The Alt Story

Rappio by Bandwagon from the first Alternative Party - colourful MSX1 frenzy

The story of Alternative Party began when Kristoffer Lawson (also known as Setok/Aggression, Aggression being a well-known Finnish Atari demo group) visited the Assembly demoparty in 1995. The mainstream-style rules of Assembly did not allow other platforms than PC, Amiga and C64 to take part in the competitions — and his computer was an Atari Falcon. Frustrated of this, an idea about a party where these restrictions would not exist was born.

These ideas became reality around Easter 1998 when the first Alternative Party was organised. You can see detailed stories of our events from their own pages, with links to articles, results and photo galleries.

From the beginning, we tried to re-invent the demoscene. In the event, the easiest way for the revolution was probably trying to bring new ideas to the competitions, even while demoscene is not only about competing. Competitions are a way of showing off one's talent and at smaller parties there is also a bigger chance of an entry being shown than at Assembly, for example. Our challenging competitions have not always brought a large number of competing entries but just as often we have had an abundance of them, like in the 2003 Love Music Competition - where you were asked to bring an element often lacking from computer artworks, love.

We have wanted to create more confrontations between demos/programming and more traditional art - that is, art made not only with computers. We have even organised an Alternative Zone at a performance art festival La-Bas. We have tried to bring scents of the world around us to our events - strange musicians, competitions with peculiar emphasis and challenges that separate you completely from computers.

Art, art, art. But isn't demoscene risen from underground circles, for other purposes than art? It may be art even without ever saying that word - you do not need to emphasize it. It exists and we want to bring it forward, outward and to new dimensions.

Jeff Minter addressing the party crowd at Alternative Party 2003

One aim of Alternative Party is to bring demos and digital culture to the masses and bring masses to demos and digital culture. We also like to see tolerance and equality - and we like to see forerunners and pioneers as part of the community today. We have brought several big names of the computer and game industry to the level of average party-goers, to exchange ideas, tell about their projects and see what kind of talent our visitors possess. RJ Mical, Jeff Minter, Jyrki Kasvi and Al Lowe - all our special guests in the past, with many stories to share.