Since 1974, when it was applied for the first time in the United States on a pack of American gum, the bar code has ended up being applied today to any type of goods offered for sale even in the most remote corner of the planet, and its presence it clashes with the uncontaminated nature of places like the Sahara or the Himalayas. Pantanella, in underlining the contradiction, seems to want to bring the barcode - due to its shape, use and widespread diffusion - to the evocative dimension which is the one that most inspires and intimately corresponds to it. In fact, he ennobles it, looking at it with sarcasm mixed with yearning, and refers us with his watercolor inks to the seals of the Byzantine governors or the tughra of the Ottoman emperors, signs however of political power, while the bar code is of economic power and its ability to order and catalog the world transformed into a single, huge market.