[ sr. creative technologist at .monks · independent projects & advisory ]

I build

Sr. Creative Technologist at .monks — 20+ years making machines creative, interactive, and human.

Generative AI LLM Pipelines Real-time Visuals Creative Coding Physical Computing Electronics & PCB Embedded Firmware Rapid Prototyping
View Work ↓
$ ls ai-projects/
$ ls explorations/
$ cat skills.txt
→ LLMs · Stable Diffusion · ComfyUI
→ Python · JavaScript · TouchDesigner
→ ESP32 · KiCad · 3D printing · soldering
→ Real-time interaction · AR · XR
$ focus --now
→ gemini-experience/ · photobooth/
$ ▊

Explorations

Side projects where I test how far an idea can go when I pair with AI tools — end to end, from first sketch to store-ready.

The LED ring lit magenta on the bench next to the cloud diffuser, with the lamp's own control page open on a phone
hardware · firmware · custom pcb

Nube

My daughter's IKEA cloud lamp did one thing: a single white, too bright, changed only by reaching up and touching it. Inside were 24 V and a proprietary connector, so I replaced everything behind the diffuser — an ESP32-S3, 24 addressable pixels, and a control page served by the lamp itself. No account, no cloud. Then I gave it a 46 mm board I never drew: I described it, and three scripts wrote it.

role · everything, for an audience of one stack · ESP32-S3 · WS2812 · KiCad · Claude Code
How it was built →
Professor Whiskers pipeline — image generation, the cat on a green screen and the keyed video
ai video pipeline · local lip sync · 3d

Professor Whiskers

A message in the family chat — my daughter had to present the 1960 Valdivia earthquake the next day — became a cat professor. I forked my personal UGC video pipeline and adapted it with Claude in 45 minutes: image, script, voice, video, lip sync running locally, a 3D world and a render. It now has its own Instagram channel.

role · concept, direction & AI pairing stack · Nano Banana · Gemini Omni · Wav2Lip · three.js · HyperFrames
How it was built →
L.A.U.R.A. Math Quest — K-Star Stage theme on iPad
ai-built app · ipad · 3d games

L.A.U.R.A. Math Quest

An iPad app with 32 playful 3D games for times tables, adding and subtracting — Learn, Add, Unlock, Reach, Achieve. Built in a weekend with Claude Code, Google Lyria and Nano Banana — one codebase, three visual themes, four languages, no network — then QA'd by automated playthroughs and now live on the App Store.

role · product direction, design & AI pairing stack · Three.js · GSAP · SwiftUI · Claude Code
How it was built →

Latest Work

case 01 · bimi × gardeners · at .monks

Bimi® Leftover Booster

The average Dutch household throws away 34 kilos of food a year. For the Week Against Waste, Bimi® and creative agency Gardeners wanted something better than another boring recipe generator — and brought the build to .monks, my day job. Type in your leftovers, say who's at the table and how much time you've got, and the Leftover Booster answers with a chef-worthy recipe — always finished with one Bimi® boost — plated in AI food photography art-directed per occasion. Behind it: Gemini on Vertex AI, with production infrastructure that treats a campaign traffic spike as a non-event.

client
Bimi®
agency
Gardeners (NL)
my role
Creative Tech @ .monks
format
AI recipe tool · web
pipeline
Gemini on Vertex AI · GCP
the full flow — rice + carrot in, "rijst tuin met bimi®" out, 13 minutes, kid-approved
Full case → Try it live ↗
case 02 · lider × omnicom

Lider × Omnicom

A small AI advisory for Omnicom's local team in Chile — unblocking AI video creation for Lider's social campaigns by showing how it's done: character consistency across generations, and advice on a custom API-based model pipeline so the team can answer client demands fast. I made a few videos for them, and walked the team through how I'd normally approach these scenarios.

client
Lider (Walmart Chile)
agency
Omnicom Media Chile
my role
AI Advisor
format
16:9 film · 9:16 social
pipeline
Image refs → AI generation
01 · día del niño — the film
hover to play · click for sound
ai film · 58s

Día del Niño — AI Film

A fully AI-generated film for Lider's Día del Niño campaign — no cameras, no 3D. Built with Google's Omni model and NanoBanana in a pipeline designed for iteration: every shot stays editable, so a change at any point — a character, a prop, a look — propagates through previous and upcoming shots instead of forcing a regeneration from scratch. The final sequences were merged into one continuous story and upscaled with Topaz to broadcast quality.

role · pipeline advice & consistency stack · Google Omni · NanoBanana · ElevenLabs · Topaz
02 · canela — where it started

Canela, the cashier cat

This is where the collaboration began — a proof piece to show the team that AI could hold a consistent character and tell a story. The brief called for a generic cat; as a cat owner, I used photos and the name of my real one instead. The client loved her, the audience responded, and Canela became a recurring character. No 3D, no rigging: identity held together purely by reference frames.

