Chaos Constructions is the oldest

demoparty The demoscene is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off programming, visual ...

in Russia, previously known as ''ENLiGHT''. Nowadays, it is considered to be annual

computer art Computer art is any art in which computers play a role in production or display of the artwork. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, video game, website, algorithm, performance or gallery installation. Many tr ...

festival and IT conference.

History

The

demoscene The demoscene is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off programming, visua ...

(russian: русскоязычная демосцена) began to form in

CIS countries The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a regional intergovernmental organization in Eurasia. It was formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It covers an area of and has an estimated population of 239,796,010. ...

in the early 1990s, when people massively began to possess home computers such as

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as the ''ZX81 Colou ...

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore International, Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and sign ...

and Atari and make

tracker music Tracker may refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional characters * Tracker (''G.I. Joe''), in the ''G.I. Joe'' universe * Tracker (''PAW Patrol''), in the animated television series ''PAW Patrol'' * Tracker Cameron, in the television series '' ...

, demos and other artwork on them. They were exchanging it using

floppy disks A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...

, FIDOnet and later the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

, so that these artists joined the worldwide demoscene culture. By the year 1995, the first Russian

occurred, located in St. Petersburg—the second-largest Russian city, situated close to

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bo ...

, the country with one of the strongest demoscene cultures. The demoparty was entitled ENLiGHT; it gathered around 150 people. It was followed by ENLiGHT'96 and ENLiGHT'97; the latter gathered more than 1200 people. The year 1998 was skipped, and the 1999 festival was held in a new format and under the new name ''Chaos Constructions''. In 2006 the event's format was shifted closer to a

LAN party A LAN party is a gathering of people with personal computers or compatible game consoles, where a local area network (LAN) connection is established between the devices using a router or switch, primarily for the purpose of playing multiplaye ...

. 2009 event featured software crash test competition supported by IT companies. The 2017 festival featured an extra event called ''ChaosConf'' which was aimed at developers and admins of enterprise IT systems.

Present day

Traditionally it is held on a weekend at the end of August at

Saint Petersburg, Russia Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. Creative competitions for computer artists and musicians, as well as programmers, are the important part of the event. The competitions (''" compos"'') are both for pre-released and real-time works. Many of the compos and exhibits are related to

retro computing Retrocomputing is the use of older computer hardware and software in modern times. Retrocomputing is usually classed as a hobby and recreation rather than a practical application of technology; enthusiasts often collect rare and valuable har ...

(

ASCII art ASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable (from a total of 128) character (computing), characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 an ...

pixel art Pixel art () is a form of digital art drawn with graphical software where images are built using pixels as the only building block. It is widely associated with the low-resolution graphics from 8-bit and 16-bit era computers and arcade video g ...

, chiptune etc), but recent festivals also tend to include conferences and meetings for people from the modern

IT industry Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system ( ...

who concentrate on technologies such as

augmented Augment or augmentation may refer to: Language * Augment (Indo-European), a syllable added to the beginning of the word in certain Indo-European languages *Augment (Bantu languages), a morpheme that is prefixed to the noun class prefix of nouns ...

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...

blockchain A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, ...

robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist human ...

and more. The 2018 festival was held at a co-working location called ''Boiling Point'' and also featured "enterprise" and "telecom" sections. There were several thematic areas; the party went for 2 days without breaking at night.

Twitch Twitch may refer to: Biology * Muscle contraction ** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation ** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction ** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle co ...

broadcast it online, and international English-speaking people also participated. The festival's crew also had arranged an "embassy" at a similar earlier gathering called

Geek Picnic Geek Picnic is the largest European open air festival dedicated to popular science, modern technology, science and art. The first festival was held in St. Petersburg in 2011. Since 2014, Geek Picnic has been held in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In ...

. The 2019 festival was held on 24–25 August at . The 2019 event was opened by

Richard Stallman Richard Matthew Stallman (; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to u ...

. A major government-related leak of many people's personal data was disclosed at the 2019 event. In February 2020 a smaller "winter version" was organized, some of the contests were preparatory for the forthcoming "main summer version". in 2021 a Winter and Summer Edition was held and in 2022 the event is planned to be held too

Gallery

File:Chaos Constructions 2.jpg, Chaos Constructions 2018: retro-

cybersport Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although or ...

contests File:Chaos Constructions 1.jpg, Chaos Constructions 2018:

retrocomputing Retrocomputing is the use of older computer hardware and software in modern times. Retrocomputing is usually classed as a hobby and recreation rather than a practical application of technology; enthusiasts often collect rare and valuable hardw ...

exhibit File:Dmitry Vladimirovich Burkov.png,

ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is an American multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespac ...

officer

Dmitry Burkov Dmitry Burkov ( Russian: Дмитрий Бурков; born 12 April 1960) is one of the Internet industry pioneers in Russia, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for Assistance for Internet Technologies and Infrastructure Development, one of ...

talks at Chaos Constructions 2018 File:Richard Stallman opens Chaos Constructions 2019.jpg,

opens Chaos Constructions 2019 File:Chaos Constructions 2019 locksmiths.jpg, Chaos Constructions 2019: lock-breaking contest File:Chaos Constructions 2019 main scene.jpg, 2019 main scene:

demos Demos may refer to: Computing * DEMOS, a Soviet Unix-like operating system * DEMOS (ISP), the first internet service provider in the USSR * Demos Commander, an Orthodox File Manager for Unix-like systems * plural for Demo (computer programming ...

ANSI art The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organi ...

and more File:Chaos Constructions 2019 hackers talk.jpg, 2019 panel discussion "History of ''Russian Hackers'' at the

Post-Soviet states The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...

References

External links

Official English website
{{Authority control Demo parties Annual events in Russia

History

Present day

Gallery

See also

References

External links