Creating Ambience: Ordinary Ways for Better Atmospheres
Sociología Ordinaria Encounters #13
Held on 29, 30 May 2025
Creating Ambience: Ordinary Ways for Better Atmospheres is the title of a new encounter run by Sociología Ordinaria, a transdisciplinary research group that explores daily knowledge deemed ordinary, superficial or frivolous from a traditional academic and intellectual viewpoint.
This fresh edition seeks to approach daily, ordinary and extraordinary environments and atmospheres. From “achieved environments” to “rarified atmospheres”, the theme here responds to a concern over the lack of air and the dismal atmospheres of an uncertain present, in addition to shining a light on the powers, arrangements and fixes used to clean, care and embellish personal environments — and to let off steam. A question is raised over how to ventilate and air lived-in spaces, avoid the shortness of breath that marks the present and to generate strategies to breathe easier.
Furthermore, it explores ways of naming and thinking in these environments and in the difference between the breathable and the toxic, focusing on how the latter is used to negatively single out aspects that are part of the normal and the ordinary. Thus, different tones and actions are put forward: the outdoor atmosphere, the climate of accompaniment, ecosystems for liveable lives and achieving a vibe or atmosphere of the imagination.
Organised by
Museo Reina Sofía and the research group Sociología Ordinaria – Complutense University of Madrid (UCM)
Actividad accesible
Esta actividad cuenta con lazos de inducción magnética (para personas con audífonos) que deben solicitarse previamente mediante correo a centrodeestudios@museoreinasofia.es
Las personas interesadas podrán solicitar con antelación la reserva de un asiento con mayor visibilidad, mediante correo a centrodeestudios@museoreinasofia.es
Participants
Sociología Ordinaria is a research group from the Complutense University of Madrid’s (UCM) Sociology Department. Formed in 2011, its concerns revolve around developing new research and teaching methodologies that enable sociological imagination to be applied to contemporary daily life. The group seeks to highlight the dense socio-political roots of the ordinary, an aspect which is often indiscernible in predominant academic analysis. Under the slogan “learning from the banal, the frivolous and the superficial”, its members look to render an account of the complexity and power relations underlying diverse social and cultural phenomena such as the use of dating apps, language around COVID-19, the world of the cuplé, reality shows, pyjama parties, popstars, TikTokers and club culture.
Programme
Thursday, 29 May 2025
10am Ordinary presentation
Coming Out of Class: Pedagogical Environments and Designs
10:15am Looking, Weaving and Acting for Better Pedagogies
Ez da giro! Hallway Experiments to Enliven Sociology
― Conducted by Jone Allur, Ekain Carrasco, María Céspedes, Naroa Gallues, Paula Gutiérrez-Ponte, Miren Iriarte, Ane Juez, Jone Mendibil, Iñaki Martínez de Albéniz and Asier Amezaga (EHU/UPV)
Restitching Worlds: Textile Artivism and Cultural Practices as Ecosystems of Social Sustainability
― Conducted by Óscar M. Blanco Sierra, Renata Dračková and Miren Edurne Herrán (CSIC-UPV)
AI: Imagination in the Classroom. One Performance, Two Teachers, No Target
― Conducted by Irene Blanco Fuente and Miguel Ángel (Mikel) López Sáez (UCM and URJC)
11:30am Inside/Outside Experimentations
In-person Atmospheres, Virtual Atmospheres. Glasses for What?
― Conducted by Carmen Clara Bravo Torres, Mariana Buenestado-Fernández (UCO), María García-Cano Torrico, Eva F. Hinojosa Pareja, Azahara Jiménez Millán and Elisa Pérez Gracia
The Classroom in the Street and the Street in the Classroom
― Conducted by José Manuel del Barrio Aliste and María Luisa Ibáñez Martínez (USAL)
12pm Coffee and Stuff
12:30pm Interior Design
Producing and Designing Environments, Atmospheres and Experiences Inside the Classroom: The Case of Sociology(ies) of Education(s)
― Conducted by Daniel Muriel (InnoKLab. EHU/UPV)
User Instructions for Designing Socio-productive Environments
― Conducted by Ángeles Fuentes and Kiko Tovar (Escuela Superior de Diseño de Madrid and UCM)
Playing with the Materiality of the Chair: Exploring, with Infrastructures from the Department of Social Sciences through Design, the Chair’s Capacity to Influence Spaces and Bodies
― Conducted by Keio Urkijo Marcos (EHU/UPV)
1:45pm They Had to Be There…
They’ve Made Us a Court and We Must Constitute Ourselves
― Conducted by the Sopa Solida (UCM/USAL) collective
Outdoor Bodies: Climates, Airs and Gusts of Wind
