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March 26, 2015 Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
Unmasking the Author: Art and Activism in the Internet Age
Margarita Padilla. What Do Network Machines Want and Not Want?
A change of paradigm is no small thing, and this change is going hand in hand with networks of computers, storming into a model that invites the social sphere to imitate it. Networks of people, machines, and, chiefly, changes in the distribution of power. What are the founding and genetic characteristics of this transformation? In emulating the net, social, creative, productive and critical processes search for better conditions for their proliferation; new tools, innovative methods and elements of original organisation. How do we distinguish what is new, radically new, from mere market trends? How do we distinguish what we have to nurture (what makes the network inside the network) and what we have to discard (what’s inside the network that destroys the network)?
Geert Lovink. The Politics of Designing Masks: Internet Culture after Snowden
What options do we have now that doubts hang over the radical transparency of the protection against surveillance? This lecture offers a general panoramic view of the activist and artistic strategies over the last two years, developed in response to the Edward Snowden revelations. Against the widespread depression of hackers, artists have become involved in a broad array of experiments to speak out against surveillance and Internet control. What can we learn from the tragic story of Anonymous? Why are so many people suspicious of the anonymous browser Tor? Julian Assange could, with difficulty, be a model: what went wrong? Could art represent some way out of all this?
Round table: Geert Lovink, Margarita Padilla and Alberto López Cuenca
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March 27, 2015 Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
Digital Commons: Towards other Ecologies of Art
Felix Stalder. The Artist at the End of the Gutenberg Galaxy: Challenges for Art in Digital Culture
The modern artist figure is a product of the 18th and 19th centuries, the heyday of literary culture. Although the majority of twentieth-century avant-garde movements rebelled against this idea, it became a model that endured and still serves as a regulatory foundation of copyright, as a powerful commercial attraction in the art market and as a structural principle for the majority of art institutions. Nevertheless, the experience of the network society for artists and audiences not only calls this model into question, it also offers a new one focused on notions such as information, shared resources and commons, through which both artists and non-artists interact and redefine their roles and functions.
Marcell Mars. A Public Library
In the catalogue of History, the public library institution appears listed in the category of the phenomena human beings feel most proud of, along with education and public health care, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and free software… A public library is one of those practically invincible infrastructures we only start to notice when it disappears. Due to the Internet, today it is easy to imagine a public library as part of a global infrastructure of universal access to knowledge for every member of society. Yet the appearance and development of the Internet is occurring at a time when institutional crisis, with traumatic and unpredictable consequences, has started to happen.
The digital project Public Library is an example of the defence of the public library and its principle of universal access to knowledge, as well as being an exploration of the infrastructure distributed for use by amateur librarians. In truth, it is a crossover between both.
Round table: Marcell Mars, Daniel García Andújar, Felix Stalder and Alberto López Cuenca
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March 26 - 27, 2015 Medialab Prado
Workshop
Geert Lovink and Alberto López Cuenca. March 26
Marcell Mars, Felix Stalder and Daniel García Andújar. March 27
This workshop is set up as an open encounter, whereby different participants from Open Source introduce their work and debate common notions with a community of artists, activists, theorists and Medialab users. The workshop aims to horizontally complement this seminar with a back-and-forth exchange of information and with work prior to the lectures enabling subsequent debate to be articulated. Furthermore, it looks to recover working environments far-removed from academic production and linked to other forms of knowledge emerging out of hacklabs and medialabs.
Open Source. The Art System after the Net
Held on 26 mar 2015
The Internet has produced new behaviours, subjectivities and institutions linked to another way of being and doing. This seminar debates how these changes throw established categories of art, the author and the circulation of unique work off balance, whilst also forming profound contradictions – from creativity as an economic value to indistinct work time. Is considering another artistic ecosystem possible from these ambiguities?
