
                      ..________
   ..__        _______\         \ ________             _____..
-- \    \_____ \       \         \       _\..___ ____ /      / - 
-- /    /    _/_ \      \         \             \    \      / -- 
- /____/\    \   \_______\         \__..__\      \____\    / --- 
         \____\____ \     \         \_  \_________\/______/
             ..     ..     \_______../               ++ xplsv


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                            n-0505
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               blackpawn, ryiinn, kirill, trace

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                       Blah blah blah...
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         blackpawn on the making of n-0505
         (written after no sleep for many days!!)
         
         it's been many months since xplsv's epic
         collaboration with the northern dragons on
         the textmode demo clockwerck.  after
         brilliant dancing ascii people and gears
         where can a scener's career possibly go
         next??  while trace and sole have been busy
         with java and macs i've been quite busy
         myself with consuming tacos.  then i
         decided a production was in order for the
         nvidia demo party (hey free hardware is
         nice).  trent reznor pleaded for his fans to
         make visuals for his latest tunes which he
         released as creative commons and i had
         effects in the works and so a demo was born!  

         this has been quite a fun collaboration
         with the amazing graphician ryiinn, the
         elite 3d modeller kirill and of course the
         world famous trace.  unlike past productions
         this was made without the help of a fancy
         tool and instead everything is laboriously
         hard coded.  hopefully the result is nice.
         as usual tons of the demo has been created
         at the party place with no sleeping!  i'm
         looking forward to sleeping today after the
         submission deadline and some interesting
         presentations.

         i hope you enjoy our contribution to the
         nvscene demo party.


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         Ryiinn on the creation of n-0505
         (random trivia ftw)
 
         The concepts behind n-0505 were inspired by
         too many long nights of horror movie
         marathons and a desire to set some
         awesomely weird stuff to a kick-ass track.
         Although it went through many (many)
         iterations of "omg wouldn't it be sweet if
         we did....", the final idea of unleashing
         a plague on nvision was the one that stuck.

         We had a hell of a time naming this demo
         because nothing we came up with really
         seemed to fit. I spent weeks poring over
         virology texts and other biology
         dictionaries, and just kept coming up
         empty-handed. Since medical terms weren't
         working out, we flipped our thinking to one
         of my odd fascinations - plagues. Through a
         convoluted research path, I stumbled across
         a Homeric reference to the Nosoi - the Greek
         spirits of pestilence and disease. The
         transliteration of this name is "Nosos". We
         really liked the parallel to Pandora's Box,
         since that's essentially what we imagined
         the scientists in our lab opening. We had a
         winner. To make it sound more like a
         specimen, we l337ed it up and converted it
         into "n-0505". If anyone wonders, yeah, we
         did joke about naming it "80085", but that
         quickly got vetoed by everyone involved ;)

         Random useless bit of trivia for the day: we
         refer to the crazy leech tentacles in scene
         five as the "Wigglesworth" effect. I blame
         Red Bull for that bit of stupidity.


         ---                                      ---


         Ryiinn on the decision to draw on ghosts for
         inspiration (aka - the beauty of creative
         commons).

         Blackpawn and I both believe that all
         information worth knowing is worth sharing
         freely. 

         Taking knowledge and sharing it with another
         person can inspire that individual to
         develop abilities that may directly increase
         the quality of life both for them and for
         those around them. Regardless of one's age,
         gender, location, financial status - to name
         a few factors - nearly everyone finds things
         that inspire them to learn, create, or
         otherwise better themselves. If you publish
         a single text and just one person reads that
         piece and draws inspiration from it, and
         then uses that inspiration to fuel another
         creation or even a career, weren't you
         indirectly responsible for that advancement? 

         It's the commitment to this ideal that
         inspires blackpawn to serve free texts and
         tools from his site, and it's what drives me
         to contribute articles to wikis and other
         open information sites.  

         Anyways. Let's get back to ghosts.

