Curriculum Vitae · Detailed

Mano Leyrado
Media Producer · Creative Technologist · Artist & Curator

Barcelona · Remote
manoleyrado@gmail.com
m4n0.art
linkedin.com/in/mano-leyrado
ES · EN · DE
ES
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Identity & Positioning

Profile

Media producer and creative technologist. More than fifteen years in media design [ web · video · graphics ] alongside fine arts and curatorial practices. He owns the chain from concept and art direction through pipeline, installation and delivery, and works as an artist and curator on the same field. Most recently audiovisual production lead on Tecnologia [in]visible for the studio Gracias Grecia, a public exhibition at Palau Robert commissioned by Mobile World Capital Barcelona and the Generalitat de Catalunya.

Mano Leyrado (Buenos Aires, 1987) first studies in Art Curating and Cultural Management (CIC, Buenos Aires, 2018), then earned his Degree in Fine Arts with honors in Sculpture from Weißensee KHB, Berlin (2020 to 2025) and completed his Master there in 2026. He co-founded the art space CPU at Palacio Barolo, Buenos Aires. In 2026 his video Elenchus was acquired by the Belvedere's Ursula Blickle Video Archiv, Vienna; he was 1st runner-up for the Beyond Future Art Prize 2025.

Three practices, one person

Media design, fine arts and curating operate as a single practice. That means full ownership of a project from concept and critical framing through visual identity, technical production and communication: writing the curatorial text, building the platform, directing the shoot, setting up a generative pipeline, and knowing which of those a given project actually needs.

Generative AI runs through the work in two directions at once. He builds production pipelines with it, ComfyUI depth maps that end in cast wax. He also makes work that examines the sociopolitical implications of technology.
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Commissioned Projects

Discrete deliverables: an exhibition's audiovisual production, a platform, an identity, a book, a live show.

Gracias Grecia · Barcelona

AV Production Lead & Creative Collaborator
Audiovisual production lead and creative collaborator on Tecnologia [in]visible (Palau Robert, public run Jun to Sep 2026), an institutional exhibition commissioned by Mobile World Capital Barcelona and the Generalitat de Catalunya, curated by Genís Roca. Exhibition design and creative direction by the studio Gracias Grecia.
  • Sala 2, "El mundo comienza a pensar": a discovery concept through polarising filters, two generative AI video pipelines, motion graphics and AI-generated video loops.
  • Sala 3, "Ágora Digital": six-channel multiscreen concept with two alternative editing structures, multiscreen edit, synchronisation logic and content architecture.
  • Interview production: shoot planning, lighting design, equipment rider and on-site direction of a documentary interview series on AI ethics and digital rights.
  • Subtitling pipeline: Catalan to Spanish transcription and translation (Whisper + LLM) producing production-ready SRT files.
  • Production management: multi-room budget structured by deliverable unit, interactive HTML data visualisations in CAT/ESP/ENG, equipment riders, delivery schedule.
ComfyUI · Wan/LTX · cloud GPU (RunPod) · After Effects · Premiere · Whisper · HTML/JS
Case study

OFFICE IMPART · Berlin

Artist Assistant, production & digital
Production and digital assistance for Jonas Lund's solo exhibition Performance Review (16.04 to 29.05.2026), in which the gallery operated as an AI-governed production system: an autonomous agent directed the creation, evaluation and circulation of the works in real time, assigned tasks to a distributed workforce of assistants and contractors, and logged all human activity through a live interface. Worked inside that system as one of its assigned operators, producing under machine-issued directives with output measured and exposed publicly.

Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin · Berlin

Web Developer
Developer of escalatorstobigbang.com, the public platform and archive for the KHB graduate exhibition Escalators to: Big Bang, where he also presented his Master's final project.
escalatorstobigbang.com

Ad-HOC, "o cómo vivir juntos" · Seminario 12, Mexico City

Visual System, Editorial & Print Design, Digital
Visual and editorial design for an exhibition at a residency and research space located on the ceremonial centre of Tezcatlipoca. Aesthetic framework, catalogue, invitations and all promotional digital material. Curated by Urtubey; artists included Iván Ávila, Lucas Di Pascuale and César López Negrete.

Art Basel Cities Buenos Aires

Web Developer & Technical Manager
Technical management and development of the institutional digital platform. Built infrastructure for high-traffic use meeting global brand standards, bridging institutional requirements with local execution for performance and accessibility.

El Gran Vidrio · Córdoba

Web Developer, Digital Architect, UX/UI
Digital ecosystem for a contemporary art gallery: architecture for archiving and inventory management, gallery management systems, digital archive, and UI/UX balancing visual design against art-market tooling.

