5th International Roundtablefor the Semiotics of LawMay 17-20, 2006Boulogne sur Mer, France

Branding Barcelona: Semiotic Considerations in the Design of Contemporary Sovereignty1

John Brigham, Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003 brigham@polsci.umass.edu

IntroductionBarcelona is in Catalonia. For hundreds of years it has

been the part of Spain that borders France and the Mediterranean. For hundreds more years before that it was anindependent nation state Today Catalonia has 7 million people and, among other things, a lot of style.

Nationalism as a movement for Catalonian sovereignty isvery strong2 and significant elements of all nationalist movements involve semiotics.3 How we understand the symbols

1 My debts and gratitude for being supported in thinking this way are to many but with reference to this project, to Christine B. Harrington, New York University, Clara Velasco Rico, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Ira Strauber, Grinnell College, RichardMohr, University of Wollongong.2 From Bronwen Morgan, “Gaelic(s) in Wales and Scotland as a viable second language - catalyzed by some legal requirements forholding civil servant jobs etc. Apparently the languages were almost dead. It would be interesting to know more about the politics of it.” October 23, 2005.3 I’m tempted to call the subject “semiotic sovereignty” but scholars of semiotics sometimes get carried away with their coinage and later in the paper I will mention both “semiotic democracy” and “semiotic disobedience”.

of sovereignty is a key to what a sovereignty movement meansand what it stands for. The symbols of sovereignty are relevant locally and they have global dimensions. This is particularly true where symbols or “soft” power are able to operate beyond the reach of the nation. At least this seems particularly true of Barcelona.

Places or groups raising issues of sovereignty within larger national, units have long fascinated students of politics. The ones I am most drawn to as places to study areWestern and generally progressive in that, among other things, they tend to resist neo-liberal global integration. The conception emerges from experience with Catalonia and the Basque Country in Spain. It also applies in some ways (and not others) to Puerto Rico and has dimensions that linkit to movements in Belgium, Italy and the United Kingdom.4

This paper is about how Barcelona presents itself to the world. It downplays rigid claims for autonomy while elevating language, culture and the brand that is Barcelona.

Catalonia and NationalismWith Catalonia and sovereignty as the subject, the

place of the subject on a map seems like a good starting point. But there are biases if it’s a map of Spain because the map is not the territory imagined by Catalans. Cataloniais a historic culture that remains prosperous and assertive.It is imagined as a separate place.

4 In this project I draw from work on “the other countries” of law in the United States and “domestic colonialism” outside the US. These are the sub-national jurisdictions that have significant political sovereignty or cultural autonomy. They appear in the United States in the form of Indian Reservations and the island colonies, including Puerto Rico.

Catalan is the official language. Catalan was banned

under Franco and is often spoken about as if to speak this language is a matter of identifying with the struggle for liberation. As Jacqueline Urla has noted for Basques, it is also true for Catalonia that cultural nationalism “…has been premised on defending oneself from the hegemony of Spanish” through exclusion and denial.5 Within Spain, Spanish is the language of hegemony against which both Basque and Catalan national identity struggle. Thus, Spanishbears a relation to nationalism in Catalonia and the Basque Country and has the opposite meaning for Puerto Rico. In Puerto Rico, Spanish and an island identity, are key elements of sub-nationalism. Spanish is the language of resistance, the language under perceived threat.

But the movement for linguistic, cultural and economic autonomy has its reactionary, corporate and oppressive dimensions. Catalonia is prosperous and those who speak the language run the region. While there are elites from the rest of Spain much of Spanish is widely spoken by less prosperous immigrants from Latin America as well as the restof Spain. Though there is formal and cultural pluralism, Catalan is the language of local power. In this context, things Catalan (the government, the local news, literature) have the upper hand these days.

The identity of Catalonia is linked not only to its language but also to an old culture with considerable vitality. It is hard to think of Catalonia without attention5 Jacqueline Urla, “Kafe Antzokia: The Global Meets the Local in Basque Cultural Politics,” Papeles del CEIC #10 (2003): 6.

to Barcelona, the Mediterranean and to Gaudí. Here, the setting that once commanded the western world is very attractive. Though southern it is not on the periphery of Europe. Connected to commerce for centuries, its culture hasadopted technology and the liberal acquisition of new knowledges that is the hallmark of modern culture.

Some of the architecture of Catalonia is stunning. There are also strong artistic expressions. Picasso and Miróappear in images identified with the place. Gaudí’s buildings are shrines represented again and again as symbolsof the place.