4pm Ventilating (with the gerund)
It’s Stuffy in Here, or How to Air Old Rags and How to Entangle Ourselves to Face Violence from Punto Violeta Somosaguas
― Conducted by Punto Violeta Somosaguas (Paula Martín Peláez, María del Carmen Peñaranda Cólera and Marta Pérez Pérez) (UCM)
Airing the House. Writings of Testimonies on Sexual Violence
― Conducted by Estíbaliz de Miguel Calvo (EHU/UPV)
5pm Body Climates: Desires and Moral Panics
“I have a right to behave badly to have a good time”: An Ethnographic Analysis of the Environment of Sexual Services for Women”
― Conducted by Andrea García-Santesmases Fernández (UNED)
5:45pm In the Wind: Songs and Tales
Gathering in Translucence. For a Politics of the Ambiguous
― Conducted by Candela Crespi
Sing Crying: To Give Some Thought to Places of Utterance
― Conducted by Ana Martínez Pérez
Friday, 30 May 2025
Shacking Up Together: Creating Atmospheres and Good Vibes
10am Homes
Just Like Home in No Apartment: The Construction of “Home-ness” between Young People in Madrid
― Conducted by Santiago Fandos Planelles and Manuel Macías Gómez de Villar (UCM)
SMS and BURR STUDIO: The Experience of a Collective Housing Process
― Conducted by Sato Díaz, María Artigas, Sira Peláez and Ramón Martínez (SMS and BURR STUDIO)
11am Neighbourhoods and Streets
Collective Memory and Self-managed Parties and Culture in Palma
― Conducted by Isa Nadal Amengual (UCM-UIB)
A Mental Map of the Neighbourhood
― Conducted by the BarriLab (Associació de Veïnes de Canamunt) cultural project
GREEN AWNING: Postcards from Another Heritage
― Conducted by Pablo Arboleda and Kike Carbajal (CSIC and independent photographer)
12:15pm Coffee with Posters
Street Air. Breathing, Building and Inhabiting Public Atmospheres
― Conducted by Francisco Javier Rueda Córdoba (UCM)
Memetic Catharsis
― Conducted by María Cecilia Cordero (UPM-UCM)
The Dark Side of Desire
― Conducted by Celia Espada Guerrero, Amanda López Bernad and Celia Roncalés Villa (UCM)
Questioning Masculinities from a Reflection on Paternities. Contributions from a Feminist Approach
― Conducted by Débora Imhoff (CONICET-UNC)
12:45pm We Need to Talk: Collective Care
Al Akhawat Collective. United in Art-Making
― Conducted by Karim Khourrou Gadour, Oumaima Manchit Laroussi, Sanae El Mokaddim Ayadi, Youssef Taki Miloudi and Aicha Josefa Trinidad Gououi (UCLM, UCM, ULL and UB)
1:15pm Escaping Forwards… But in Which Direction?
With So Much Advance I’m Heading for the Forest
― Conducted by Manuel Cabrera de Diego (UCM)
“'Mastodon Is Not Much Fun’, and So Many Other Fictions on the FediVerso”
― Conducted by Rubén Blanco (UCM)
Atmospheres of Feeling: Feelings and Senses
4pm Bad Vibe
Reasoning Together: Self-analytical Conversations for the Revolution to Come
― Conducted by Ane Campaña Blanco and José Llopis Manchón (UCM)
The Room of “Adolescence”: The Domesticity and Culture of Sexist Hate
― Conducted by Alba Mira Roda Ignacio and Moreno Segarra (UCM)
From Meme to Abyss: Generative AI, Viral Aesthetics and the Ordinary Construction of Political Hate in the Extreme Right
― Conducted by Gabriel Bayarri Toscano and Concepción Fernández-Villanueva and (URJC and UCM)
5:30pm The Imperium of the Senses
Heat – Tools of Collective Transformation
― Conducted by Daniel Torrego (UPM-UA)
What Does a “Gym” Smell of? Gender and Sexuality as Olfactory Regulators
― Conducted by Enrico Mora (UAB)
Noise/Ambient, Ambient/Noise: Noise in the Construction of Ordinary Environments
― Conducted by Pablo Santoro (UCM)
6:45pm Ordinary Farewell
![Dara Birnbaum, Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman [Tecnología/Transformación: la mujer maravilla], 1978-1979. Museo Reina Sofía](https://recursos.museoreinasofia.es/styles/small_landscape/public/Actividades/wonder.jpg.webp)
![John Baldessari, Prima Facie (Third State): From Aghast to Upset [Prima Facie (tercer estado): de aterrado a disgustado], 2005. Museo Reina Sofía](https://recursos.museoreinasofia.es/styles/small_landscape/public/Actividades/so.jpg.webp)
Más actividades
International Museum Day 2026 with Radio 3
22 MAY 2026
On Friday, 22 May 2026 the Museo Reina Sofía celebrates International Museum Day by way of a vibrant music programme conducted by Radio 3.
From 9am to 11pm, the Museo’s Nouvel Courtyard will host the live broadcast of Radio 3’s day-long programme —also available on a video streaming on the Radio3 website and app, on RTVEPlay and on the Museo’s social media accounts. The programme comprises more than twenty live acts, including artists such as Carlangas, Shego, Soleá Morente, Kokoshca, La Tania, La Pegatina, Pipiolas, Ángel Stanich, Triángulo de Amor Bizarro and Zahara, and many others.
