The János von Neumann Salons are an interdisciplinary point of exchange between media research and culture, an intersection between theory and practice.

The Salons are named after one of the 20th century's most brilliant and controversial figures, the Hungarian-American mathematician and computer pioneer John von Neumann.
 

A cooperation project between transmediale, the Berlin-based artistic research association Formatlabor and the Collegium Hungaricum, the János von Neumann Salons will take place as a monthly forum each first Wednesday of the month, beginning in October 2009. While exploring new forms of discourse, each series of three individual Salons will create a unique cluster with its own aesthetic and thematic focus.
 

The series will be initiated by a question regarding the future of contemporary society's media. Through the current rapid and universal convergence of media systems - the complete folding in of online network computing with traditional broadcast media - untested landscapes of communication models that demand new forms of exploration and critique open up. Above all, these require the consideration of new models of knowledge fused with new forms of public discourse with which the various emergent manifestations of media can be interacted with and responded to.