[3] Milan Knizak is the son of the painter, musician and teacher of mathematics[4] Karel Knížák from Doubravka u Plzně, nowadays part of the city of Plzeň, and Julia Knížáková.

There, his father played violin in a spa orchestra and Milan attended primary school, where he was interested in music and literature.

Some of AKTUAL's songs were remastered by unofficial musical group The Plastic People of the Universe, which members became, somewhat against their will, dissidents during political process in the autumn of the year 1976.

Knížák was a member of Fluxus, an international (anti-)artistic community of music, actions, poetry, objects and events.

He is known for organising and performing the first happenings and noise music concerts in Czechoslovakia: e.g. A Walk around Novy Svět (The part of old Prague called New World) and the Demonstration for Oneself (both 1964).

Knížák was also visited by American beatnik poet Allen Ginsberg and conceptual art artist Joseph Kosuth.

In October 1966, Knížák organised the first Fluxus concert in Czechoslovakia in Prague in which he appeared together with Ben Vautier, Jeff Berner, Alison Knowles, Serge Oldenbourg and Dick Higgins.

In 1979 he received a fellowship from the DAAD to West Berlin, where he meet artist Wolf Vostell and Czech poet in emigration Jiří Kolář.