Mexican artist teaches art through NASA files

Mexican artist Manuel Díaz shared a visual arts workshop entitled “The artistic appropriation of NASA files” with the community at Tec de Monterrey’s North Sonora campus.

Manuel incorporates video files from the NASA Image and Video Library public domain website into his artwork.

This library allows you to use NASA images, videos, and sound files for educational and informative purposes.

The artist shared how we can obtain these files and use them to create visual art with CONECTA.

Art from the universe

Manuel explained that these NASA files have been made available to the public for several years with the aim of publicizing scientific knowledge:

“There is a very simple condition and it’s to recognize NASA as the source. If you do that, you can work on, transform, and modify the files. The extent to which you use these files is down to your creativity.”

The artist also shared that one of the most important and complex exercises when appropriating the files is selecting them: 

“There are many files about Mars, but where it gets difficult is choosing which of hundreds of photographs is going to be useful for what I want to do.”

Manuel explained that thinking about this type of artistic activity can also help us learn about who we are and about the origin of the universe:

“I would like the public to think about a subject that I find very fascinating, which is space culture and knowledge of the universe through science.”

Learning about and publicizing other types of Mexican art

Manuel added that the artistic appropriation of public records isn’t a very common practice in Mexico:

“I think it’s something that could be further explored in the country. We all include references to other media, artists and disciplines, but there isn’t much discussion about what artistic appropriation is.”

“All you have to do is recognize NASA as the source and then you can work on, transform, and modify the files. It’s all down to your creativity.” - Manuel Díaz

Diana Urías, director of the School of Architecture, Art and Design (EAAD) at the North Sonora Campus, commented on the experience of having Manuel give a workshop to the community:

“We think he’s a very interesting, proactive artist working in audiovisual media to produce very original narratives and someone who’s proud to be Mexican.”

Diana said that the reason for inviting Manuel was for the students to be inspired by and learn about other forms of self-expression:

“One of the EAAD’s objectives is to publicize culture and art. It’s very important for us graduates to have experiences which allow us to understand the world and ourselves.”

You can see the video and photography file artworks made by the artist on his website: manueldiaz.org.

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