lot  of  you  well  know  I  attended  the Digital Symposium this
 weekend which may I add is the  first  Party  in  the UK for about 2 years and
 also the 1st party I've ever been to.

    I arrived at the  Party  about  10.00am  with  Bliss/NVX and Screech/Eltech
 after wondering round  the  University  grounds  for  sometime.  We eventually
 found the party place by following some  indy guy carrying his computer stuff.
 When we entered the Refectory, Mic Flair/Eltech shouted over to us and once we
 were in Bliss went off to find the  rest  of Nerve Axis and myself and Screech
 went over to the Eltech corner.


{

    On the table next to use were  a  few guys in LSD playing Playstation games
 and playing music VERY loud. I was shown what  we had so far in both our intro
 and demo contributions and both looked very nice.

    Considering this is UK I didn't really  expect anything  quite this good so
 I was feeling pleased. I then left our  Coders to do their  stuff and went off
 to socialise. I met up  with  all  my  contacts  and friends  which was pretty
 strange finally putting a face to the voices.

    Later on Fairlight arrived and set up  a  table. A couple of us were pretty
 surprised to see them there. The  main  groups  that I could see attending the
 party were Eltech, Nerve  Axis,  GHD,  Maniacs,  Carnage, Vallhalla (PC), DCS,
 The Vegas Gunmen, LSD and Fairlight.

    Also 3 members of Neo turned up   disappointed cos their Coder had quit the
 scene a few days before.

    Spangly and Devistator/Neo wondered round trying to find a machine to  work
 on, but couldn't get anything done in the end.

{

    Hollywood/Axis then turned up and I  think everyone was expecting an ELiTE,
 Arrogant guy,  but to everyone's surprise he was as friendly  as everyone else
 and  was  keen   to   spread a new Axis chip pak and the Axis and  Smellon 64k 
 contributions.  He  also seemed to be impressed with our  64k intro  and asked 
 us to show him a couple of times.

    At about 4.00pm the music competition  started.  Everyone piled down to the
 front where the speakers were. A few  people remained in their seats desperate
 to finish  their  work.  The  first  module  to  be  played  was  Suburbia  by
 Screech/Eltech. It sounded brilliant pounding  through  a  real system and the
 bass shook the room. It seemed to get a good applause.

    The other modules continued to be played.  After about the 4th one everyone
 started to lose interest and went and sat down. The LSD guys continued to play
 their CD`s  really loud so it was hard to listen to the modules.

    After about the 6th-7th mod  people  had  stopped  paying interest and were
 playing games, coding etc.. Tho the  modules  played  were very good it was so
 disappointing that they weren't heard properly.

{
 
    Its only now hearing the modules at home  I can see who should have won. It
 was a real shame for Reflex/Ghd who  was  the  only person to have sang in his
 module, I think if people could've  heard  it  properly he would have had many
 more votes cos of its originality.

    After the 22nd module the competition  was  over and many people just wrote
 any number down having lost track.  Then  after  that  it was time for the gfx
 competition. It was a real shame cos the  screen  was just a tv, cos the party
 was on a low budget there was no big screen or projector.

    I barely got to see the gfx, but  I`d saw Dark pixelling his picture before
 the competition and it looked the best so  I gave him my vote. I didn't expect
 to even have my picture acknowledged cos  of the few people crowding round the
 tv. Not many people seemed bothered about  the  gfx comp and the pictures were
 only left on screen for 2 seconds or so.

    I think the main event was  the  Amiga Intro competition. Everyone gathered
 round and Silk/Digital Ordered the music at the back to be turned off. The LSD
 guys turned off the music, but still continued to play games.

{

    Fairlight also played games through out the  day non stop. I can`t remember
 the  first intro to be  played,  but  it  was  obvious  the Axis one would win
 having upto date gourauds and  texture  mapping,  but  our  intro seemed to be
 quite popular too.

    The Grasshopper Developments intro was a classic with some excellent design
 and the man riding the rhino made everyone laugh. The intro
 competition on a whole was quite nice considering the UK scene.

