Artist and Musician Sami Mandee moved to Vienna from Virginia in 2009. For 10 years he booked shows under the name LIFETIME in which the DIY ethos of his hometown informed the strategies he set for engaging a local audience to new sounds. With acts such as Lorenzo Senni, Kelela, Total Freedom, Mykki Blanco, Sissy Spacek, Sami contributed to a widening of the sonic landscape in the city. Under his THUNDERDRONE alias, he performed abrasive r’n’b basslines at Donaufestival and supported Cold Cave at Arena. Graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 2022, Sami Mandee’s multifaceted art delves into the interplay of image, sculpture, video, and sound, investigating the dynamics of language and meaning through a blend of poetry and humor, underpinned by historical narrative research. Sami Mandee is commissioned to create the soundtrack for an audio-visual work by artist Jojo Gronostay that will be shown at the Museum of Modern Art, Vienna in the summer of 2024.