Sanity (demogroup)

Sanity was an all-German demo group, formed in March 1990 by Panther and Hawk. The group quickly took in Vindicator and Cruiser as well. Their first production (presumably) was the musicdisk Best Game Music Monthly #1, which announced the birth of the group.

Sanity invented the "rotozoomer" demo effect, a well known demoscene effect.

History

After forming Sanity in 1990, German musician Jester joined the group in November, after a short stay with Red Sector Inc. The demo "Dee Groove" by Panther was released at the Dexion Convention in December. The following year the group released Jester's musicdisk "Fool's Gold", followed by the group's breakthrough demo, "Elysium" which came 3rd in the Amiga Convention Summit demo competition. The Fog joined Bit Arts in the middle of the year.

Sanity competed with the demo World of Commodore to the party with the same name in 1992. This is the first demo to feature the "rotozoomer" effect, a classic demo effect that gained popularity in the 90s up to the modern day.[1]

When the group eventually died, its members were scattered. The biggest group of members (Chaos, Diddle, Zaphod, 16 Beat, Jester, Cthulu, Hawk, Cruiser, Vindicator, and Panther) left to form a new section of Rebels. They released the demo "Sanity Is Dead" under the Rebels label to announce this. Their stay in Rebels would be a short one, however, and soon most of these guys had formed the NEW Sanity, which also included several ex-members of the original Sanity, like musician Bit Arts (ex-Red Sector Inc.) and coders Flosoft and Mr. Pet. Sanity was later rebuilt in 1992 by several of the original members, most of whom were in Rebels in the meantime.

The French members, musician Moby (Frédéric Motte) and graphician Ra (Olivier Bechard, both ex-Dreamdealers) ventured into professional careers. Moby secured a job at Mindscape in France in 1993. He is now a freelance game music composer. Around the same period, Ra opened a comic shop in his home town in France, he is now a freelance graphic artist. They both remained active on the PC scene for a while, in the group NoooN. Jester contributed music to the Anarchy demoFlower Power, which was the winner of the Digital Symposium 1992 demo competition.

In January 1993, Danish swapper The Pride and Dutch swapper Kr'33 both joined Lemon. The next year Sanity members Tron (ex-Anarchy member) left the group in early December to be independent. He later reconsidered his independence, and joined Artwork in early 1995. The end of December came and Chaos (Dierk Ohlerich) released Roots for The Party demo competition, but finished a disappointing 8th position.

In December 1993, Sanity released also Arte, one of the most well-known Amiga demos, with graphics by Ra, code by Mr.Pet and Chaos and a funky soundtrack by Moby, placing 3rd in the democompo.[2]

Jester surprisingly left for the primarily Finnish group Pygmy Projects in 1995, whom he had contributed the tune Cyberride for their Assembly 93-winning demo Extension. After releasing their final demo in 1995, the group fell apart. Many of the best members left for other groups, and the few remaining ones grew inactive. It is uncertain whether the group technically died in 1995 or 1996. The next year an interesting production surfaced in the pc demo competition at The Party, where Free Electronic Band (FEB) won with their demo Alto Knallo. The demo was coded by former Sanity members Chaos and Mr. Pet (Peter Cukierski).

German graphician Cougar first joined Artwork as a doublemember, but when Sanity died he became a full-time member. He was responsible for many of the greatest graphics in Sanity demos, and won the graphics competition at The Party 93 with his fabulous Dragonsun picture. German coder Zap left to join Masque. German musician Virgill joined TRSI. German coder and musician Microforce (Joerg Simon, ex Coma) left the scene. German supercoder McDeal (Karsten Weiss, ex-D-Tect) only participated in one demo for Sanity ("Arte") before deciding to leave the scene altogether in late 1994. German megaswapper Exumer also left that same year. Editors Disney and TFG both joined to work on Sanity's planned diskmag, but when those plans fell through they were both unceremoniously kicked (UPS10). The French section 'is now Ozone', according to EuroChart 15. German musician Bit Arts (ex Sanity old) joined Complex . Alex, sysop of 'BASE LINE' joined Zenith . German coder Flosoft (Florian Stuemann) left the scene together with graphician Cthulhu (RAW4). Cthulu later returned, a.o. contributing pictures to the two "Roots" demos. German coder Cosmos joined TRSI. German swapper and one of the founders, Zaphod, left the scene. German swapper and one of the founders, Diddle (Marc Vasters) left the scene. In 2000, Chaos joined forces with other demosceners to create another well-known demogroup, farbrausch. As of April 2008, Mr Pet is part of Eïnklang.net under the name "Pet".

Members

List of group members with their role in parentheses.

Awards

References

  1. ↑ "Discussion on Pouet's forums about the demo".
  2. ↑ "Citation from the book 'Freax'".
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