LAURA O — Editorial Book-Object

Editorial Design & Production, w/ Juan I. Scheller
Production of a book-object translating the philosophy of Laura O's design studio into a tactile piece without photography, built on the golden ratio and technical drawings.

Planck Festival · online, Buenos Aires

Visual Identity, Web Development, Communication Strategy, Technical Production
Visual identity and web design for an online festival built to question traditional exhibition formats: streamed live for three days with no archive, inviting reflection on the materiality of virtual territory. Responsible for communication strategy, full identity, web development (UX and visual) and the technical side of the broadcast.

Pictoplasma · Berlin

Art Assistance & Installation
Art assistance and installation for the Berlin platform and festival for character design and contemporary character art.

Live Video & VJ · 2009–2019

Ten years of live video performance at festivals, venues and broadcast events in Argentina and abroad. Real-time operation.

Spinetta y las Bandas Eternas · Estadio Vélez Sársfield, Buenos Aires

Audiovisual Realisation & Live Operation
A year developing the animations for the show, then operating them live. Luis Alberto Spinetta reunited the bands of his forty-year career, Almendra, Pescado Rabioso, Invisible, Jade and Los Socios del Desierto, for almost six hours and 52 songs in front of more than 40,000 people, with Charly García, Gustavo Cerati, Fito Páez, Ricardo Mollo and Juanse as guests. Widely regarded as the most important concert of Spinetta's career and a landmark of Argentine rock.

Disney Channel Latin America · “Ratatón”

Live Visuals
Live visuals for Ratatón, Disney Channel’s year-end and holiday programming block across Latin America: mass marathons of the episodes and films most voted by the audience through the year, running into the midnight countdown on 31 December.
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Founded & Directed

Organisations founded and directed by Mano. He built the structure, the programme and the identity.

CPU — Contemporary Processes Unity · Palacio Barolo, Buenos Aires

Co-founder & Artistic Director
Co-founded and co-directed an independent contemporary art space. Led the communication strategy, visual identity and all graphic production; developed and maintained the website; supervised digital documentation of every exhibition. Ran full exhibition cycles: curation, spatial design, technical production and institutional relations.

SELVA / Pirámide Selva · Buenos Aires

Founder, Project Manager & Creative Director
Directed the creative vision for events and festivals, managing projects from pitch to execution. Developed communication strategies and visual identities for cultural festivals, across film production, exhibitions, music launches and large-scale events (Festival Celebración). Branded content for Cynar.
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Studio & Institutional Roles

Positions held inside someone else's organisation over time.

ctrl QS · Berlin

Video Producer & Creative Technologist
Creative pipeline lead for digital campaigns, from script through motion design to delivery, for clients including Nivea, Ottobock and Royal Canin. Built generative AI into production workflows, from test to delivered client asset. Developed and maintained multilingual web platforms and databases: architecture, CMS, UX.

TWP — The Wax Project · Buenos Aires

Senior Web Developer
Custom WordPress templates and front-end solutions for creative and commercial clients. Technical SEO and performance optimisation for high-traffic sites.

INCAA — Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales · Argentina

Media Producer & Creative Technologist
Led the redesign of the institution's web ecosystem and the platform for the Mar del Plata International Film Festival, Latin America's only A-category festival. Produced graphics and audiovisual content for institutional communication across digital and print.

Maximiliano Aduki · Buenos Aires

Art Direction Assistant
Recurring collaboration with art director Maximiliano Aduki on advertising productions for Fox Life, Fibertel and Personal, among others, through the agencies Turbo Trueno and THCMPNY. Creative development and visual references, location scouting, graphic design, prop design and on-set assistance during shoots.

Early Career

OrganisationRoleDatesLocation
Kato ProduccionesIllustrator, Animator and EditorNov 2013 – Mar 2014Buenos Aires
REMOLINOGraphic DesignerFeb – Dec 2012Buenos Aires
Banda AparteIllustrator and AnimatorMar 2010 – Dec 2011Buenos Aires
Estado Lateral Media LabInternshipJan – Dec 2008Buenos Aires
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Skills

Generative AI & Video

ComfyUI · Stable Diffusion (SDXL) · Wan 2.2 · LTX-2.3 · Runway · Midjourney · Whisper (ASR) · LLM-integrated pipelines · Processing
Cloud GPU (RunPod, A100/H100) · local inference on Apple Silicon (MPS) · pipeline troubleshooting

Design, Motion & AV

Adobe CC (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere, After Effects) · Figma · Resolume Arena · compositing
Multiscreen and multichannel installation · edit and synchronisation · lighting design · equipment riders · on-site direction · unit-based budgeting for large-format AV

Web & Code

JavaScript · PHP · HTML5/CSS3 · WordPress · Contentful · Drupal · front-end · technical SEO · multilingual platforms and UX