With this programme the Museo Reina Sofía concludes its celebration of International Museum Day, which takes place on Monday, 18 May. Both on 18 May, from 10am to 9pm, and 22 May admission to the Museo will be free of charge.
Institutional Decentralisation
Thursday, 21 May 2026 – 5:30pm
This series is organised by equipoMotor, a group of teenagers, young people and older people who have participated in the Museo Reina Sofía’s previous community education projects, and is structured around four themed blocks that pivot on the monstrous.
This fourth and final session centres on films that take the museum away from its axis and make it gaze from the edges. Pieces that work with that which is normally left out: peripheral territories, unpolished aesthetics, clumsy gestures full of intent. Instead of possessing an institutional lustre, here they are rough, precarious and strange in appearance, legitimate forms of making and showing culture. The idea is to think about what happens when central authority is displaced, when the ugly and the uncomfortable are not hidden, when they are recognised as part of the commons. Film that does not seek to be to one’s liking, but to open space and allow other ways of seeing and inhabiting the museum to enter stage.
Miguel Falomir, Director of the Museo Nacional del Prado, in Conversation with Museo Reina Sofía Director Manuel Segade
18 MAY 2026
Museo del Prado and Museo Reina Sofía directors, Miguel Falomir and Manuel Segade, respectively,engage in conversation on Monday, 18 May in the Museo Reina Sofía’s Auditorium 400, in conjunction with International Museum Day 2026, the theme of which is “Museums Uniting a Dividing World”. The discussion, moderated by journalist and poet Antonio Lucas, will see the two heads of these major cultural institutions share their reflections on the role they play in today’s society.
In addition to addressing the management of art, the conversation seeks to explore in greater depth museums’ potential as meeting points to face today’s social tensions, thereby fulfilling the international mandate of this year’s edition.
The activity will be live-streamed and is available at this link.
Collection. Contemporary Art: 1975–Present
Miércoles 13 de mayo, 2026 - 19:00 h
In this lecture, Museo Reina Sofía director Manuel Segade outlines the key readings of the new presentation of the Collection on Floor 4 of the Sabatini Building. This new arrangement is framed inside an ambitious rehang that harnesses the uses of the Museo’s architecture, in a plan that will continue in 2027 with the opening of Floor 3 in the same building, culminating with Floor 2 in 2028.
The new rehang of the Collections, unveiled on 16 February 2026, sets forth a journey through contemporary art history over the past fifty years in Spain. Rather than an unambiguous narrative, the floor recounts the same period — from the Transition to democracy in Spain to the present — in three different ways, starting back at the 1970s time and again.
The exhibition route gets under way with a prologue that travels through the affections, material culture and institutionalism of the Spanish Transition, serving as a starting point for the three routes that follow. The first, A History of Affect in Contemporary Art, advances from affective systems in artmaking linked to the second wave of feminism, arriving at grief as a tool to interpret new realities. The second route, The Powers of Fiction: Sculpture, New Materialisms, and Relational Aesthetics, is conceived as a sculpture gallery in which the artworks engage with the public, focusing on the performance side of the discipline. This route shows, among other aspects, how Spanish sculpture has gained significant international visibility since the 1980s, with women artists playing a key role in this display. The third route, A New Framework. The Institution, the Market, and the Art that Transcends Both, zooms in on the origins of the Museo and its role in the process of art’s institutionalisation in Spain. In May 1986 the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía opened, occupying the first and second floors of the former hospital: the forty years that have elapsed since then enable a re-evaluation of the effects of the Museo on Spanish art and art on the institution.
This talk strengthens the goal of socially integrating the narratives produced by the Museo at a time when the Collections are under permanent review.
Patricia Falguières
Tuesday May 12th 2026 – 19:00 h
Art historian Patricia Falguières inaugurates the María Luisa Caturla Chairwith the lecture Art History in Dark Times. This Chair, dedicated to the reflection on art in times «sick with uncertainty», is aimed at dismounting, digressing and imagining multiple temporalities and materialities in art history and cultural studies from an eccentric gaze, in the sense of being displaced, off-centre or with a centre that is different.
The lecture’s title references Hannah Arendt’s collection of essays Men in Dark Times, which in turn paraphrases a Bertol Brecht poem. In it, Arendt asserts «dark times are not only not new, they are no rarity in history».
Patricia Falguières also claims history knows many periods when the public realm has been obscured, when the world becomes so uncertain that people cease to ask anything of politics except to relieve them of the burden of their vital interests and their private freedom. The art historian —whose expertise is in the field of Renaissance art and philosophy but paying close attention to contemporaneity— invites us to a «chaotic and adventurous journey», from the Italian Renaissance to Fukushima, through which to delve into the questions: What can the practice of art history mean today, in a world ablaze with ominous glimmers and even more ominous threats, if not as mere entertainment or social ornament? Of what vital interests, of what freedom can it bear witness and serve as an instrument?