The Centro de Estudios de Arte y Comunicación (CEAC) was created in 1968. Shortly after its first public exhibition, Arte y Cibernética [Arte and Cybernetics] (August–September 1969), it changed its name to the Centro de Arte y Comunicación (CAyC). Led by director and theoretician, Jorge Glusberg, the CAyC sponsored a number of different artists over time. The Grupo de los Trece was founded in 1971 and was comprised of Jacques Bedel, Luis [Fernando] Benedit, Gregorio Dujovny, Carlos Ginzburg, Víctor Grippo, Jorge González Mir, Vicente Marotta, Luis Pazos, Alfredo Portillos, Juan Carlos Romero, Julio Teich, Horacio Zabala, Alberto Pellegrino, and Jorge Glusberg. Later, some of the artists left [the group] and were replaced by new members. By 1975 the Grupo CAyC included Bedel, Benedit, Grippo, Portillos, and Glusberg himself.

As part of the interdisciplinary activities undertaken by the CAyC from its beginnings in 1969 (“Qué es el CEAC”) [“What is the CEAC?”] in the Primera muestra del Centro de Estudios de Arte y Comunicación de la Fundación de Investigación Interdisciplinaria presentada en la Galería Bonino de Buenos Aires [First Exhibition of the Centro de Estudios de Arte y Comunicación at the Fundación de Investigación Interdisciplinaria presented by the Galería Bonino of Buenos Aires], August–September 1969), the CAyC began to organize courses and seminars offered by prominent intellectuals. Beginning in 1973 with the founding of the Escuela de Altos Estudios del CAyC [CAyC Higher Studies School], these types of offerings became part of its activities.

Arte de sistemas was the term Jorge Glusberg coined for the different artistic approaches that were developed by the CayC. Under this concept works are understood as sistemas de signos [systems of symbols] that could respond to different codes: political, ecological, conceptual, and cybernetic, among others. Beyond the diversity of meanings offered by each work, they all uphold the nature of the system at the level of production, the possibility of a serialization or multiplication of these works, and the significance of the creative process, which was above the finished product. 

The exhibition Arte de Sistemas II [Systems Art II] (Buenos Aires, September 1972) was divided into three parts: Arte de Sistemas Internacional [International Systems Art] (Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires, September 1972), Arte de Sistemas Argentina [Argentine Systems of Art] (Centro de Arte y Comunicación), and CAyC al Aire Libre o Arte e Ideología, CAyC al Aire Libre [CAyC in the Open Air or Arte and Ideology, CAyC in the Open Air] (Plaza Roberto Alt). The nations that participated in the international selection were: Germany, Austria, South Africa, Brazil, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Chile, Colombia, Spain, France, Greece, Holland, Hungary, England, Israel, Italy, Japan, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Switzerland, Uruguay, and the United States.