3D & Fabrication

Blender (depth map to plane, decimate) · depth-map workflows · 3D printing (OrcaSlicer) · mould making and casting · wax, plaster, silicone, concrete, stone

Direction & Production

Communication strategy and brand identity · art direction for cultural projects · full project lifecycle (concept, production, communication) · client-facing treatments and concept presentations · institutional coordination · exhibition production and logistics · digital strategy and content planning · Jira, Asana

Curatorial

Exhibition design and spatial curation · time-based media · site-specific installation · relational and participatory formats · net-art · curatorial writing and research
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Artistic Practice

Statement

Mano works across sculpture, video installation and digital media. His practice treats materiality as a form of argument: wax figures that consume themselves over the duration of an exhibition, archaeological reliefs cast from obsolete technology, a philosophical dialogue with an AI agent that collapses into absurdity. Each material and medium is chosen to carry the concept, not to illustrate it.

Recurring concerns include the transformation of labour under platform economies, the construction and mediation of nature, and the tension between physical presence and digital abstraction. The work does not propose answers; it stages contemporary conditions seeking to expose their paradoxes.

Selected Works

Vitrina con fragmentos del sarcófago de la internet

Generative image → depth map → silicone mould → stone
Master's final project. The full chain from model output to material: a generated image becomes a depth map, the depth map becomes a mould, the mould becomes a stone piece.
Escalators to: Big Bang, KHB Graduate Exhibition, Berlin, 2026

Production Meeting

Wax and stone dust, site-specific sculpture · unit 67 × 35 × 3.5 cm
Tensions between body, labour and technology in a present defined by hyperconnectivity and accelerated obsolescence. Wax figures cast as candles, women in period dress seated at laptops, lit during the exhibition and left to burn down over its run. The scene rewrites historical labour as digital labour, and the material carries the argument by consuming itself while the audience watches.
Metaxy, Artwings, Berlin, 2025 · Gute Gesellschaft, Wilhelm Studio, Berlin, 2025

Elenchus

Video installation, site-specific
A reflection on the concept of nature and how we construct it, built around a recorded conversation with an artificial agent in which the questions drive the agent to an absurd conclusion. The visuals are a chain of generated keyframes rather than filmed footage: one continuous descent through synthetic landscapes that never resolve into a real place.
Acquired by the Belvedere's Bildarchiv & Ursula Blickle Video Archiv, Vienna, 2026
Gute Gesellschaft, Wilhelm Studio, Berlin, 2025

Ecosystem · series v01–v02

Wax, mica and video on Raspberry Pi; video installation · 75 × 60 × 30 cm
Questions the distance between the organic and its simulacrum, exploring the tension between fascination, consumption and artificiality in our relation with nature, and how nature is reproduced and mediated.
v01: pseudo-co.: spawning alt-reality, Art Spring Pop Up, Berlin, 2025 · v02: Metaxy, Artwings, Berlin, 2025

Technofeudalisms · series

Silicone, bronze, plaster, mixed media, transfer on wood
Scenes of medieval workers whose traditional tools are replaced by laptops.
Women Labor (silicone, 46 × 46 × 2.5 cm) · Farmers (transfer on wood, 18 × 18 × 0.5 cm) · The Scribes (bronze and plaster, 35 × 35 × 2 cm) · Qu'ils mangent de la DATA (mixed media, 50 × 50 × 39 cm): a three-tiered cake representing the feudal organisation of digital platforms, users at the base, content creators in the middle, platform owners at the top, distributed to and eaten by visitors.
KAUGUMMI IM MOTHERBOARD 2.0, Erratum Gallery, Berlin, 2024 · Rundgang KHB, Berlin, 2024

Future Archaeologies [Arqueología del futuro] · Subject series

Plaster reliefs, various sizes; mechanised object 100 × 100 × 150 cm
An exercise in temporal displacement: treating the technological present as if it were an archaeological vestige. Procedures borrowed from archaeology, stratification, relief and inscription, situate floppy disks, circuit boards and NFT hashes within a register of ruin.
Electric Dependence: a car battery feeds a motor that continuously scrolls perforated paper printed with a chain, operating in a closed loop.
Exercises in Learning…, Spoiler Zone, Berlin, 2019

Artmeldung

Relational installation, site-specific · ZK/U Berlin
Developed during the ZK/U residency. Research on the circuit of Argentinian artists living in Berlin, resolved as a three-part installation: forms derived from interviews with more than twenty artists using the graphic design of Anmeldung bureaucracy; a "back office of incoming art" showing works by recently arrived artists; and an autonomous exhibition of televisions archiving works by artists resident over a year.
The Ghost Between The Words, ZK/U, Berlin, 2019

