About


Hi! I’m Juan Ignacio Bousquet, you can find me also as “Juani", and i was born in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

When I was a kid, I used to dream a lot about science, space, and life beyond Earth. I was a huge fan of NASA missions to Mars like Pathfinder, and absolutely amazed by Voyager I and II probes. I even sent letters to NASA, Pentagon, and SETI institute - and to my surprise, they all replied with incredible letters, mission materials, and photos. At that time, it was unimaginable to have access to all that information; even with a dial-up modem, you couldn't get that kind of material publicly.

In secondary school, I studied as an Electronics Technician and then ended up as an Informatics Technician. At that time, I was loved ham radio, music, and computer viruses. At my school "PIO IX", I met Miguel San Martin, an ex-student who works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and was part of many Mars missions. He became a fundamental inspiration for something I thought impossible: "working in the space field." Every year, he would come back to show us the missions he worked on, how they operated, and all the crazy engineering challenges they faced.

During these years, I developed a deep love for radio, music, and computer security. I took a course to become a licensed radio operator, and I still remember the thrill of talking with people at Base Marambio in Antarctica. Music was also a huge part of my life - I tried the music conservatory twice but couldn't keep up due to time constraints. Still, I played in different bands during school, like "Manosanta," a reggae-ska band, and "Outter Limits," an electronic-rock-progressive one. I always remember how I was captivated by the stage lighting design and artists moments in their performances at concerts. My uncle "Coco" taught me photography with an old Pentax K-1000 that I still have, and I started going to concerts to capture those moments that then are lost forever.

The under tech world was always there. It pulled me in through Hackemate meetings and then 2600 meetings at the mythical SJ05 bar in Buenos Aires. There, I dove more into computer viruses and security, meeting amazing people in the underground H/P/V/C world. One of my best friends from those days is Powertech. I met him at SJ05 bar using a frequency scanner. Some time later we had fun setting up an antenna on my parents roof to intercept ambulance pager messages at Down Town Flowers, also exploring logins using telnet on NASA nodes found through a boring tracert command using a tiny Sony VAIO laptop and a slow as hell dial up connection with a probably some ones else phone line. Lovely days.

These passions led to the start of my career in both informatics and visual arts, working in photography, filmmaking, and advertising in various camera crew positions. In 2008, I began studying to become a DoP (Director of Photography) at SICA, learning from masters like Rodolfo Denevi, Favio Bastias, Aníbal Bosco, Felix Monti, and color specialist Salvador Melita.

With work and a bit of luck I started working at the Digital Intermediate Area of Cinecolor Digital Argentina, one of Latin America's most important post-production houses. Two years later, I moved to the Visual Effects Area operating Autodesk Inferno, and finally established their first Digital Restoration Area. Cinema gave me beautiful moments over the years - restoring classics like "Esperando la Carroza," working with Luis Puenzo on "La Historia Oficial" later re screened at the Cannes Film Festival, and presenting Argentina's first short film, "La Revolucion de Mayo" by Mario Gallo (1909) at the FIAF Congress. Our team preserved the works of countless influential directors like Raymundo Gleyzer, Fernando Birri, Jorge Cedron, and Pino Solanas, contributing to over 50 productions.

While immersed in cinema, I was also going deeper in the cybersecurity world. At Ekoparty Security Conference, I joined LockpickAR, where we researched biometric authentication methods and classic lockpicking techniques. We discovered ways to clone fingerprints using dental silicone and metacrilate glue (la gotita), publishing a security assessment of widely-used ZK software fingerprints readers that were in almost every public office and government places in Argentina. We ended up presenting this in OWASP Day FING Uruguay to a bunch of nerds and talking about the upcoming government project called "SIBIOS" and its dangers.

My concert photography career took off unexpectedly. After a street photo session of Radio Roots, a reggae & ska rock band on a Sunday afternoon in San Telmo neighborhood, i soon found myself on tour shooting at Cosquin Rock, capturing performances by Karamelo Santo, Dancing Mood, Kapanga, Dread Mar I, Todos Tus Muertos, La Vela Puerca and Manu Chao. Manu become an artist that pop up constantly over the years, shooting many shows of him and Radio Bemba in Argentina. That was a shift in my career as a photographer and artist.

Over concerts and tours, i met amazing people who helped me a lot, like Eduardo Sempe from Fiestas Clandestinas, who opened many doors, introducing me to managers and artists at the "Groove" venue. Another incredible guy was Mariano Ash, a legendary punk rock manager currently handling Die Toten Hosen's Argentina tours. With more punk stories than you can imagine, this guy is a personification of punk himself and a Ramones lover who help me a lot. I will always remembered recover a drum head from DTH that was lost in a Palermo bar in mysterious circumstances. 

A lucky break came when I found an uncredited photo i took at an improvised show of Manu Chao in Floresta, at El Pais Uruguay. I wrote them telling "hey! i found this, if you love so much my photos, can i start taking them for you?" and the rest was history. I started shooting for them in bigger festivals and international concerts and artists, like the first Lollapalooza in Argentina. Then The Wall by Roger Waters, Paul McCartney, U2, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Chris Cornell, Scott Weiland, Cypress Hill, Placebo, Imagine Dragons, The Strokes, Nine Inch Nails, Phoenix, Arcade Fire, Capital Cities, Krewella, New Order, Vampire Weekend, Soundgarden and many others.