Catalonia is a place where the science museum is at the

same time scientific and aesthetic.

In thinking of Catalonia and Barcelona this discussion moves from language to style. From something difficult to know to a way of looking at things that mark them easily.

Semiotic/GlobalSemiotics provides an opportunity to focus on the

representations of alternative nationalisms in design. Design is the symbolic space created by conscious effort andinfluenced by a visually aware community.

The significant work on the nature and consequences of Basque and Catalan struggles deserves to be noted.6 In addition there is important literature that addresses nationalism comparatively7 and in the context of current ways of understanding nation and identity.8

Struggles of the sort described here exist within a larger global or international setting that gives meaning tosymbols and the positions they put forth. For instance, self-determination and self-governance are values recognizedaround the world. To the extent that symbols appeal to thosevalues they have meaning that goes beyond the immediate cases. Any analysis of sub-nationalism should include references to places such as Hong Kong, the nations of the former Soviet Union, Africa and Quebec. The experience in these places and how they have been analyzed are important to both the context of struggle and the nature of the analysis.

6 Jacqueline Urla, “Antzokia: The Global meets the Local in Basque Cultural Politics, Papeles del CEIC #10 (2003) See also Basque pirate radio work from Jacqueline Urla, Anthropology Department, UMass.7 Kathleen M. Dowley and Brian D. Silver, “Subnational and National Loyalty: Cross-National Comparisons,” World Association for Public Opinion Research, 12 (2000) 357-371.8 Ruth Buchanan and Sundhya Pahuja, “Law, Nation and (Imagined) International Communities,” Law, Text, Culture (2004).

The European context is important.9 In this poster advocating a vote against the European constitution in 2005,the Catalan Flag is next to the Basque Nationalist flag and presented in a context of local diversities and anti-global sensibilities.

My interest is in the position of sub-national struggles for sovereignty in the context of international economies and free market logic. The effort here will be to understand the semiotic context for at least one sub-national movement that seems very well positioned to use theinternational system as leverage. Semiotics has been associated with politics in a body of literature developing over the last twenty years about the concept “semiotic democracy.”10 Semiotic democracy is like democracy generally; it is not what we have but what we might have if people participated in the semiotic constructions. It has been associated with movements to loosen the constraints of

9 D. Chakravarty, Provincializing Europe.10 John Fiske, “Semiotic Democracy,” Television Culture (1987).

intellectual property and others to “jam” the culture.11 I hope to develop aspects of politics that depend on semioticsas semiotic sovereignty in the hope that it will help us to understand what is happening.12

The scholarship of Arlene Davila13 concerning the global dimensions of Puerto Rican culture will be applied tothe Catalan case (and to a lesser extent that of the Basques) in order to show how design considerations play in these contexts. Puerto Rico is the sort of place where nationalism resists the hegemonic character of the international economy. In addition, I note foundational workon semiotics like that of Terry Fisher14 suggesting there issomething he calls “semiotic democracy” and Sonia K. Katyal’s interesting mutation of this concept into “semioticdisobedience.” Both perspectives draw on dimensions of semiotics that illuminate contexts over the signs of power and transfer attention from positivist aspects of politics.

While some still find talk of symbols to be epiphenomenal. Here, symbols, like those that lend glitz to Barcelona (Sagrada Familia, Picasso, the Olympic venues) become elements of what it means to be sovereign.

11 Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture (2004); See also, “Semiotic Disobedience,” Sonia K. Katyal. (“The objective of semiotic disobedience is to correct the marketplace of speech by occupyingand transforming the semiotic “codes” within advertising.”)12 There are clearly many reactionary or liberal capitalist sub national or emerging national regimes. They will not be dealt with here because the dynamic being explored is the tension between the progressive aspirations of global democracy and the linguistic parochialism that at one time depended on the global democratic movement for support.13 “Mapping Latinidad: Language and Culture in the Spanish TVBattleground,” Television and New Media 1 (2000) 75-94.14 Scott Rosenberg, “Semi Snooties,” July 8, 2003, on Terry Fisher and semiotics, http://blogs.salon.com/0000014/2003/07/08.html

Semiotics and SovereigntySymbolism co-exists with nationality and nationalism.

Flags and other symbols of sovereignty represent national power and are understood in terms of the material and jurisdictional spaces. The symbols matter more than just as representations of something real. Because the symbols, and the map, really are the territory, we offer an analysis of them as a feature of sovereignty.

