With MetaForum III / UNDER CONSTRUCTION / Budapest Content Conference
came the closing of the MetaForum Conference Series in Budapest.

The series, primarily organized by the Media Research Foundation, began
in 1994, with the topic of multimedia. This small, chaotic event
included CD-ROM and the World Wide Web, which was just gaining attention
in the explosive hype of the Internet. There were no commercial Internet
providers in Hungary, and just three Hungarian CD-ROMs. The lack of a
working Internet connection during the event led to a heated debate
between representatives of the Hungarian Telecom and East Edge- a group
of Hungarian students well acquainted with the Internet. This debate led
to MetaForum II/NO BORDERS/Budapest Networking Conference in 1995. These
were international topics, and perhaps even more important in Hungary,
where bad telephone lines and a general lack of expendable wealth
magnify the issues of new communication technologies in the West.
MetaForum III followed with the subject of content, which has become the
crucial element in the New Media discourse.

While the series enjoyed a certain amount of fame in its time, we
preferred to stand back for just a moment to critique the media in
motion rather than become mesmerized by its speed. This moment was that
of the wide spread growth of the Internet internationally- perhaps the
most important event of the 90's and which has already become the
definitive metaphor of a post 2000 global society. We, as organizers,
took this moment to take a living snapshot- to bring up topics that
exist in the present tense, and look at how these technologies effect
culture.

In planning these events we used something like a guerrilla tactic with
much less emphasis on showing the new, choosing instead to take part in
a critical phase of development of the new- posing questions, presenting
conflicting ideologies, and building on existing dialogs in a timely
fashion. Our goal was to spark discourses that were in the making.
MetaForum was more and less than a conference, lacking proper funding,
we focused on the topics at hand rather than the fancy objects that tend
to represent new technology. In remaining a small independent
organization, we are better able to follow the media and act quickly,
thus we were able to achieve a certain level of success without forcing
MetaForum to become an institution.

We have found that New Media calls for a new way of working, one that is
more fluid, open to change and that allows for speedy responses to
ongoing developments. This allows a great deal of freedom in how we
approach New Media, and in the projects that we pursue. Now it is time
to begin production of the MetaForum book and CD-ROM.

[…]