canela · 01
On checkout duty — "pay with meow or purr" enabled.
canela · 02
Restocking the pet aisle — same character, frame to frame.
03 · ciby — the comeback

Ciby, back from the archives

Another challenge: how to turn old footage into new material. Bringing Lider's classic mascot back to life from past campaign imagery alone, I guided AI to reconstruct Ciby's identity in consistent hero frames — then generated a new set of pieces that put a character from the archives back on screen, without redesigning a thing. And again, helped the team figure out a secure local pipeline so they can run this themselves, without third-party platforms.

ciby · 01
Brand identity held steady from past-campaign references.
ciby · 02
Same style guide, new scene — coherent frame to frame.

Creative Process

Characters before content — every piece starts from a personality, not a product shot.

01

Ground the character in something real. Canela began as photos of my actual cat — name included; Ciby began as Lider's existing mascot from past campaigns. Real references give AI characters a soul generic prompts can't.

02

Give each character a job in the store world — Canela works checkout and restocks aisles, Ciby runs missions. Scenes are written as story beats, so every video is a small episode rather than an ad.

03

Lock "hero frames" with the client before generating any motion — canonical stills that define look, wardrobe, lighting, and brand fit. Sign-off happens on frames, which are cheap to iterate, not on videos, which aren't.

04

Let the audience steer. Canela was meant to be a one-off generic cat — client and audience response turned her into a recurring character.

Technical Pipeline

A modular image-to-video pipeline where every stage stays editable after the fact.

01

Curate reference sets — real photos for Canela, past campaign frames for Ciby — covering angles, lighting, and expressions the character will need.

02

Generate hero frames with NanoBanana, iterating until identity holds across contexts: same face, same wardrobe, same brand palette in a checkout, an aisle, or a spaceship.

03

Drive video generation with Google's Omni model from those frames. Because shots are generated from shared references, changing a character or prop at any point propagates through previous and upcoming shots — no regenerating from scratch.

04

Finish like a film: Topaz upscale to broadcast quality, voice and sound with ElevenLabs, then subtitles, motion graphics, and audio mix in post. Delivered as 16:9 film and 9:16 social cuts.

AI Pipelines & Experiences

Early AI work, from when running a diffusion model live still felt like a magic trick — the pipelines and experiences where all of this started for me.

AI Chef System
multi-model AI · NLP

AI Chef System

A multi-model pipeline that generates complete, personalized recipes — the right dish for the right person, with imagery to match. LLMs handle the cooking logic; image models plate it.

role · pipeline design & prompt systems stack · LLMs · image generation
View Project →
AI Photobooth
stable diffusion · real-time

Real-time AI Photobooth

One of the first live Stable Diffusion photobooths — before this was a product category. Walk in, get photographed, walk out as generative art. Latency tuned until the magic felt instant.

role · concept & full build stack · Stable Diffusion · TouchDesigner
View Project →
even earlier · pre-AI · 4× FWA awarded

Creative Technology

The pre-AI years — AR, physical computing, accessible design, and brand installations. Still fond of them.

Pharmaton Kids Website
FWA · accessibility · web · with .monks

Pharmaton Kids — Accessible Web

Inclusive design for children with reading disabilities — adaptive UI, simplified navigation, and accessible interactions.

FWA Case →
Parkinson's Campaign
FWA · 3D printing · health · with .monks

Printed by Parkinson's

Tremor data translated into 3D-printed objects — making an invisible condition tangible.

FWA Case →
🎄
FWA · AR · volumetric video · with .monks

AR Christmas Card

Web-based volumetric video experience — a holiday message you could walk around.

FWA Case →
👟
FWA · installation · motion · with JAM3

Adidas Originals Launch

Motion-sensor installation for the Deerupt launch — real-time graphics driven by how you move.

FWA Case →

About

I'm Luis — theguaz online: Guajardo + Díaz, a handle I coined back when Hotmail was the new thing, and never let go. A Chilean creative technologist based in Hilversum, working at .monks. I started in interactive websites and physical installations over twenty years ago, and moved into generative AI early — building one of the first real-time Stable Diffusion photobooths back when that required duct tape and conviction.

My favorite brief is the one without a reference. I prototype fast, mix physical computing with AI models, and obsess over the last 10% — the part people actually feel.

Also: my cat Canela became a recurring character in Walmart Chile campaigns. Possibly my proudest production deploy to date.

base
Hilversum, NL · CET
experience
20+ years
recognition
4× FWA awarded
currently
Sr. Creative Technologist @ .monks
availability
Available for select advisory & collaborations
let's talk shop

Stuck on something AI?
Happy to take a look.

Most of my week belongs to .monks. On the side, I advise teams figuring out AI — a call, a working session, or a small proof piece that shows the way. If that sounds like what you need, write me.