Bjørn Melhus is one of the up-and-coming video artists in the international scene. "I belong to one of the first generations that grew up with the mass medium of television; we have always experienced reality as virtual reality as well," the artist points out. In his films, Melhus reflects upon the medium and its impact on personal identity - the loss of subjectivity in response to the seductive array of models for identification offered by television and other media. He collects found acoustical material, citing figures from pop culture and Hollywood movie dialogues. The artist always plays the roles of his protagonists himself. Melhus has received numerous awards for his work, including the 2001 Sprengel Prize for Visual Art and the 2003 HAP-Grieshaber Prize awarded by the VG Bild-Kunst. He was most recently honored for Auto Center Drive, a work featured in this book, with an award at the 2003 Short Film Festival Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen. The artist: Bjørn Melhus, born in 1966 in Kirchheim/Teck. 1985-1987: Adolf-Lazi-Schule, Stuttgart (Photography/Audiovision); 1988-1996: studies in art at the HBK Braunschweig (Film/Video); 1996/97: post-graduate studies, master student under Birgit Hein; recipient of various grants and awards; appointed guest lecturer at the Bauhaus-Universität in Weimar in 1999; professor at the Kunsthochschule Kassel since 2003. Exhibition schedule: Galerie Bob van Orsouw, Zurich, October 9-November 13, 2004