    There were understandably no PC  intros  so  we  swiftly  moved onto the PC
 demos. Everyone was waiting ages for it  to  start and you could here comments
 like "It's being installed" and "It's Precalculating" from the Amiga owners.

    When the demo finally started I  think  everyone was impressed by the music
 and gfx but the demo consisted of  routines  shown in the Amiga Axis 64k intro
 so no one  was  very  impressed  and  many  people  were  laughing, booing and
 shouting, but all in a friendly kinda way.

    Unfortunately our Coder hadn't finished the  demo  in time for the comp due
 to one or two bugs or something with the main routine.
{

    Nerve Axis demo wasn't finished either  so  it looked like there were gonna
 be no Amiga demo entries so I  suggested  we enter ONE executable routine into
 the comp and it being the  only  demo  competing  it would win by default. Our
 Coder didn't stick around and left. By  this  time quite a few people had left 
 cos it was getting late.

    Anyway everyone crowded round for the Demo comp and to my horror there were
 2 other demos to be shown. The 1st  one  was  a jungle music disk by The Vegas
 Gunmen. It was turned off after a while  and  the next demo was loaded. It was
 one by Maniacs and the glenz vector  went  on  for so long the demo was turned
 off, then it was loaded again after some  protest  and we got to see the whole
 demo which consisted of about  3  routines  stretched  over  15  mins or so so
 everyone got quite bored. 

    Then it was time for our MEGADEMO.  It  was  loaded and people looked on as
 the effect pulsated..It continued  to  do  so  a  couple  of times then people
 realise this was it! Silk  pressed  the  mouse  button  and it paused everyone
 cheered cos it was the most exciting  thing  in  the demo comp! hehe. The demo
 competition was classed as void and the money went into the other prizes.

{

    The results were read out and Eltech came  2nd in the intro comp to Tbl and
 Axis co op intro and I  came  2nd  in  the  gfx  comp next to Fish/Lsd. It was
 unclear who won the  music  comp,  but  Baby/Mad  Elks and Hollywood/Axis came
 joint 3rd. When we left Fairlight and LSD were STILL playing PSX games.

 Overall it was an enjoyable day,  but  the  competitions  were  a bit of a let
 down, but considering this was  the  1st  uk  party  for  2 years I don't hold
 Digital responsible. Maybe Digital Symposium 96 will be better!.

 [I Wouldn't count on that!!-Editor]

}
---------------
Digital Symposium gfx review
Digital Symposium gfx review



by Wade/Eltech




    Well my overall opinions of UK gfx in general is very low. It seems many of
 the UK`s new gfx artists are far from great.

    Some of the older names such as Dark, Red Devil and Elwood can still pack a
 punch with professional pics and logos,  but  new  graphical talent is hard to
 find in the U.K.

    As I expected the DS gfx comp was  very  poor and there were very few pics,
 especially when compared to the 21  (22?)  modules entered. The results are as
 follows:

{


                 1st: Fish/LSD
                 2nd: Wade/Eltech (ME!)
                 3rd: Babbage/Nvx
                 4th: Dark/DCS
                 5th: Cyanide/Maniacs
                 6th: Maffia/NVX
                 7th: Bliss/NVX

    I think that is right anyway?!?

    Right then let`s begin looking  at  each picture individually, remember I`m
 judging each of these pictures  compared  to  each  other and not overall euro
 gfx standard.


 B l i s s / N V X 

    This was a rather unusual picture and  the choice of palette was different.
 Taking into consideration it was Lo-Res and non Aga it didn't look too bad.
{

    I think improvements needed would be over  all  shape of the pic and a more
 gradual dithering style. The chunky style Bliss used didn't work too well with
 his palette. Ordered dithering would have been much more gradual I think. Also
 the picture lacked a sense of depth and looked a bit flat. Still it was one of
 the better pictures in the  competition  and  did  no  way  deserve such a low
 placing.

 6 / 1 0 


 M a f f i a / N V X 

    WHAT!?! There were a fair few  groans  when  this picture was shown, due to
 the fact it was a raytraced picture. To my surprise it was allowed to compete.
 It seemed as though the organisers were allowing Raytraced pictures to compete
 in the comp. With all the  lamers  and  non artistically intelligent people at
 the DS I expected this to win.  For  a  rendered picture it was quite good and
 looked very smooth and perfect. If it was animated it could be quite nice.

