Naše země dostala příležitost prokázat absurdnost okupánských záminek a žalob, dostala příležitost veřejně osvědčit a demonstrovat solidaritu, odolnost, a vůli žít svobodně, a uskutečňovat jen humanitní socialismus (Our country has the opportunity to show the absurdity of the occupation’s pretenses and accusations, has the opportunity to publicly establish and demonstrate solidarity, resistance, and the will to live freely, and to realize humanitarian socialism). (3:46–4:04)

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Czechoslovak Broadcasting
28 August 1968

Context: the mood of restraint.

Alexander James Brown provides some helpful context for the anti-nuclear movement. He explains the “mood of restraint” in post-3/11 society, an “atmosphere” built on tragedy and spun with threads of ugly feelings: anxiety, uncertainty, failure (39). The Japanese people were “stupefied,” “overwhelmed,” and “confused,” in the words of activist Amamiya Karin, by the series of unknowns leading to and following after the triple disaster (qtd. 43). How can someone make sense of a disaster with unknown causes and unknown effects? As organizer Oda Masanori writes of the anti-war movement,

People dashed outside with this feeling of being at one’s wits end, of being unable to bear this suffocating feeling. (qtd. 46)

It’s suffocating—the static, stubborn not-knowing, the not-speaking, not-expressing, not-doing—such that a person might be compelled to “dash outside” in hopes of any change at all. And still, only silence.

As I wrote in my last blog post, without a catalyst, ugly feelings might continue without end alongside the everyday. That’s just what the mood of restraint called for, a catalyst for “emotional release,” and that’s what it found in the form of protest, according to Brown (41):

Affective protest creates space for the expression of emotions, particularly negative emotions, which otherwise may not be socially acceptable. (43)

Protest, in words and body, allows for the release of pent-up anger, frustration, and blame, and of the hopelessness that comes with inaction (64). Through the play of sound demonstrations, it can tend to “feelings of powerlessness,” or the impotence recognized and resisted by stuplimity (48). A sort of disorganization can help, too, as countering the mood of restraint didn’t have to mean defending a single argument or posing a single solution, but might instead take the nebulous shape of solidarity.

This is what we find in humanERROR—a performative protest that resists the mood of restraint by giving voice to the fury, the frustration, the indignation, and most of all the silence following 3/11. It’s a protest in the name of feeling, not reasoning; of experience, not ideology. When the vocalist is seen from a low angle, framed against clear sunny skies, we see this best. In those moments, he isn’t preaching to Japan, but screaming into the skies in a visceral act. “This is no time for hair-splitting arguments” (9:14).

Context: place, time, body.

By nature of performing, speaking, even being in public, Frying Dutchman put themselves at risk. Not bodily, in the strictest sense, as would be the case in or near exclusion zones, for example, but in mind or spirit. Breaking the silence, they enter into a state of being vulnerable to the censorship upheld as much by the powers of government, corporation, and media as by society and the self. That’s the price of confronting the expectations of group conformity, as Brown describes through sociologist Shibuya Nozomu (42). Vulnerability is the price of bodily assembly, which “puts livable life at the forefront of politics” (Butler 18).

The protest of bodies assembled in the street (and let’s not forget other forms of protest: by nature, such as those in virtual space, or by necessity, as in the hunger strikes of prisoners) calls attention to what Judith Butler calls interdependencies. humanERROR embodies the feelings shared by many Japanese, especially in this historical moment, but also the basic needs of human life—safe access to public space, air, mobility, land, shelter, sustenance—which are denied to some by the nuclear power industry and threatened for all of material life in the nuclear age. Butler explains:

What I am suggesting is that it is not just that this or that body is bound up in a network of relations, but that the body, despite its clear boundaries, or perhaps precisely by virtue of those boundaries, is defined by the relations that make its own life and action possible. (130)

Frying Dutchman are working to strive in concert, as Butler would say, to demonstrate the symbiosis between one body and all other bodies, one individual and all of society. They suggest, I depend on you, and you on me. We have to work together.

Frying Dutchman invite participation from anyone who crosses their path, on the street or with a flyer, to witness in the moment or replay after the fact. They “accept a kind of unchosen dimension to our solidarity with others” (Butler 152). The vocalist, especially, moves across speech, scream, and melody, giving voice to more than one response to 3/11. He moves across space, too, directing address to three crowds: passers-by pausing along the bridge, the audience standing on the shore, and viewers watching online. And the performance moves across time as well, as people go about their way, search for more information online, tell a friend, share a video, play the audio at home or in a demonstration.

Content: evocations and other effects.

For me, what’s most effective about humanERROR is its evocative potential. The cyclical, lo-fi rhythm as backdrop to exclamatory and at times harsh vocals reminds me of a song by the Velvet Underground, “The Gift.” Whereas “The Gift” privileges rhythm over speech, Frying Dutchman balance the audio with clear emphasis on vocals. Lou Reed tells the story of Waldo Jeffers, a lovesick teenager who mails himself to his college girlfriend, Marsha, only to be impaled by a sheet metal cutter, “(thud),” when Marsha’s friend opens the package. He narrates this without feeling, as if it were simply a matter of fact. The performance in humanERROR tells an equally absurd and morbid story, that of nuclear energy, with an affective tone. It’s not a comparison that works for everyone—but I can imagine endless associations for those who protest against precarity.

A more relatable example might be that of place. I’m not familiar with the specific setting of humanERROR, but, similar to the audio, the visuals resonate with personal experience. The setting reminds me of long afternoons sitting along Náplavka, the bank of the Vltava River in Prague, just below the busy street of Rašínovo nábřeží. There, on any given Saturday, you’d find local beer, live music, and food markets. Náplavka brings back a host of sensations—the sun in my eyes, a cool spring breeze—but most of all it reminds me of time, or the absence of time. It reminds me of whole days spent without a thought for time, the excitement of opening a new book, the wandering of good conversation. It’s the sort of place that makes a person appreciate the moments, and the infrastructure, that make life livable.

To conclude, “demonstrations do not need to make specific demands” (Brown 49). humanERROR may ask participants to “wake up” (like Shiriagari Kotobuki, as we read last week) to the propaganda in the media, the dishonesty of the government, and the exploitation throughout nuclear histories. It may advocate for hydroelectric and geothermal power. What it doesn’t do, though, is frame action between only two possibilities, a population targeted or protected (Butler 144). Rather, humanERROR embodies a call to act, and leaves open which specific action one might take: “Each of us must now carefully consider various information with an open mind and decide our own opinion” (humanERROR Parade).