The assumption was that a transition from the author's text to hypertext would make the funeral of these modern notions possible, replacing them with a new contemporary language. With the arrival and expansion of the net, these predictions, which decades earlier were nothing more than academic speculations, could be found in the right condition to overcome the logic of individual authorship and originality, in practice. However, these desires, which had to be validated by technological displacement in the modes of producing knowledge and generating subjectivity, are today being answered in the survival and statism of a model that ignores the challenges and powers of the net. With the aim of defending the author and their originality, in some cases in a space of resistance, access, production and the circulation of knowledge in digital media, including those the museum participates in, are restricted.
There do not seem to be any doubts about the place taken up by intellectual property in the new productive environment. It also seems to be increasingly more difficult to revert the fact that symbolic production, and with it artistic production, is today part of the so-called creative industries, and which must, therefore, work under strict market logic. Nevertheless, culture and knowledge in the digital environment continue to manifest qualities that had not been characteristic of consumer goods: they are not scarce, do not run out with use and cannot be possessed exclusively. At this point a whole series of fractions arise between legal regulations, financial capitalization and the practices of access and free circulation this seminar looks to unravel. In this complex framework, there is a need to track how the work of the artist is inscribed in the environment of new digital production, to see what the regulations of authorship are after the net, how to defend the singularity of art in the face of the expansion of the creative economy and how to bring about the so-called digital commons in a new form of shared learning.
In collaboration with
Medialab Prado
Organised by
Museo Reina Sofía
Workshop
At Medialab Prado. March 26 - 27, 2015. 11:00 p.m.
Participants
Daniel G. Andújar. Visual artist, long-time member of irational.org and a reference point in net.art. In 1996 he founded the platform Technologies To The People. He has exhibited internationally and set up other public sphere projects on the Internet, such as e-barcelona.org o e-valencia.org. Furthermore, he has run workshops with artists and social collectives and actively participated in the debate on the artist’s status in the immaterial economy. The Museo Reina Sofía recently presented his work in the solo exhibition Daniel G. Andújar. Operating System (21 January - 4 May, 2015).
Alberto López Cuenca. Professor at the Universidad de las Américas Puebla. He has co-edited the books Propiedad intelectual, nuevas tecnologías y libre acceso a la cultura (Intellectual Property, New technologies and Free Access to Cultures) (Universidad de las Américas Puebla and Centro Cultural de España in Mexico, 2008) and ¿Desea guardar los cambios? Propiedad intelectual y tecnologías digitales: hacia un nuevo pacto social (Do you Want to Save the Changes? Intellectual Property and Digital Technologies: Towards a New Social Pact (Centro Cultural España-Córdoba, 2009). His articles have featured in international publications such as ARTnews, Lápiz, Curare, Afterall and Revista de Occidente.
Geert Lovink. Professor at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland and the University of Amsterdam, where he founded the Institute of Network Cultures. He was also a founding member of ADILKNO (Foundation for the Advancement of Illegal Knowledge). He is the author of Dark Fiber: Tracking Critical Internet Culture (MIT Press, 2002), My First Recession: Critical Internet Culture in Transition (NAi Publishers, 2003) and Tactical Media, the Second Decade (Brazilian Submidialogia, 2005), as well as numerous other essays.
Marcell Mars (Nenad Romić). A cultural researcher, artist and hacker, he is one of the founders of the open repository on shared knowledge Public Library and co-creator of Multimedia Institut [mi2] in Zagreb.
Margarita Padilla. Computer engineer and activist. Co-founder of the space Sindominio.net and the free radio Radiopwd from her operations in hacklabs. She has published several articles such as Agujeros negros en la red (2002) in the magazine Archipiélago and Penélope, tejiendo y destejiendo la red en el libro Ciberguerrilla de la comunicación (Virus, 2000). She is also the author of El kit de la lucha en Internet (Traficantes de Sueños, 2013).
Felix Stalder. Professor at the University of the Arts, in Zurich, where he co-directs the Media Arts programme, and researcher at the Institute for New Culture Technologies, Vienna. Since 1995 he has participated as a moderator of the encounters of Nettime, a space for debate and critique. He is the author of the books Open Cultures and the Nature of Networks (New Media Center_ kuda.org , Deep Search: The Politics of Search Beyond Google (Transaction Publishers, 2009) and Digital Solidarity (PML Mute, 2014).
