Alternative Party 2007

Digital Rebellion

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Al Lowe performing with David Hasselhoff Big Band

After the previous party - the fourth consecutive one at Gloria - we retreated for a small hiatus, during which looked for new ideas and new people. Some talented people who had previously worked at AssemblyTV joined us helping to create the next Alternative Party for the autumn of 2007. The theme of the event could be stated as "Ctrl-Alt-Del" - it stands for controlling and deleting (destroying) people and environment, and for the alternative for it all.

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Nematomorpha by MFX had somewhat dirty visuals...

Alternative Party 2007, the seventh Alternative Party, was held on 2-4 November 2007, at Cable Factory, Helsinki. We had rented two large halls for the event, one of which served as the party hall and the another as a dark and quiet sleeping area. The event was a huge success from both an organiser's and a visitor's viewpoint. It was one of the largest Finnish demoparties of this decade (if Assembly does not count).

Music and more

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Late night coding with Timo Vuorensola on the stage

This year's special guest was Al Lowe, the creator of Leisure Suit Larry and the programmer of many well-known adventure games and also known as a musician and composer of the theme tune of the Larry games. He travelled to our event with his wife, Margaret Lowe, who also worked for Sierra as a musician. In addition to the traditional special guest session, Al also joined David Hasselhoff Big Band on the stage, playing saxophone! Other artists included Lackluster, DJ Jindi, Takomo and Kokeellisen elektroniikan seura. We also had special emphasis on VJ visuals. Those were done professionally by Kaartinen, Pasula and Pommak.

On the serious side, Jyrki Kasvi and Olli Sirén had sessions about influence and freedom on the Internet. A series of speeches was also linked with the competitions, and we also had a glimpse of Energia's next movie, Iron Sky, in the form of an appearance by Timo Vuorensola. The whole event was supported with a range of partners and sponsors.

While this year's competitions were focused on computer art, the range of different competitions was still broad. "Oldschool karaoke" made people sign to classic game tunes while there was a contest about propaganda graphics. The interesting concept of mockumentary video only gathered two entries. Most of the entries in the demo competition ran on a Windows PC but the winner was Your Song Is Quiet, Pt. 2, a demo running on Sinclair ZX Spectrum, a co-operation between groups Inward, CPU and TPOLM.

Official

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Miscellaneous