Cie. Agar Agar
(Annette Sonnewend / Michael Strasser)Annette Sonnewend
born 1971 in Innsbruck
lives and works in Vienna and Berlin
Michael Strasser
born 1977 in Innsbruck
lives and works in Vienna and Berlin
Since 2004, the artist duo Annette Sonnewend and Michael Strasser have pursued solo and joint projects under the name of Cie. Agar Agar. While initially focusing on video work, in the course of their cooperation they developed an increasing interest in live happenings and the presence of an audience. In their performances, the two artists slip into a variety of roles freely chosen from film, television and other media. The springboard for the project 14th floor performance (2009), for example, is a dialogue between Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard in the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). Within the given spatial context, the duo use installation elements like sound and video to create an obstacle course through which the audience is led. A central aspect of their work is to use the contrasting relationship between what is quoted and what is performed to question the role of language in constructing reality, a process in which the audience becomes their unwitting accomplices.