![Miguel Brieva, ilustración de la novela infantil Manuela y los Cakirukos (Reservoir Books, 2022) [izquierda] y Cibeles no conduzcas, 2023 [derecha]. Cortesía del artista](https://recursos.museoreinasofia.es/styles/small_landscape/public/Actividades/ecologias_del_deseo_utopico.jpg.webp)
![Ángel Alonso, Charbon [Carbón], 1964. Museo Reina Sofía](https://recursos.museoreinasofia.es/styles/small_landscape/public/Actividades/perspectivas_ecoambientales.jpg.webp)
Más actividades
Aesthetics of Peace and Desertion Tactics
8 October 2025 – 24 June 2026
The study group Aesthetics of Peace and Tactics of Desertion: Prefiguring New Pacifisms and Forms of Transitional Justice proposes a rethinking—through both a theoretical-critical and historical-artistic lens—of the intricate network of concepts and practices operating under the notion of pacifism. A term not without contestation and critical tension, pacifism gathers under its name a multiplicity of practices—from anti-militarism and anti-war movements to non-violence activism—while simultaneously opening urgent debates around violence, justice, reparation, and desertion. Here, pacifism is not conceived as a moral doctrine, but as an active form of ethical and political resistance capable of generating aesthetic languages and new positions of social imagination.
Through collective study, the group seeks to update critical debates surrounding the use of violence and non-violence, as well as to explore the conflict of their representation at the core of visual cultures. In a present marked by rearmament, war, genocide, and the collapse of the social contract, this group aims to equip itself with tools to, on one hand, map genealogies and aesthetics of peace—within and beyond the Spanish context—and, on the other, analyze strategies of pacification that have served to neutralize the critical power of peace struggles. Transitional and anti-punitive justice proposals will also be addressed, alongside their intersections with artistic, visual, and cinematic practices. This includes examining historical examples of tribunals and paralegal activisms initiated by artists, and projects where gestures, imaginaries, and vocabularies tied to justice, reparation, memory, and mourning are developed.
It is also crucial to note that the study programme is grounded in ongoing reflection around tactics and concepts drawn, among others, from contemporary and radical Black thought—such as flight, exodus, abolitionism, desertion, and refusal. In other words, strategies and ideas that articulate ways of withdrawing from the mandates of institutions or violent paradigms that must be abandoned or dismantled. From feminist, internationalist, and decolonial perspectives, these concepts have nourished cultural coalitions and positions whose recovery today is urgent in order to prefigure a new pacifism: generative, transformative, and radical.
Aesthetics of Peace and Tactics of Desertion, developed and led by the Museo Reina Sofía’s Studies Management, unfolds through biweekly sessions from October to June. These sessions alternate between theoretical discussions, screenings, work with artworks and archival materials from the Museo’s Collection, reading workshops, and public sessions. The group is structured around sustained methodologies of study, close reading, and collective discussion of thinkers such as Judith Butler, Elsa Dorlin, Juan Albarrán, Rita Segato, Sven Lütticken, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and Franco “Bifo” Berardi; historical episodes such as the anti-nuclear and anti-arms race movement in Spain; and the work of artists and activists including Rojava Film Commune, Manuel Correa and the Oficina de Investigación Documental (Office for Documentary Investigation), and Jonas Staal, among other initial cases that will expand as the group progresses.
27th Contemporary Art Conservation Conference
Wednesday, 4, and Thursday, 5 March 2026
The 27th Contemporary Art Conservation Conference, organised by the Museo Reina Sofía’s Department of Conservation and Restoration, with the sponsorship of the MAPFRE Foundation, is held on 4 and 5 March 2026. This international encounter sets out to share and debate experience and research, open new channels of study and reflect on conservation and the professional practice of restorers.
