EVERYDAY LABELS | Part 1-3: The Multilayered Structure of Overlapping "Destinations"
---
author: Julian Fenwick
archive_id: SA-Lore01-essay-1-3-en
title: The Multilayered Structure of Overlapping "Destinations"
series: JF-LORE / Lore01_EVERYDAY LABELS
language: en
status: final
classification: analysis
clearance_level: public
location: North Wing, 2F
tags: essay, label, multilayer, destination, communication
source: StudioAsahi Core Archive
version: 3
---
Part 1-3: The Multilayered Structure of Overlapping "Destinations"
"Please consume as soon as possible after opening." When I encounter those words tucked away in the corner of a package, I feel a faint sense of relief. It possesses a human warmth, as if someone has imagined a scene from my daily life and whispered a gentle word of advice.
However, the moment I shift my focus to the microscopic strings of text just millimetres away, that relief evaporates. Though they coexist on the same flat surface, the "temperature of the words" drops sharply. Even if I attempt to read them, there is no window of dialogue opened toward me.
The long lists of ingredients and allergy warnings lurking on the back of food items. "This product is manufactured in a facility that also processes..." When I begin to wonder for whom this sentence is intended, I always feel as if I am standing in a thick fog. It seems to be information for me, yet at the same time, it appears to be a signal broadcast toward some other entity who isn't even here.
The warnings on household detergents or appliances have an even more complex topology. Next to the urgent, life-saving instruction—"In case of contact with eyes, rinse immediately with running water"—there follows a cold catalogue of possibilities, as if indexing every conceivable misfortune. There is no touch of actual daily life there; only statistical "probability" and legal "definitions" are presented with stark formality.
Observing these, I realized that within the cramped space of a Japanese label, words with completely different "destinations" coexist without being sorted.
One is a kind piece of advice directed at the "beneficiary" currently holding the product. Another is the inorganic "evidence" directed at future courts or advisory bodies. And perhaps, a third is a "spell" to ensure the gears of the massive social machine turn smoothly.
Originally, all of these were likely written for the safety of the "user." From my common sense as a former editor of practical books, the benefit of the reader was the absolute sovereign of the text. In Japanese label culture, however, that sovereignty has somehow become dispersed.
It is a preemptive gaze toward an accident that hasn't happened yet. Or a gaze directed toward an absent prosecutor seeking to assign liability in an unforeseen event. A call not to "me," the one chasing the characters here and now, but to a far more distant or vast "system."
Because the destinations overlap and their vectors point in different directions while being crammed onto a single small surface, a strange "silence" hangs over that place—that hyper-dense zone of text with a population density exceeding Tokyo's. Certainly, something is written to excess, yet no clear, singular call reaches the ears.
This is precisely because words are being thrown in too many directions simultaneously.
I am fascinated by this ambiguity, but at the same time, I feel an inexplicable unease. Why did Japanese labels come to possess such a complex, multilayered structure? And where are these words actually trying to go?
The stage of observation ends here. I have decided to step further into this "forest of labels," into its historical background and the deep layers of its linguistic structure. There, I am sure, I will find another face of this country that I do not yet know.
— Julian Fenwick
Editorial Note from MONA: Julian’s use of the phrase "temperature of words" was highly suggestive to me as a translator. In Japanese, there is a coexistence of extremely different registers: the "kind consideration" of honorifics and the "cold administrative procedure" of Sino-Japanese vocabulary. He accurately caught that fracture from the fragments of daily life that are labels.
Archive Manager's Note (OOO): With this manuscript, the archiving of Part 1 (Introductory Essays) is complete. From the JF-LORE-02 series onward, we will shift to investigating specific historical transitions and institutional backgrounds. Julian’s interest is currently directed toward the "medicine wrapping papers" of the Edo period.