Javier Bustos + Testu Collective
Artists from Buenos Aires and New York meet for an afternoon of experimental sound and visual performance, transforming air, light, and magnetic fields into live compositional material.
Program
BREATH – Javier Bustos
BREATH is a performance that uses an experimental Bandoneón built specifically for this work. Breath recovers the performative gesture of the original bandoneon instrument to develop a completely different sound and musical discourse. The bandoneon becomes a midi sampler controller that uses the flow of air to trigger and modify the sound and light of the scene from the movement of the body and the breath.
FLUX – Testu Collective
FLUX explores magnetic fields as both sonic and visual material. Variations in magnetic flux become tones, pulses, and interference, while magnetic powder reveals otherwise invisible forces through shifting ridges and formations. Testu Collective brings these elements into a live audiovisual composition that moves between physical experiment, sculptural image, and electronic sound.
PERFORMERS
Javier Bustos is an artist, composer, performer and professor from Buenos Aires, Argentina. His work explores poetics of listening and sound production through the use of new media and low tech technologies, operating between experimental music, installation and the scenic-multimedial art
Testu Collective is an NYC-based intermedia art group founded by Serena Stucke and Dan Tesene. Their practice spans sound installation, video art, and live performance-building immersive audiovisual environments through close observation of natural phenomena. Testu combines synthetic and organic sounds through field recordings, modular synthesis, hand-made instruments, sound objects, and spatial audio software-building tactile hyperreal soundworlds. The collective has presented work at Gray Area (SF), 2220 Arts and Archives (LA), Artists Space (NYC), Public Visuals (Tokyo), CTM Festival (online), Ars Electronica (NYC), Ace Hotel (NYC), The Shed (NYC), and Pleamar Festival (Buenos Aires). Most recently, Testu created a multi-channel sound installation for Dan Flavin’s light sculptures at Mana Contemporary. Testu Collective was a 2025 NYSCA grantee.