This edition will be held with in-person and online attendance formats, occurring simultaneously, via twenty-minute interventions followed by a five-minute Q&A.
Submitting Proposals
The deadline for presenting proposals ends on 28 September 2025. Those interested must send an email to jornada.conservacion@museoreinasofia.es, submitting the following documents:
- An unpublished proposal related to the conservation or restoration of contemporary art.
- A 1,700-word summary, written in Word, on the theme addressed. Please indicate the topic at the top of the document with five keywords and the presentation format (in-person or virtual). Preference will be given to the in-person format.
- CV and contact details.
- Only one proposal per person will be accepted.
- Proposals related to talks given in the last three conferences will not be accepted.
Proposals may be submitted in Spanish, French or English and will be evaluated by a Scientific Committee, which will select the submissions to be presented during these conference days and will determine their possible participation in a subsequent publication, the inclusion of which will undergo a second and definitive evaluation by the Editorial Committee.
For submissions in a virtual format, participants must send a recording following certain technical requirements they will receive once participation is confirmed.
The programme of sessions will be published in the coming days.
Rethinking Guernica
Monday and Sunday - Check times
This guided tour activates the microsite Rethinking Guernica, a research project developed by the Museo Reina Sofía’s Collections Area, Conservation and Restoration Department and the Digital Projects Area of the Editorial Activities Department, assembling around 2,000 documents, interviews and counter-archives related to Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica (1937).
The visit sets out an in-situ dialogue between the works hung around the painting and a selection of key documents, selected by the Museo’s Education Team and essential to gaining an idea of the picture’s historical background. Therefore, the tour looks to contribute to activating critical thought around this iconic and perpetually represented work and seeks to foster an approach which refreshes our gaze before the painting, thereby establishing a link with the present. Essentially revisiting to rethink Guernica.
UP/ROOTING
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 NOV 2025
Museo Reina Sofía and MACBA Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) invite applications for the 2025 iteration of the School of Common Knowledge, which will take place from November 11th to 16th in Madrid and Barcelona.
The School of Common Knowledge (SCK) draws on the network, knowledge and experience of L’Internationale, a confederation of museums, art organizations and universities that strives to reimagine and practice internationalism, solidarity and communality within the cultural field. This year, the SCK program focuses on the contested and dynamic notions of rooting and uprooting in the framework of present —colonial, migrant, situated, and ecological— complexities.
Building on the legacy of the Glossary of Common Knowledge and the current European program Museum of the Commons, the SCK invites participants to reflect on the power of language to shape our understanding of art and society through a co-learning methodology. Its ambition is to be both nomadic and situated, looking at specific cultural and geopolitical situations while exploring their relations and interdependencies with the rest of the world.
In the current context fraught with war and genocide, the criminalization of migration and hyper-identitarianism, concepts such as un/belonging become unstable and in need of collective rethinking:
How can we reframe the sense and practice of belonging away from reductive nationalist paradigms or the violence of displacement? How to critically hold the entanglement of the colonial routes and the cultural roots we are part of? What do we do with the toxic legacies we inherit? And with the emancipatory genealogies and practices that we choose to align with? Can a renewed practice of belonging and coalition-making through affinity be part of a process of dis/identification? What geographies —cultural, artistic, political— do these practices of de/centering, up/rooting, un/belonging and dis/alignment designate?
Departing from these questions, the program consists of a series of visits to situated initiatives (including Museo Situado, Paisanaje and MACBA's Kitchen, to name a few), engagements with the exhibitions and projects on view (Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture from Panafrica), a keynote lecture by Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, as well as daily reading and discussion gatherings, editorial harvest sessions, and conviviality moments.
Ylia and Marta Pang
Thursday, 6 November - 8pm
The encounter between Spanish DJ and producer Ylia and visual artist Marta Pang is presented in the form of a premiere in the Museo Reina Sofía. Both artists converge from divergent trajectories to give form to a new project conceived specifically for this series, which aims to create new stage projects by setting out from the friction between artists and dialogue between disciplines.