 4 / 1 0 
{

 C y a n i d e / M a n i a c s 

    Well my first impressions were  good  and  from  a distance it looked quite
 professional. My only complaint at the time  was  the  size of the pic. It was
 far too small for a party  piece.  Unfortunately  when  I later saw the pic at
 home I wasn't all that impressed,  especially  from Cyanide. Some of Cyanide`s
 logos have been VERY impressive and  I  expected  so  much more from his party
 picture. My complaints are the use  of  high  res interlace, the rather garish
 colours and the use of gradient fills. Ok  there is no rule that says Gradient
 fills aren't  acceptable,  but  it`s  a  short  cut.  Overall  I  wasn't  over
 impressed, but I think the picture should have done better in the competition. 

 6 / 1 0 


 D a r k / D C S 

    Without a doubt the masterpiece  of  the  comp.  This should have won hands
 down. The picture was labelled unfinished,  but looked to me almost acceptable
 as a finished piece.
{

    The choice of colours were  excellently  chosen  and basically separated it
 from the usual fantasy pic you see  a  lot  of. The misty like effect was very
 effective and the overall proportion and shape was  good. I would go as far as
 to say this is the best piece of  gfx  I've  ever seen from the UK. It goes to
 show that Dark isn't  just  a  great  logo  designer,  but  a cool overall gfx
 artist.

 1 0 / 1 0 

 B a b b a g e / N V X 

    When I first saw this pic,  I  thought  it  was quite good. I was impressed
 with the shadows and colours. At  a  distance  it looked pixelled, but I later
 found that it was in fact a raytraced picture.

    My opinions of the picture dropped  so  low.  As a raytraced picture it was
 very simple and the shape of the sheep were very basic and the overall size of
 the pic was ridiculous.  As a  pixelled  picture  I  would have rated it quite
 high, but raytracing for a competition is just a cop out.

{

    I can't believe it reached 3rd place,  but did anyone else make the mistake
 of thinking is was pixelled?

 3 / 1 0 


 W a d e / E l t e c h 

    Well as been as this is my own work I can't really give a fair opinion, but
 I wasn't too  pleased  with  this  one.  It  wasn't  the  picture I originally
 intended to release, but the one  I  was  working  on wasn't finished in time.
 This picture was  basically  just  practice  material  for  me  to  use chunky
 dithering rather than the so popular ordered pattern.

    The fact that I used a mono palette made this so much easier and quicker to
 do. Though I intended  this to  be  16  colour  Lo-Res I needed a more gradual
 palette cos the face was  so big. I ended  up using 32 col grey scale which is
 pretty lame I know,  but   I  needed  it  finished  in  time  for the comp and
 couldn't be bothered scaling  it down in size.  I shall not give my own work a
 mark out of 10, but I think my placing in the comp was near enough deserved.
{

 F i s h / L S D 

    Why did he enter this?? Maybe it`s  because  he knew what people would vote
 for? I was far from impressed with this  having seen Fish's art work. This was
 perhaps the worst of Fish's pictures I've seen.  Maybe as a background or as a
 piece of design this would be cool,  but  as  a  stand alone picture I was not
 impressed.

    The design of the pic is  good  and  colourful without being garish, but it
 was far too simple. There were many rumours  going round that this was not all
 Fish's work and also that Fish  had  entered  this picture into a comp before,
 but I really do not believe these  rumours.  Besides  I saw Fish drawing it at
 the party. In the end Fish  obviously  entered the most successful picture and
 won the comp so congratulations to him.

 5 / 1 0 




{

    So there you have it, only  7  reviews  for  the 7 pics in the competition.
 This is my own personal and honest view of the gfx. If I've upset a few of the
 competitors with my remarks then  sorry,  but constructive criticism is better
 than lies.

    I for one will hope to release  a  much  better  pic at the next party so I
 hope you will too. So keep practising  and  my  next reviews will perhaps be a
 bit more positive than this time!
}