Fútbolgraphs

Fútbolgraphs are a writing system. In my country, football is part of the national identity. The Argentine Republic is a young town, born just 200 years ago as a land of promise for many people in the world. It was born practically from nothing, since the native peoples of America had been literally exterminated in successive military campaigns aimed at controlling and populating the territory of a State in formation. Thus, it received a large amount of immigration from many countries in the world, but above all European, back in the late 19th century and early 20th century. This represented a great challenge for a new country, which at that time was presented as a land of prosperity and opportunities. In the Argentine collective unconscious there is always nostalgia for a legendary past, in which it is said that the country was among the richest and most prosperous in the world. Whether the vast majority of the population led a life of prosperity is a great debate, in which it could be concluded that they did not; But that past of strength and optimism remains in the Argentine mythos even today. There are many rulers who win elections by promising a return to that past, to that country that once was but is no longer. And the truth is that it has experienced a great decline in the quality of life of its inhabitants. Argentina is a country that was not; or perhaps it was, but it surely is not. Being again is the goal of an entire population that is torn between indigenous doctrines such as Peronism, or other European ones such as neoliberalism, social democracy or even Marxist or even conservative oligarchic models: so representative of that Argentina called “the granary.” of the world". The truth is that Argentine society has sunk in a search for a path that it has not yet been able to resolve, taking different and even opposite paths in various periods of its recent history.

If there is something in which the country has achieved many goals, it is in football. Soccer is the sport par excellence in Argentina, and it is a unique link that unites the entire population in the same feeling. Perhaps the Malvinas cause is different, but in that case the country is not successful either. It is the heritage of the gaucho culture, which in the 19th century and early 20th century was a myth that also unified the people in that search for national being. But the gaucho was little by little being displaced in a society that was urbanizing and industrializing; and although that gaucho feeling is far from disappearing, other social manifestations have been filling that space in various ways in modern life, for people who were born and lived their entire lives in an urban environment, to whom the gaucho remains such. maybe a little far away. Thus, football and tango were making a place for themselves, while gaucho and folk music, far from disappearing, were giving way to modernity.

Only in football, Argentina has found a path that has put it on top of the world, or rather has made it “be.” Also in football there are different schools and differences, it is true, but they are all united by something that could be clearly defined as “passion”. Football is a common topic of conversation in work environments, among friends, in families every day of the week. All Argentine children, including me (I'm not going to lie), dream at least once of being world champions and succeeding in that sport. Everyone has kicked a ball well or badly and has felt the adrenaline of a game even if it was played for fun among a group of friends. Football is transmitted from generation to generation from parents to children, which clearly constitutes a cultural heritage that goes beyond a sport.

In 2022, when Argentina won its third world championship in Qatar, more than five million people joined in a celebration at the Buenos Aires obelisk, a traditional place for important meetings and events in our history. Football is that which unites, and that which fills people with passion, that which is debated, that which is dreamed of, in short: that which generates a tradition.

What decided me to plastically address the issue of football is the fact that I believe it is the only joy that the poor have, in a country in which the injustices of society are exposed more and more every day. It is also a form of social advancement: both economically and interpersonally. Soccer for the Argentine is part of a cultural identity, which is reflected not only in the practice of the sport, but in the culture that surrounds the fans, a feeling with mythical, religious and transcendent overtones.

As we said, futbolgraphs are a writing system. Perhaps it is the only writing system with infinite signs. Both phonetic and ideographic writing have a common characteristic, which is that the number of signs is limited, and the signifiers and meanings are constructed through the different combinations of these that are repeated in one way or another. It is not like that in footballgrahps: where the signs are infinite; as infinite as plays can be made within a playing field. To put it better, in this type of writing, a sign is never repeated, so it is ephemeral, as ephemeral as the play on the playing field that occurs in a fraction of a second and only remains in memory later. It is true that technical recording devices such as television record plays that remain forever; but futbolgrahps point to an even more original way of recording an event. Before television existed, or was so widespread as to record all the plays of all football games (and even today they do not do so in all), the story already existed. Many legendary players and encounters prior to these technical advances come to us today through stories. The written word has been the best way to transmit what memory retained, what happened in a fraction of a second and is no longer.

A futbolgrahp is a way of recording, through infinite and unrepeatable signs, what happened on a playing field. The movement of the players and the ball form the sign, which is represented on the blank paper, forming a living account of what happened. This type of writing forms calligraphy, which, arranged on the support of paper or fabric, tells a story: the story of what happened that day and in that place.

Stories about football games have always fascinated me since I was a child. It was entering a world of legendary battles, where heroes (in this case simple soccer players) fought legendary and unforgettable battles. That's what football is made up of, epic and unforgettable stories that remain forever in the memory and constitute a tradition, of heroic deeds or perhaps sad and regrettable ones, but that make up the cultural heritage of what identifies a people. A nation is constituted, among other things, through stories that are what build a national identity; Soccer stories are closely linked to the national being of the Argentine people, constituting their own identity. It is for this reason that I looked for a resource that would allow us to put together stories, not simply through the written word or oral tradition, but that would go even further and constitute a visual story, armed with plastic resources, that would constitute a dedicated calligraphy. to what it intends to relate. In footballgraphs the story is not constructed based on the calligraphic sign, but on the contrary, the calligraphic sign is constructed through the story.

The text constructs the calligraphy, the meaning constructs the signifier. I understand this type of calligraphy as a middle path between the icon and the index if we can somehow refer it to the semiotics of Charles Sanders Pierce. Halfway along that path is the calligraphic sign of the futbolgraph, which is not able to refer the mind directly to the meaning as the icon can, and nor does it have a high level of indexicality. Perhaps it is on a path that shows, through the form, rhythm and speed of the stroke, the very soul of the play, the very essence of what happened in a fraction of a second within a playing field, which the collective memory will write in stone and maintain as eternal.

But Argentina has always sought its own style in football, from “ours” to the present day, it has always debated imported formulas and adaptation to a “national” style of play. But there is a characteristic that I believe is fundamental and indigenous to Argentine football that could never be overlooked: the action of the people. A soccer match in Argentina is not only an act that occurs on the playing field between twenty-two players, but also in the stands. Football in Argentina is a collective creation, perhaps much more than in any other part of the world. It is impossible to dissociate the action on the playing field with the songs and encouragement of the people, who experience each play as an event of destiny itself. From the stands and from the field, a whole is constituted, a collective action that finally puts together what is the essence of football. Perhaps as if he knew that the plastic work is not constituted by the artist, but that it irremediably needs the action of the viewer in order to close its most complete meaning as a work.

I could not leave the action of the public out of the footballgraphs, since referring only to the movements of the players on the field would be a completely incomplete representation, and much more, totally lacking in meaning and incapable of representing a football match. For that same reason I decided to incorporate certain resources that represent the action of the public in the work, through plastic resources such as graphics and their rhythms, gold, color temperature.

Footballgrah is not only a writing that describes the actions of players, but it recounts a collective moment, through signs as infinite as the events of all the lives of the souls that participated in a given moment, in a common place, in a passion that united them and led them to build a legendary moment that they will all carry forever in their memories.