One of the first German video activists, Gerd Conradt counts among the most innovative. From the start, his interest lay in exploring alternative usages of electronic visual technologies, an approach reflected by out­put that never failed to challenge protagonists and viewers alike. In "Putte muß bleiben" (1974), for instance, Conradt pointed in several new directions. This early video documentary about the conflict surrounding one of the first squatted houses in Berlin was made together with students of the city's Freie Universität - an initial attempt by Conradt to widen access to the new medium. A number of co-directed projects followed. Conradt realized simi­lar intentions in the programmatically titled "Der Videopionier" (1983), which showed pictures of the local resistance in 1973 to the wholesale redevelopment of a Berlin quarter. With this lively, ten-years-on composition that comments upon, relativizes and redefines the original context of the images, Conradt demonstrated the formal and technical possibilities of the medium using themes of everyday relevance. Conradt's tapes are important statements about media policy. Never somebody who shied away from working for the public TV networks, he used their wide-area potential for specta­ cular, subtle, witty experiments. By introducing personal, intimate subject matter - like diaries - into the evening TV program, or inventing the personal TV postcard, he turned the screen into a trusted confidant. Conradt's works show him to be a sympathetic, generous observer whose own presence is nonetheless important: he rejects the usual voyeuristic TV "stare" and always succeeds in portraying, analyzing and reinforcing some common ground with his subjects. Like pictures in an exhibit, 7 vi­ deo tapes are presented on 7 monitors in an exhibition space, at the same time and without interruption. Der Videopionier; dazu Videotrickarbeite; Der Mann mit der Kamera; Fernsehgrüße von West nach Ost; BlaubeerWald; die von dem japanischen Regisseur; Kenizl Oguri geschnittene Fassung: BlaubeerWald; Videozeit: Heavy User; Ich schreibe Tagebuch; Annette Roch