PixelMagic, also known as Istari, is a Swedish demo group on the PC, Amiga and C64 scene.
Below is our old site, a piece of the past preserved for the future.
31337 crew
mike - tough 3D lovin'
3D/2D graphics (AKA gandalf, olorin)
círdan - odd solutions dept.
code
marc - mad linux m68k skills
code (AKA bytebender)
grip - lowres pixel pusher
2D graphics (AKA pantheon, backslash, avatar)
cid - excellent qbasic tamer
code, music
history
199?
gandalf and círdan starts the group "orion", releasing some bizarre utils written in AmigaBasic.
~1992
pantheon and marty starts the group "chipeaters".
~1993
chipeaters changes name to "hotshots" and releases a utility compilation for A500.
~1995
marty leaves the scene. pantheon changes nick to backslash. hotshots is more or less dead, orion is sleeping. gandalf and backslash meets for the first time.
winter 1996
gandalf changes nick to olorin, backslash changes nick to avatar. through olorin, avatar meets bytebender and círdan. the idea of organizing a demo party is conceived. olorin, círdan, bytebender and avatar forms the organizer group "istari". at the party, istari comes in contact with cid.
summer 1996
istari decides to organize yet another party. cid joins istari. avatar changes nick to grip.
1997
istari arranges a third demo party. the extra name "pixelmagic" is added to the group name: istari-pixelmagic. this is where the name confusion starts. eventually, istari changes name to just "pixelmagic" but even the members of the group sometimes forget that.
1997-2001
pixelmagic IS the skåne amiga scene, being the only regular amiga group at the hype parties. olorin changes nick to mike and bytebender changes nick to marc.
2002
pixelmagic dozes off, what with the members growing up, getting lives and becoming international globetrotters/rock stars.
2003
grip suffers from a sudden attack of motivation and starts going to parties again.
notable productions
hype 1997 - grip feat. wraith and chaotic releases the legendary "rosa pantörrn" XM
hype 1998 - mike and cid #1 in surprise compo with hackertamagochi
hype 1999 - grip guest pixels in outbreak's runner-up demo "muhammad - demo singer"
hype 2003 - grip #3 in hires graphics compo
mainframe 2003 - grip #3 in lowres graphics compo
lcp 2004 - grip #2 in amiga graphics compo
hype 2004 - grip #2 in combined graphics compo
give me the warez then! - you can download them all here
organized parties
polynomial 1 & 2 - arranged by mike & círdan, these two were just small copy parties.
polynomial 3 - (winter 1996) arranged by mike, círdan, grip & marc. Mainly a copy party, but we had so much fun organizing it that we decided to do it again.
polynomial 4 (pictures here) - (summer 1996) arranged by mike, círdan, grip, marc & cid. We did it again! This time we had more visitors, a bigger party hall and some actual compos. Spiced up with events such as hard disk throwing I think we gave the visitors a nice stay.
polynomial 5 - (winter 1997) arranged by mike, círdan, grip, marc & cid. This was actually sort of a fiasco. We aimed to make a cosy invite-only party but the party "hall" was much too small. Everyone survived but we lost our ambition to organize more parties.
visited parties
TGTBT 96 - Small party in northen Skåne. Very nicely organized by Outbreak.
Hype 97 - The first of the Hype parties in Malmö. Organized by Comedy. Captured the mid-nineties scene very nicely: The breakpoint between hand-pixeled and photoshoped graphics, the switch from BBSes to the Internet and how the PC had superseeded the Amiga as the main scene computer.
Hype 98 - We sure had a wonderful time here. Comedy put on a great show and so did we. Mike and cid 0wn3d the tamagochi compo.
The Party 98 - Mike went on his own and enjoyed it a lot.
Hype 99 - A historical party in pixelmagic-world. For the last time the whole pixelmagic crew could be seen together at a scene event. The party itself had a very nice scene-feeling to it.
Hype 2000 - The warez traders are beginning to take over ever so slowly.
Hype 2001 - Somehow grip's DHTML megademo didn't show up in the compo.
Hype 2003 - Sadly, this was probably the last Hype party ever. Hypecrew did a terrific job and so did d4rkn3ss with their chill-out corner. Extremely warm and fuzzy scene feeling!
Mainframe 2003 - d4rkn3ss and the other organizers did one helluva job here! One of the best parties ever attended by any pixelmagic member. Friendly atmosphere, beautifully decorated party hall, excellent workshops, lots of nice events and DJ sets. The visitors did their part, too - the compos were excellent with lots of alternative platforms.
LCP 2004 - A very C64-oriented party. The C64 scene is indeed alive and kicking, most PC/Amiga parties doesn't even come near the amount of high-quality releases at LCP. Awesome!
Hype 2004 - Hype 2003 wasn't the last one! Hype 2004 was a chill edition with lots of beer, cooperative demo coding and a nice friendly atmosphere.