Sirens
Sirens was released at Deadline Demoparty 2024. It was built using Godot as a graphics platform, SlimeVR for motion capture, and was a work by Slipstream. I developed the concept, RaccoonViolet provided 3D models and Enfys produced an industrial soundtrack that I reworked into the popmpous melodramatic thing with the horns. The ghostly character had a choreography that I produced, but due to time constraints I could not sequence it into the production in time.
The initial theme was the contention between creative communities and passive consumption of creative works. Moving down a tunnel is a recurring theme in demos, and there is an excellent crew called MFX who produce claustrophobic, intense journey demos that I wanted to pay homage to. The concept is that the eye is an observer who becomes drawn in, caught by the demo in the same way that the Sirens lure sailors in Greek myth. (It's also a play on words with sirens as alarms, in keeping with the industrial theme.) As a director you want your audience to be drawn in, to sit back and forget their other thoughts, to be completely engaged. But as creatives in a small community, we also want people to not do that. We want to encourage folk to think critically and step outside of the experience, go away, and make something new. You can't do that from your eyeball-prison. It's a B-movie concept, but it gelled with me.
I hated this demo. I kept pushing on it because I hate to quit, and because the work was motivated by my frustration with my own limitations. The risk you face when you push yourself hard, is you find out in detail how inadequate your skills are. I postponed the original release "to get it right," but after a year of mainly avoiding working on it, it still wasn't right. Violet and Enfys were great, and always up for collaboration. But I had something personal in this, and I worked hard to get something out that looked graphically weak, rushed, and didn't really carry the concept. It tanked at the party, and took me a while to recover from emotionally. It helped that a few folks I respect deeply took the time to share some positive comments about it.
The lesson I take from this is: if you're working on a passion project, make sure you're passionate about something you actually want to encourage in yourself, and not an expression of your own insecurity. I don't know when I'll produce something new for the demoscene, but I hope to get the balance right when I do.
Watch it here:
Download it here: scene.org