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Tomas Laurenzo

Tomas (Tom) Laurenzo Coronel (Montevideo, 1977) is an Uruguayan artist, engineer, academic, musician, writer, and designer. With a wide range of artistic practices and research interests, Laurenzo's production often necessitate to reflect particularly on new technologies, art, and the politicsofmeaning.^[1]

Laurenzo received a BSc degree in computer science (CS) from University of the Republic (UdelaR) followed by MSc and PhD degrees in CS from PEDECIBA, a joint program by UdelaR and Uruguay's Ministry of Education and Culture. His doctoral advisor was Alvaro Cassinelli^[2] from University of Tokyo.^[1]

After completing his first graduate program, Laurenzo's focus shifted from industry to art and academia. He subsequently held the position of associate professor at University of the Republic, where he founded and directed Uruguay's first research group on new media and HCI,^[3] followed by UdelaR's Core Group on HCI research.^[4][5][6]

In 2014, Laurenzo relocated to Hong Kong and assumed the role of assistant professor at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, which was under the leadership of the renowned Australian new media artist Jeffrey Shaw. Since 2021 and as of 2023, Laurenzo holds the position of Associate Professor of Critical Media Practices within the College of Media, Communication, and Information at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Laurenzo has also held shorter academic positions at prestigious institutions, such as visiting scientist at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT,^[7] research fellow at Microsoft Research, visiting scholar at Carnegie Mellon University, guest lecturer at Brunel University London, and visiting artist at University of Iowa.^[8]

During his tenure in the private sector, Laurenzo led the design and development of Uruguay's first governmental internet portal and Uruguay's first publicly accessible governmental database.^[9] Laurenzo has also made significant contributions to Uruguay's academic, artistic, and research landscapes.^[10][11]

Laurenzo's pioneering efforts in Uruguay include authoring the first MSc. and PhD theses in the fields of new media art, HCI, and politics, establishing the first research group dedicated to these areas, founding the first interdisciplinary research group on HCI, teaching the first undergraduate courses on real-time computer graphics, physical computing, video games, new media art, and creative coding, teaching the first graduate course on new media art, advising the first two MSc theses (since Laurenzo's own), and exhibiting both the first small and large-scale interactive artworks. Some of these projects led to Laurenzo receiving some of the first-ever international awards for new media art in Uruguay.^[12][13][14]

Laurenzo's projects include Awkward Consequence (with Christian Clark and Tobias Klein), the world's first-ever massive VR performance, NEXO (with Gustavo Armagno et al.), which leveraged real-time computer vision improving OLPC's XOs usability for motor-impaired children, and The Vision Machine, an audiovisual performance using real-time VR-mediated wetware on stage.

Laurenzo's strong interest in social, political and geopolitical topics are often noticeable in his art-making. Notable examples include the artworks 5500,^[15] Nibia, Be water, Homs,^[16][17] and Smile, which explore the topics of illegal immigration, the death by tortureofNibia Sabalsagaray, the Siege of Homs, the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests, and the destruction of the Gaza Strip, respectively.

Laurenzo has performed or exhibited at SIGGRAPH, SIGGRAPH Asia, NIME, ISEA,^[18] NeurIPS,^[19] ECCV, Sónar+D, MUTEK,^[20] TEI, C3A, NYIT, ECCV, Osage Gallery, ANTEL, EAC, UdelaR, MSR, Presidency of Uruguay, Saatchi & Saatchi, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Goethe Institut, International Computer Music Conference, K11 Art Foundation, MNAV, Montevideo Exhibition Center, City Theatre,^[21] Chapelle des Bernardines, and the Solís Theatre, among others.