Mira Calix was born Chantal Francesca Passamonte to an Italian family in Durban, South Africa, 1970. Calix was an audiovisual artist and musician, working experimentally with electronic and modern classical music. On 28 March, 2022, it was announced that she had passed away at 51 years old.

In 1991, Calix moved to London, working in record stores and organising parties such as Telepathic Fish in 1992. She worked as a publicist for 4AD, and was a press officer for Warp Records from 1994 to 1997.

Her music career began in 1996, where she was the first female artist to be signed to Warp. Her debut album One On One was released in 2000. The album interrogates conventional musical structures through the language of IDM and ambient electronica, and highlighted her abstract and experimental style. Since then, she has released several albums, collaborative works, commissions, and performance pieces, often using techniques such as sound collage.