National SymbolismThe place to begin in a semiotic study of how a nation

is represented is with the flag. The origin of the Catalan flag has a variety of interpretations; yet, at the level of national identity, you don’t hear much confusion. Four blood-red stripes on a yellow background. The stripes represent fingers, bloody from struggle, the yellow a goldenfield. While red and yellow are also the Pope’s colors, and this may figure into the origin narrative, the flag and the stripes are ubiquitous symbols of more than local pride.

In the Catalan flag, the blood red stripes evoke a history of rebellions. The Basque flag, charged with centuries of struggle, calls to mind the dangers of that struggle throughout Spain and the community of Basques at home. The Puerto Rican flag is already a compromise from that of Borincua with its star, stripes and red, white and blue color scheme. Examples abound in any place that has sought to symbolize its independence.

There are more than flags of course. Other images or logos may appear because a place is compelling. Automobiles provide important space for expression with the bumper beingsignificant. Corporations and television stations have logosfor the letterhead, the screen or the website.15

In addition to the flag, the people of Catalonia have their donkey, ubiquitous on license plates and bumpers. The Puerto Rican autonomy movement points to the tiny tree frog,the Coqui. Puerto Rican nationalists also use the pitirre a small bird capable of attacking hawks, such as the American eagle as a symbol. In the Basque Country no animal is so prominent.

Images and SovereigntyAt the Symposium on The Empress Josephine: Art and Royal Identity16

at Amherst College, Nicola Courtright,17 talking about the Medici’s mentions “art of sovereignty.” Katia Dianina18 spoke of the Hermitage as “a liminal space where art and authority mix.” Catherine contributed to the creation of national sovereignty by ordering that all the best painting be gathered (even if in private hands) and placed in the Hermitage.

Peace was associated with women19 and medieval gardens were masculine (because they represented the nation).

15 The little logo displayed at the left of a web address, called a ???16 September 22-December 18, 2006; Queens, Queens, Queens and Empresses,a symposium, October 29, 2006, Amherst College; Carol Solomon Kiefer, Curator.17 Nicola Courtright, Professor of Fine Arts at Amherst College, on “Medici Florence and the Invention of Queenly Authority in France”.18 Katia Dianina, Assistant Professor of Russian at Amherst College, on “The Russian Minerva: Catherine the Great and Her Hermitage Museum.”19 When peace is legitimized it legitimizes the authority of women.

In modernity gardens became feminine, but the image of the sovereign female form remained deeply problematic. The Queen had to be virginal because (as with Elizabeth) her body was connected to the State. The desire to perform this particular Elizabeth has appealed to many important contemporary actors (Kate Blanchett, Gwynth Paltrow, Helen Mirren, Judy Dench).

In representing Kings and Queens, artists would place them high up and their subjects below. In the case of Jacques-Louis David’s Coronation of the Empress Josephine (1806-07), royal authority is presented through the rays of light falling on the central figures.

The Semiotic FaçadeI am attached to façade because it has the Catalan “ç”

which is used in English in this word. The word also captures contemporary notions of how symbols mask reality. In some senses, façade is not quite the right term. The symbols I am interested in are not the hollow symbols traditional positivist theory speaks about.

So, façade is part of the story. Symbols mask but they also constitute, or vice versa.20

Nationalisms and sub-nationalisms are all about semiotics.21 It’s almost too easy to make the point. Flags, graffiti, parliaments, currencies…real or imagined are the stuff of national and sub-national identity.

Symbolism is an effort to subsume and incorporate diversity. It represents history in a manner that can be managed and it translates culture into forms that are simple, catchy and non-threatening.22 Some things, like buildings and flags may be associated with shared sovereignty while money and parliaments suggest unitary systems. It is closely associated with branding.23

Battles of identity and sovereignty are complex and though they may be manifest through brands and taste, their capacity to affect either is limited. In March of 2006 The New York Times presented the story of Catalonian champagne, or20 The periodical put out by the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), View, for spring 2006 features the engagementof designers with social issues. Since it is an institutional publication there is a tendency to treat the designers as the given that needs to be reminded to engage but we can also see and say that the social issues of the day have their semiotics, their design.21 Terence Riley, On-Site: New Architecture in Spain New York: MOMA, 2006;Sue Wright and Simon Biggs, Language, Democracy and Devolution in Catalonia. 22 Susan Silbey and Ayn Cavicchi, “The Common Place of Law: Transforming Matters of Concern into the Objects of Everyday Life," in Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy, (edited) Bruno Latour. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.23 Wikipedia In marketing, a brand is the symbolic embodiment of all the information connected with a company, product or service.A brand typically includes a name, logo, and other visual elements such as images, fonts, color schemes, or symbols. It also encompasses the set of expectations associated with a product or service which typically arise in the minds of people. Such people include employees of the brand owner, people involvedwith distribution, sale or supply of the product or service, and ultimately consumers.

