the handydandy

The Handydandy is a musical ensemble composed of five Austrian media artists: Bernhard Bauch, Luc Gross, Nicolaj Kirisits, Gordan Savičić, and Florian Waldner. Instead of conventional musical instruments, they create music using their mobile phones, which serve solely as interfaces. These devices are connected via Bluetooth to a computer network, forming a virtual counterpart to the traditional “human network” of a band.

Their setup enables the development of various feedback systems on both social and digital levels, which are integral to their compositions. By utilizing this configuration, The Handydandy explores not only movement in space as a temporal acousmatic category but also bridges the powerful aesthetics of a rock performance with the intellectual demands of electronic music. They exist simultaneously as a rock ’n’ roll band and a computer network music group.

The name Handydandy combines “Handy,” the German term for a mobile phone, with “Dandy.” Reflecting on the concept of the dandy, poet Charles Baudelaire wrote that an aspiring dandy must have “no profession other than elegance… no other status but that of cultivating the idea of beauty in their own persons… he must live and sleep before a mirror.” This philosophy mirrors the band’s commitment to the cultivation of beauty through technology and performance.

In 2012, The Handydandy released the first volume of Die Schwärzung , a 600-page hardcover book comprising classified documents—specifically, all their emails from their mailing list over five years. These communications were manually redacted before publication, transforming private dialogues into a tangible artifact. This project extends their exploration of technology, privacy, and social interaction. It has been edited by Fritz Rakuschan.

Credits

The handydandy were supported by die angewandte for their Paris/NIME tour and by netznetz for production costs of the HD-buch.