My photography gained recognition and was selected in some competitions such as "ZoomBA 2008 competition" of the SCA (Central Society of Architects) with Clorindo Testa and Marcos Lopez as jury, and I had a participation in the 9° San Pablo Biennial with a selected work for a site-specific installation by Clorindo Testa. I also presented my series "People and Places" (2016) and "Sensibility" (2017) at The LensCulture & Magnum Photography Awards, and they were among the most viewed entries with an amazing feedback from the jury.

Informatics, hacking and radio fun with SDRs was present too these years. I participated on many editions of Ekoparty Security Conference, Nerdearla, and to 2600s and Sysarmy meetings too. Film industry gave me also the possibility to meet Leandro Visconti, an amazing VFX supervisor and artist with an Emmy Award, for whom I started working in his "Yema Visual Effects" boutique company as a digital effects compositor to later become the IT lead and engineer for many years. This experience leaded me to work on software and specific hardware for visual effects, like distributed renderfarms, storages and inter-production houses networking, for many other visual effects and advertising companies like Che Revolution Post, Tronco, Can Can Club and many others.

Teaching was also a big part in my career, where i worked as assistant professor of "Introduccion a Proyectual I/II" (Prof. Arq. Manteola, Prof. Arq. Sztulwark, Prof. Arq. Turrillo) and "Sonido I" (Prof. Alejandro Seba) at FADU-UBA, and "Laboratorio II" (Prof. Leandro Visconti) at CIEVYC. I also teached extension courses and programs, such as "Digital Image Post-production Workflow" and in ECA, TCyM and "Design for 3D Printing", both at Universidad Nacional de San Martin. Another incredible experience was teaching digital film restoration and preservation at DIPRA (Diploma in Audiovisual Preservation and Restoration) originally tought at ENERC (Escuela Nacional de Experimentación y Realización Cinematográfica). I also gave a theoretical-practical workshop on the occasion of winning a grant from the FNA (Fondo Nacional de las Artes) on digital restoration of films, with a duration of 3 months.

I had the luck of being selected in 2017 to participate at the "Film Preservation & Restoration School Latin America" organized by L'Immagine Ritrovata and Cineteca di Bologna (Italy), made in what used to be the Cinecolor laboratories in Olivos, the largest in Latin America and one of the largest in the world. I also traveled to MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) to do a short program about "Advances in Imaging: VR-AR, Machine Learning and Self Driving Cars" with Prof. Ramesh Raskar (MIT Media Lab), and "Additive Manufacturing: from the 3D Printing to the factory floor" with Prof. John Hart (Desktop Metal). In 2019, i finished the "Additive Manufacturing for Innovative Design and Production" course of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) by Prof. John Hart.

The experience at MIT gave me an amazing oportunity to do a milestone in my career. I was part of one in a lifetime project where we save Valentino's life with 3D printing, modifing an FDMprinter to produce a medical grade splint for his broncheomalasia. This work was open sourced later on a public paper. At that time i worked as New Image Technology Área’s Technology Manager at IAMK TAREA IIPC, and as 3D Printing Researcher at Lab3Bio, Labocluster, School of Science and Technology, both at Universidad Nacional de San Martin.

During the world pandemic in 2020, I launched Patagon Space, creating a network of space enthusiasts and security professionals working on aerospace projects, and also interviewing aerospace engineers, researchers, cybersecurity professionals, etc. This ended up on an active community in Argentina, of nerds that love the space. We keep are now working on space security related projects. Same year, I had the incredible opportunity to work at CCK for minister Tristan Bauer, where I produced and helped design an immersive room alongside Martin Borini (AILAVIU), a pioneering visual artist who established the foundations of lighting and visual design in Argentina and was one of the founders of Clandestina Weekend Nerd and ID-V (Investigacion & Desarrollo Visual).

Music and sound have also been part of my professional life, attending mixing workshops by Mick Guzauski (Eric Clapton, Daft Punk, Alejandro Sanz, and Thriller remixes), Gordon Raphael (The Strokes, Regina Specktor), Dave Bascombe, (Depeche Mode, Placebo, Tear for Fears, Erasure, Chromeo), Tom Elmhirst (Amy Winehouse, Adele, David Bowie, Beck, Lady Gaga, The Black Keys, U2, Peter Gabriel, Arcade Fire, Cage the Elephant), and Tom Elmhirst (Amy Winehouse, Adele, David Bowie, Beck, Lady Gaga, The Black Keys, U2, Peter Gabriel, Arcade Fire, Cage the Elephant).

In recent years, I've focused more on informatics and computer security, while keeping one foot in the artistic and challenging projects I love. My last restoration project was a special one - "El Tango del Viudo y su Espejo Deformante" by Chilean filmmaker Raul Ruiz. which made its way to the Berlinale Film Festival. On the tech side, my journey led me to work into the fascinating world of satellite security, starting with one in a "only reception" mode, then came a break but a great run at GLOBANT, where I dove into data and infrastructure with Google Cloud technologies at their CloudOps studio. Then my latest adventure - an amazing opportunity to join the cybersecurity team at Satellogic, an earth observation satellite manufacturer and operator, working alongside security gurus like Gera Richarte, Beto Solino, Emiliano Kargieman, and many other ex-CORE security members.

Finally, I joined the Stratosphere IPS laboratory at CTU (Czech Technical University), where I'm working on my master's thesis in satellite security as part of my Cyberdefense and Cybersecurity Master's program. At the same time, with our AsturExplorers team, we recently participated in NASA's SpaceApps Challenge, where our project Landsat Connect made it to the global top 40 finalists! 

What comes next? who knows!

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