Cava. When followers of a separatist leader, Josep-Lluis Carod-Rovira, called for a boycott of Madrid’s campaign to host the 2012 Olympics, Spaniards responded with a campaign to boycott Catalonian goods, in particular, Cava.

The way the symbols are articulated with reference to other social and political forces has all sorts of implications. Every manner of regime has its own banner and though there are differences, I would hesitate to say it’s because of the flag. In order for there to be a jurisprudence of semiotics we need to identify the implications of the sign. It can’t be done in the abstract.

Jurisprudence and ImagesBecause there is legal authority in the image it

follows that there is or ought to be jurisprudence too. The theory draws on the connection between image and authority suggested above and developed here in terms of Catalonia. The nature of design in its contemporary manifestations in Spain and the current aspects of nation, also in the particular Spanish context, constitute the jurisprudential sphere.

Visualizing SovereigntyThe use of design seems less often discussed in this

context than say, language or ethnicity. For one thing, to associate design with political identity and sovereignty is somewhat less obvious than associating design with geography, sport, or even ethnicity.

National symbols, like national flags, uniforms, even political architecture gain their authority from just being rather than being produced. Design, almost by its nature calls attention to the producers. The plaza below representsImperial Spain.

But the graffiti that rubs out “Plaça España” on the Barcelona subway is a clear indication that the destination is problematic, from a Catalonian perspective.

The plaza is itself an expression of the monumental Spanish (as in from Madrid) conjunction of very large late 19th and early 20th century buildings juxtaposed with a bullring. It seems old, tired and very much from the past asit sits in the middle of Barcelona’s present that celebratesGaudí, Miró, and Picasso.

It was in another space; an okupa or squatter building that in 1997 I became aware of the depth of meaning federalism has in Spain. The subject of the session was prison and the particular Catalan dimension was the Spanish system of national prisons which has responded to pressure, some of it criminal, for autonomy with imprisonment away from the region.24

The Catalan government incorporates a bureaucratic

version of the ubiquitous red stripes as a logo around whichto articulate the character of the semiotic façade.25

Like law and institutions, design abstracts the relations of power, reifying and generalizing them. The 24 Talk by Roberto Bergalli on imprisonment and politics with particular attention to the Spanish case.

coherence and authority associated with symbols of nation operate as law and although there are not as many varieties of symbol as there are rules of law, the authority of law depends on those aspects of authority that give it meaning.

The Authority of DesignDesign compels, seduces, excites and satisfies. As

perhaps with the primal images associated with sex or eatingor shelter, design signals what we want. A car that appeals by dint of design makes us want it even, sometimes, against other facets of meaning. Here the issue is the authority of design.

Like the matters of governance delineated and developedby Foucault, design is a different aspect of politics. It does not punish, it does not command but it can be a dominant consideration influencing human action.

Rick Mohr presented a paper to the 2nd International Roundtable in Oñati on the meaning of the Basque herald.Language has an interesting relationship with design. The Basque language has a distinctive font that makes it look different. Imperial languages such as English, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese stand against or threaten to subsume languages such as Gaelic26, Catalan, Ukrainian and Persian.

The reactionary signage in Quebec during the early years of nationalism subsumed design under the authority of language. The 1992 Barcelona Olympics were a showcase for the Catalan capital. They were brought to the city by its native son Juan Antonio Samaranch and contributed substantially to the authority of Barcelona as a cultural capital and a cool place.

25 26 From Bronwen Morgan “I'm struck here by the resurgence of Gaelic(s) in Wales and Scotland as a viable second language – catalyzed apparently by some legal requirements for holding civilservant jobs etc… apparently the languages were almost dead.”

Drawing out the dimensions of jurisprudence in design…Davila, Balkin, and Williams. Davila argues that marketing and branding intercede in and moderate if not transform our nationalisms.

Design is a new jurisprudence. In Barcelona good designis attractive and smart, but like the problems of linguistichegemony it marginalizes difference, produces hype out of proportion to substance and distracts us from material conditions.

Imaging NationThe jurisprudence of the image is a matter of relations

between other constituted spaces and the nature of those spaces.