         Blackpawn and I have been fans of Nine Inch
         Nails and the music of Trent Reznor for well
         over a decade. Not only is Trent a brilliant
         artist, but he also shares the same passion
         for using his music to inspire and foster
         creativity in his community. Here's how.

         On October 8, 2007, Trent posted an exciting
         announcement on his blog. As of 2008, NIN
         would enter a new era of interaction with
         fans. As he put it, "I have been under
         recording contracts for 18 years and have
         watched the business radically mutate...it
         gives me great pleasure to be able to
         finally have a direct relationship with the
         audience as I see fit and appropriate.."
         (http://ninblogs.wordpress.com/2007/10/08/
         big-news)
	
         On October 19, 2007, Trent posted a really
         interesting rant about how he's been unable
         to officially aggregate fan remixes for his
         music due record label issues. It's
         interesting. Check it out here:
         (http://ninblogs.wordpress.com/2007/11/19/
         copyright-fun)

         On October 27, 2007, Trent took a bold step
         towards creative freedom and community
         collaboration by opening
         http://remix.nin.com. (As he posts on the
         blog "Sometimes you just have to say..."fuck
         it." The remix site is UP! Have fun.") 
	
         The site encouraged fans to take the raw
         audio of Nine Inch Nails tracks, remix the
         pieces, and re-upload them for the rest of
         the community to evaluate, discuss, and
         further remix into new creations. 

         While NIN still retained the base copyright
         to their tunes, they were granting fans the
         ability to take those professionally-created
         pieces and use them in their own creative
         ways. The only requirements? That no profit
         was to be made from the homebrews and that
         all new creations were to be tossed back
         into the collective remix pool to further
         power the cycle of collaboration.

         Remix inspired a new generation of fans
         (many of whom never had any exposure to
         audio remixing) to check out the forums,
         grab whatever audio program they could, and
         learn a brand-new skill set just to
         participate in the movement. Driven by the
         raw pleasure of creation and fueled by the
         encouragement of NIN and similar-minded
         individuals, people began to develop their
         own subculture around the free spirit of the
         site. Kinda sounds like the demoscene's
         ideals, doesn't it?

         Most likely driven by the success of remix,
         Trent took an even further step in the
         direction of creative freedom with the
         release of the Ghosts tracks
         (http://ghosts.nin.com). For those
         unfamiliar with the project, here are some
         highlights.

         These tracks were released for free on
         nin.com. While you could purchase hard
         copies if you wanted to, the first cd (in
         total, there were four cds, or 36 tracks)
         were made available for download directly
         from the site. 
		
         These tracks were released under the
         Creative Commons Non-Commercial Share-Alike
         (NC-SA) license. This basically grants
         individuals the right to use the pieces in
         any creative, non-commercial way.
         (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
         by-nc-sa/3.0/us)

         On March 12, 2008, Trent posted a video to
         YouTube
         (http://youtube.com/watch?v=lYDUk0ESwt4),
         explaining that the release of the Ghosts
         tracks was an experiment. He challenged
         people to take these tracks, create videos
         and visuals based on them, and then upload
         the new creations directly to an official
         YouTube channel. Trent mentions in his
         video that he'll be watching the entries to
         this impromptu compo to see what people do
         with them, and then figure out the next step
         to take. The experiment may lead to an
         independent Ghosts film festival or another
         creative venue, but nothing concrete has
         been released at this time.

         As of August 25, 2008 there have been over
         1800 entries uploaded to the NIN hosts
         channel, and the channel itself has over
         8000 subscribers. As with remix, an entire
         demoscene-like subculture is starting to
         spring up around the creation of these
         videos. People vote on other's works,
         comment on the pieces, and upload more and
         more entries of their own, all to contribute
         to the cause.


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                          More info?
         ---                                      ---

                            xplsv
              blackpawn: http://blackpawn.com
                 ryiinn: http://pixipawn.com
                 kirill: http://thekirill.com
                  trace: http://trace.xplsv.com

                        nine inch nails
                 ghosts: http://ghosts.nin.com
           

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                       xplsv.com 2008
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