Monitor0717

Relational installation, net-art, site-specific
A personal selection of 150 cultural agents with whom the artist interacted physically between 2007 and 2017. Each was asked for three to five files representing their work, three to five representing their social context, and a physical object. The accumulated material was exhibited as a collective archive and developed into a net-art platform, questioning collective identity and the database as artistic subject.
Work and Processes, Kulturni Centar Beograd, Belgrade, 2018, three months · CPU, Buenos Aires, 2019

Te quiero pero internet [I Love You But Internet]

Net-art installation, site-specific · in collab. w/ Boris.mhl
Visitors can connect and surf freely, having been told in advance that their navigation will be registered, saved and published to a website. Challenges the logic between exhibition space and artwork while questioning reading behaviours on the web.
CPU, Buenos Aires, 2018

Further Works

Awards & Acquisitions

Exhibitions

Academic Exhibitions

Residencies

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Curatorial Work

Approach

Curation as a laboratory: spaces conceived to transcend established notions of aesthetic discourse and institutional practice, creating conditions for experimentation rather than presenting conclusions. Recurring interests are the intersection of contemporary practice and digital culture, relational and participatory formats, the integration of curatorial and artistic research, and community-based platforms, with particular experience in Latin American artists navigating European institutional landscapes.

Projects Curated

CPU — Contemporary Processes Unity · Palacio Barolo, Buenos Aires

Co-founded and co-directed an experimental curatorial laboratory and independent art space, managing the full exhibition cycle: curation, spatial design, technical production, institutional relations and communication.

pseudo-co.: spawning alt-reality · Berlin

Curatorial intervention in a Berlin shopping mall, with Yun Kim. Turns retail areas into narrative environments through capitalist residue, speculating on post-digital life via pseudo-commercial simulations.

When Time Dreams · The Company Studios, Milan

International group exhibition co-curated with Maximiliano Aduki. A hauntological strategy treating artworks as hyper-temporal nodes, challenging linear narrative through a spatial experience where the present is accessed via future speculation. Artists: Anna Zachariades, Flavia Visconte, Griffini in Tamborini, Hunter Longe, Joshua Goode, Julia Pereyra, Yunsun Kim, Stephanie Blanchard, Nicolau DosSantos.

Ectobodies · ZK/U, Berlin

Curatorial research developed during the ZK/U residency on emerging Latin American artists with the body as the object of study, built to expose colonial preconceptions and Western binaries through the "ecto-" concept: bodies expelled from history and contained as nature.

Eindrücke · Berlin

Research-driven exhibition co-curated with Ezequiel Monteros and Sandra Feferbaum Siemsen, turning a private family archive into a public political statement that connects three generations of exile and migration with contemporary displacement.

Artmeldung · ZK/U, Berlin

Research on Argentinian artists living in Berlin, resolved as an installation mixing artistic and curatorial exercises. Addressed the structural difficulties of integration for foreign artists within Berlin's art circuit.

Salvajes Festival · Berlin

Organised and curated a platform for Latin American artists and cultural producers based in the city.

Mono contemporáneo [Contemporary Monkey] · ZK/U, Berlin

Multidisciplinary festival on the Berlin to Buenos Aires sistership, mapping self-legitimised artistic circuits outside mass-market nomenclature and reading Argentine identity as a hybrid of cultural layers where nature and industry merge.

HIJXS MAL HABIDXS [Ill-gotten Children] · CPU, Buenos Aires

Exhibition on the evolution of the internet from a utopian space of humanistic virtue to the current techno-feudal landscape, with a curatorial text on digital beauty and the emergence of a "goblin/troll" digital identity as a response to hyperrealist internet culture.

Monitor0717 · Kulturni Centar Beograd, Belgrade

Research-based project mixing curatorial and artistic exercises. 150 cultural agents invited to contribute files and a physical object; the material was exhibited over three months as a collective archive.

Texts & Publications

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Education & Languages

Master in Sculpture · Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin

Focus on generative AI applied to creative practice, 3D printing, plaster, concrete and silicone. Research: internet death theory. Final project Vitrina con fragmentos del sarcófago de la internet, presented at the graduate exhibition Escalators to: Big Bang.

Degree in Fine Arts, with honors · Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin

Five-year programme specialising in Sculpture and Digital Media. Focus on generative AI applied to creative practice and 3D printing. Research: AI archaeology and time-based media.

Exchange Student, Digital Arts · University of Applied Arts Vienna, Die Angewandte

Erasmus+ programme focused on media convergence and digital hybridisation. Mentored by the duo übermorgen.

Tecnicatura Superior en Curaduría de Arte y Gestión Cultural · CIC, Buenos Aires

Art history, institutional strategy and exhibition design.

Also

Languages

Spanish (native) · English (C1) · German (B2)
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Links