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Contemporary Engagements Within Corridors of the Past

Temporal Elasticity, Graffiti and the Materiality of St Rock Street, Barcelona

Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology, Spain, horengo{at}icac.net

David W. Robinson

UUniversity of Central Lancashire, UK, DWRobinson{at}uclan.ac.uk

In a medieval Barcelonan side street, urine, rubbish and a bewildering array of graphic imagery splatters the narrowing walls between two major thoroughfares. A contemporary conflict between residents, unknown artists and others is played out using banners, bottles, stickers, posters, stencils, spray paint and bodily substances. In this shadowy liminality, local and global debates are superimposed upon substructures constructed from disease, prostitution and the Saint of the Plague. The continuing urban struggle constitutes temporal statements of dirt and purity, violence and humour, dominance and resistance, death and salvation. Like the renovated facades masking the crumbling remains of structures long neglected, the local council's literal whitewashing of the art is a temporal cover-up of a discursive symptom stretching from deeply embedded preconditions. However, from his niche in the angular bend of the short side street bearing three names, the statue of St Rock remains unblinkingly staring, raised above the contestations expressed below him.

Key Words: archaeological attitude • contestation • graffiti • materiality • pollution • temporality

Journal of Material Culture, Vol. 13, No. 3, 267-286 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1359183508095496


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