In October 97 the Media Research Foundation published BULLDOZER, a 220
page anthology of contemporary media theory in Hungarian. (ISSN:
1417-6033). Although the material in the book is also available
(readable + downloadable) for free, in the spirit of anti-copyright, on
two sites on the net (http://www.mrf.hu and in the Hungarian Electronic
Library), BULLDOZER became an immediate hit, and was the 3rd among the
bestsellers in October in one of the most prestigious bookstores in
Budapest. The following is an excerpt of the Introduction from
Bulldozer.

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Introduction [excerpt]
by Janos Sugar

The writings of our volume are derived from two sources. The Media
Research Foundation organized an international conference series called
MetaForum in 1994-95-96 (organizers: Geert Lovink, Diana McCarty and
Janos Sugar). The topic of the first conference was interactive
multimedia. In Hungary, the first CD-ROM was produced in 93, domestic
Internet access was limited to the academic networks. MetaForum 94' was
the first public introduction to the World Wide Web in Hungary, the
newly developed multimedia protocol of the Internet. A year later the
speakers of MetaForum II addressed the culture of the aggressively
expanding net, how it transcends and redefines the social, political and
commercial borders. The theme of the third and final MetaForum was
content, the notion indicates that besides access, the most essential
element of net culture is what that access leads to. The key function of
the Information technologies is quality information that attracts and
holds the attention of users equalling hits on a website. Because of
this, the content is the point where commercial aims could be enforced
as well. Since the main characteristic of the net is being beyond
territoriality, popularity isn't necessarily linked to physical access
or to direct possession. In this way the minimal amount of consumers
which are necessary to the profitability of a particular product is
added together from a global public.

The other half of writings of our book came from the Nettime
mailing-list. In the Spring of 1995, following the second meeting of the
Medien Zentral Kommittee (ZK), Geert Lovink and Pit Schultz started the
network list, which became in the enormous oversupply of info
production, a success story. Approximately 500 readers of the English
language Nettime list receive, on a weekly or rather a daily basis from
the other list members, author's essays, texts, and writings inspired by
our mediatized environment. Someone reading, even in a superficial
manner, the essays, interviews, and reports published here, could
participate in the highest level of media theory discourse of the past
three years. On the basis of the growing popularity and impact of
Nettime the volumes of ZKP (ZK Proceedings) compilations from the
selected texts of the list came out–in a rather simple Xerox technique,
with small print runs of 1-200. Those volumes of theorie direkt are now
anxiously guarded collectors items. ZKP4 was published this year on the
occasion of the Nettime Spring Meeting *Beauty and the East* in
Ljubljana, with a run of ten thousand, and was distributed by snail
mail, hand carried parcels, media festivals, and during the hundred days
of Hybrid Workspace at Documenta X in Kassel.

The two sources of our book concur in many ways, the Media Research
Foundation and Nettime are in a close cooperation. The major part of the
participants of MetaForum are themselves listmembers and although the
lectures of the conference series were first published in Hungarian in
Bulldozer, most of them were already published in English in the ZKPs
and some of them in the fall of 96 in the ZKP3 on the occasion of
MetaForum III in Budapest. Until now, NetzKritik, a selection of Nettime
texts, published by the German Edition ID-Archiv Verlag, was the only
actual Nettime book, but even now the editorial processes for the
Nettime Bible are underway.

Therefore, we tried to published from both sources the best, the most
inspiring writings, our selection touches the historical, cultural,
philosophical, and economical aspects of the topic. The
interdisciplinary approach of media theory is uniquely suitable so that
our new and referenceless tools are wound around by comprehension and
the context of intelligent use. The venture of Media Research wants to
be consciously heroic, with the presentation of the freshest yield we
aimed to produce just a momentary synchronicity. Since the interest of
our foundation is not institutional we can afford, with the financial
support of C3, the luxury up to one gesture to forget the painful
financial realities and present without any thriftiness, the maximum
amount of fresh texts. However, we hope that this volume will be
followed by further ones.