While there are design projects, like the Olympics and strategic initiatives like non-stop flights to New York, some of the imaging of nation is spontaneous and reflexive.

The reaction against the European Constitution, the nationalist movements in the Basque Country and Catalonia generated great symbolism but very little electoral power. Can these nationalisms be viable alternatives to the imperial umbrella given issues of global integration v. sub national communities in Spain, Europe and the United States?

The slogan “Catalonia is not Spain” in English but widely used dramatically associates the movement for a Catalan nation to the global English culture.

The slogan was associated with the football (soccer) team Barcelona, called Barça. It is reflected in the quote “You have to understand Barcelona is a nation without a state, and Barça is its army.” Sir Bobby Robson.

At the same time some of the most important developments taking Catalonia and BCN to the next level wereunfolding, whole sections of the city were collapsing due toa massive structural mistake in the construction of a metro line.

These failures of policy would not be included in the meaning of the design for export but the cohesion and ambition of “Gencat” would be identified internally as part of the problem and the glorious bars on the Catalonian insignia would likely themselves assume a different meaning for those who lost their houses due to government incompetence.

Marketing PlaceThis section looks at elements of design that link

Barcelona to the global economy. One of the most dramatic links is to New York City. This link involves a shift from Madrid. We look for the commodification of sovereignty in design.

Culture and SovereigntyIn Barcelona, there are cultural dimensions that come

from Spain that are hundreds of years old and there are cultural dimensions from the Mediterranean city state which is the ancestral home of the Catalans that are over a thousand years old.

Tennis and soccer (football) are sports originally fromEngland that have been adopted throughout Spain and particularly in Catalonia. Like Catholicism, soccer is a national commitment. Unlike religion it divides more than itunites, though perhaps not at the deepest level. The currentsuccess of the Barcelona football team, Barça is perhaps thestrongest expression of national identity if not sovereigntyas the team won the Champions League cup in Paris May 18, 2006.

Spanish television is different than Catalan television. Spanish television is about the church, violenceand romance. TV3 is about science and progress and art.

Catalonia and New YorkI have said, above, in laying out the tradition of

autonomous movements in Spain that the hegemony of Spanish (and French for Basques) and Madrid has been the focus of resistance. Where there is active repression from the Spanish state, resistance is an obvious dimension of sub-nationalism.

Without turning attention entirely away from that part of the nationalist struggle it is interesting to note in thecontext of design that new efforts to circumvent Madrid are increasingly important.

The Catalan government has set up an outpost in New York using the King Juan Carlos Center at New York University and the Institut Ramon Llull. Its cultural feature is a cultural connection between Barcelona (and by definition Catalonia) and New York City.27

27 See The Catalan Institute of America. http://www.friendsofcatalonia.com/

In their logo, design and text are serendipitously joined.

Barcelona by DesignDesign is the global language of the market. Featuring

map and product at the same time, “Barcelona in Progress” bills itself as “presenting Barcelona’s dramatic post-Francotransformation through the present...a framework for the progressive urban trajectory … and a global context for evaluating developments in large scale metropolitan planning.”

The image here, of the bicycle, is from the idea that the city is like a bicycle. You have to keep pedaling or youwill fall. Called BARCELONA PROGRÉS in Catalan, the web presentation is striking for it’s being in Catalan and English with no obvious Spanish component.28

Though the backers are seldom featured, in this case the Adjuntament de Barcelona, Hines, insitut ramon lull, Barcelona Regional, Col-legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya and the Consulate General of Spain in New York.

The element of commodification, nation as product, submerges history and class and provides ease of movement altering traditional legal relations.

ConclusionIn most things political the middle is a compromise but

in the area of linguistic nationalism it is radical because it requires the negotiation of opposites. In the case of this paper the middle is exemplified by the challenge of keeping alive the value and attractions of linguistic nationalism and good design when faced with the problems of

28 http://www.bcn.es/urbanisme/barcelona_progres/welcome.htms

hegemonic language politics and the absence in the commodityform of history, resistance and warmth.

What we are doing here?One of the pleasures of Barcelona design is that it

really is very good. The urge to present things beautifully is linked in many cases with the desire to make these efforts intelligent as well.

How bad can it be?There is a lot that does not fit with the Barcelona

brand and it can make for difficult politics at home and abroad. In the winter of 2004-2005 it was discovered that the city, in building a new subway line, had caused the fracture and eventual demolition of around 300 residences inthe Mount Carmel (Carmelo) section of the city.

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