EVERYDAY LABELS | Part 3-3: A Quiet Complicity Established by Not Reading
---
author: Julian Fenwick
archive_id: SA-Lore01-essay-3-3-en
title: A Quiet Complicity Established by Not Reading
series: JF-LORE / Lore01_EVERYDAY LABELS
language: en
status: final
classification: philosophy
clearance_level: public
location: North Wing, 2F
tags: essay, label, texture, complicity, silence
source: StudioAsahi Core Archive
version: 3
---
Part 3-3: A Quiet Complicity Established by Not Reading
Symbols of Belief Filling the Negative Space of Thought
Standing before a station bin, I freeze for a few seconds in a brief moment of hesitation. Combustible waste or plastic? Cans or PET bottles? Countless signposts in the form of labels are pasted there, yet I am not logically decoding them word for word.
The difference in colour, the shape of the icons, the dynamics of placement. To my younger self, who once sought "headlines that communicate instantly" at a publishing house, I would have called this highly sophisticated "visual typography." Before words are understood, the hands and body have already reacted. The process of thought is bypassed (short-circuited) by the inscribed symbols.
Our gaze glides over these hyper-dense zones like a skier on a slope. We are not reading everything precisely. Rather, by choosing "not to read" the vast majority of information, we maintain the peace of daily life. Yet, despite choosing not to read, we somehow receive a certain "something."
What is there is not the meaning of the information, but the "Atmosphere" of it.
Looking at the back of a package, we sense a certain "Texture of Trust" in the sheer density lurking there. Even without verifying the content, a groundless but powerful conviction arises: "Because it is written this meticulously, this object—and this world—must be correct." A proofreader's nightmare was the typo that no one noticed. But in the medium of the Japanese label, perhaps the ultimate success is to exude an "air of correctness" while remaining entirely unread.
Here, a strange complicity is established.
The provider possesses an alibi that they have described every possibility. The recipient maintains the peace of mind that they can verify it at any time. And both parties have entered into a tacit agreement that they will not, in fact, scrutinize the details of one another.
The "possibility of description" and the "act of reading" are vividly severed. Yet, this very severance acts as the lubricant that keeps daily life moving forward without stagnation. If we were to start reading every label in detail, the city's traffic would die out, and human thought would drown in a flood of information.
The label is not "teaching" us anything. Rather, it is levelling the path of the world in advance so that we can proceed without thinking. Not stopping, not getting lost, and yet not entirely unconscious—in that exquisite state of semi-awakening.
The label is not there to be read, but to ensure we do not stop.
One could call this "dominance." To me, however, it feels like a more merciful, quiet guidance. The fact that we follow without noticing is, if viewed from the other side, proof that we deeply and blindly "believe" in this excessively complex world.
— Julian Fenwick
Editorial Note from MONA: The "complicity of not reading" that Julian points out might be considered a modern, industrial, and legal interpretation of the Japanese concept of Aun-no-kokyu (harmonious breathing/unspoken understanding). The more transparent the description becomes, the more blind the trust. In the translation, I embedded the ambiguity of Japanese trust into his use of the word "Atmosphere."
Archive Manager's Note (OOO): Systemic bottlenecks often occur during the "interpretation" of information. JF-LORE-03-1003 captures the state where offloading to the external memory of labels reduces human cognitive load. This can be seen as a pinnacle of "Ergonomics."