"John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 - August 12, 1992) was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher, and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential American composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives.

Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition 4′33″, which is performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who present the work do nothing aside from being present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is not "four minutes and 33 seconds of silence," as is often assumed, but rather the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance. The work's challenge to assumed definitions about musicianship and musical experience made it a popular and controversial topic both in musicology and the broader aesthetics of art and performance. Cage was also a pioneer of the prepared piano (a piano with its sound altered by objects placed between or on its strings or hammers), for which he wrote numerous dance-related works and a few concert pieces. The best known of these is Sonatas and Interludes (1946-48).

His teachers included Henry Cowell (1933) and Arnold Schoenberg (1933-35), both known for their radical innovations in music, but Cage's major influences lay in various East and South Asian cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of aleatoric or chance-controlled music, which he started composing in 1951. The I Ching, an ancient Chinese classic text on changing events, became Cage's standard composition tool for the rest of his life. In a 1957 lecture, Experimental Music, he described music as "a purposeless play" which is "an affirmation of life - not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we're living"."

"Javier Areal Vélez (Buenos Aires, 1985) is a composer, improviser and curator, who performs mostly on electric guitar, with or without objects stuffed between its strings. His musical approach relies heavily on a primal technique that emphasizes timbre and rhythm, avoiding traditional forms in favor of intensity and dynamic contrast. The physicality of his interactions with the guitar create estranged sonic entities that evolve haphazardly outside of specific genres.

After completing studies of Electroacoustic Composition at the National University of Quilmes, Javier pursued a fruitful career in experimental music as a soloist, band leader and through collaborations with artists such as Akira Sakata, Paal Nielsen-Love, Chris Pitsiokos, Audrey Chen, Brian Chase, Shayna Dunkelman, Nicola Hein, Axel Dörner, Ryoko Ono, Richard Scott, Andrew Drury, Jorge Espinal, Jack Wright and Violeta García.

Javier's main group is CALATO (active since 2010), an experimental improvisation and composition quartet consisting of two wildly attacked prepared electric guitars, a drum set, a sampler and an amplified voice that makes all kinds of strange noises but rarely actually sings. CALATO has performed widely in Argentina's most renowned venues and has toured Uruguay (2014), Brazil (2016, and International Experimental Music Festival 2017), Peru (Festival Integraciones, 2018) and Colombia (2019). CALATO has also commissioned and premiered works by renowned Argentinian composers (Federico Barabino, Lucio Capece, Cecilia Castro, Adriana de los Santos, Fernando Manassero, Nicolás Varchausky, Leonello Zambón and Zypce) and from avant-jazz American composer Chris Pitsiokos.

Other commitments have included performing and composing on noise/postpunk trio COSO (2009-2015) and on bizarre experimental pop band El Helicóptero (2013-2018), as well as being a founding member of Buenos Aires' Improvisers Orchestra (2010-2011).

In the last couple of years, Javier has also focused intensely on solo performance, with three different setups: LOUD prepared electric guitar; duo consisting of prepared electric guitar and a laptop running a bad-tempered custom MAX/MSP patch that interacts using samples from other musicians; and an electronic set on Elektron Octatrack.

Over the last decade, Javier has toured extensively across South and North America, Europe and Japan. He has been invited to the French New Music Focus (Strasbourg, 2019), the Arts Delegates Program of the British Council (London, 2018), and has attended residencies at the Experimental Center of Teatro Argentino (La Plata, 2018), Centro de Investigaciones Artísticas (Buenos Aires, 2013) and Art Omi (New York, 2012).

His music can be found on a dozen international labels such as HatHut (Switzerland), Buh Records (Peru), Stereo-Neg & Geweih Ritual Documents (USA), Audition Records (Mexico), El Silencio (Chile), Jardinista! and PSH Ediziones (Arg).

Javier is the founder and director of RUIDO, an ongoing music series which aims to present the foremost experimental artists of diverse styles from all over the world for the first time in Argentina, connecting them with local musicians and audiences through a network of concerts, workshops and masterclasses. RUIDO has produced the first visits of Xiu Xiu, Bill Orcutt, Jeremy Gara, Los Pirañas, Julien Desprez and Mark Fell. In 2020, RUIDO has teamed up with experimental label TVL REC to produce STREAMING FEST, an international online festival of experimental music. The series has hosted home presentations by more than 100 artists from all over the world.

Javier's plans for 2020-2021 include the release of his first solo guitar album (Nefarious Industries, USA), and four releases by CALATO: JOHN CAGE'S VARIATIONS (HatHut, Switzerland); CALATO + VientoX (Vestibular Records, USA), CALATO + 8 COMPOSERS and CALATO x CALATO."

"Peruvian guitarist/improviser, active in the Buenos Aires free improvisation and experimental music scene. He has a deep interest in sound and believes in error as a creative source. He usually works with prepared guitar.

He has had the opportunity to tour across Peru, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, USA and Europe."

"Agustin Genoud (1984 - Argentina, Baradero)

I work as a performer, musician and scholar in the fields of contemporary voice, post-humanism & new media. I build algorithms and systems that expand and transform the vocal sound production. I create expanded voice techniques that disrupt and interfere with the humanly assigned sounds to the vocal tract and try to expand those capacities through machinic and animalistic behaviors.

I've been heard at Sonandes Sound Art International Biennal / Music
Makers Hack Lab - CTM Festival (Berlín) / Pure Data Convention (Weimar) / Centro Nacional
 de la Música / Terén Pole performativního umění (Brno) / Razzmattazz (Barcelona) / Búnker (Torino) / The Wrong International Biennal / Tsonami Sound Art Festival (Chile) / MALBA / Festival Internacional de Música Experimental 2017 (Sao Paulo) / Metabody Symposium / New Materialisms Symposium / Colón Theatre Experimental Centre,
 among many other places.


As a scholar and lecturer my work deals around post-humanism, new materialisms, expanded voice performances & biopolitics, I teach and research at the National University for the Arts (New Media Department) & Tres de Febrero University."

"Pablo Verón is a composer, producer and Argentine drummer born in 1983, his search focuses on the possibilities offered by electronics through sampling and synthesis. His first album, Nieves (2005, Natural Media) was received with great repercussion in the experimental electronic music scene. In his second album, Pororoca, published in 2016 by the Fungi label, Verón explores and samples his own material to deepen textures and a completely new discourse, generating a temporary identity loop. The following work, edited by the TRRUENO label, Live @ Ruido (2018, Trrueno), is a live set made at the Experimental Music Noise Cycle opening the show for Xiu Xiu in October 2017. Since 2012 he's part of Calato, a loud electric quartet of improvised and composed pieces. The last work edited by the Abyss label under the pseudonym: POV, is a compilation of unpublished works in the last 6 years on manipulation of jazz samples, folk percussion and field recordings with a more percussive treatment."