Cornelia Mittendorfer was born in Gmunden 1953, Austria. She lives and works as an artist and  lawyer in Vienna. She lived for many years in Rome, traveling to Eastern and Southeastern  Europe, Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa. From 1983 - 2013 she pursued legal work and  was a lecturer at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna and at the  University of Vienna. Since 1990 she has exhibited her art in Austria and internationally.  Cornelia works across disciplines and media in the fields of photography and visual arts,  language and text, sound art, video and installation, partly in long-term research projects, partly  with performative elements. An essential part of her work is the exploration of the human  condition, either as a training of her own perception or through a political-historical theme.  Scientific tools are used to justify and prepare the artistic concepts. She is particularly  interested in spaces and their role in the imaginary, as well as their socio-political heritage. She  understands her photographs as a questioning of the ambivalence of photographic  representation and as a social process. Running through her work is the principle of the  doubling of analytical and poetic approaches.