Tomas Laurenzo is a Uruguayan artist, researcher and computer scientist whose work examines the cultural and political consequences of computation.
He is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Media Practices at the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information, University of Colorado Boulder. His research and teaching span artificial intelligence, human–computer interaction, virtual and augmented reality, computer graphics, visualisation, human perception, digital lutherie, aesthetics, art theory and critical approaches to technology.
Laurenzo's artistic practice includes installations, moving image, performance, live cinema, generative systems, interactive works, music, new instruments and critical software. His projects treat artistic, technical and scholarly activity as parts of the same practice, moving between physical and digital media and between the studio, the laboratory and public culture.
His work has been presented internationally at contexts including Ars Electronica, SIGGRAPH Asia, ISEA, NeurIPS, ECCV, Sónar+D, MUTEK, TEI, NIME, CVPR, the Contemporary Art Centre of Andalucía, Osage Gallery, the Goethe-Institut, Teatro Solís and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. He has produced more than sixty peer-reviewed publications, participated in more than eighty exhibitions and delivered more than one hundred invited lectures.
Before joining the University of Colorado Boulder, Laurenzo was Assistant Professor at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. He has also been affiliated with the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Microsoft Research, Carnegie Mellon University, Brunel University, Ericsson, the University of Iowa, Stochastic Labs and INRIA.
At Universidad de la República in Uruguay, he founded and directed the Engineering School's media lab and the university's research group on human–computer interaction. He completed his PhD and MSc in Computer Science through Uruguay's Basic Sciences Development Programme, PEDECIBA. His doctoral adviser was Alvaro Cassinelli and his master's adviser was Sergi Jordà.