What if the only freedom that we have is the reading ?
What if the only way of escaping is the reading ?
By reading i mean = what you get from the reading and not just the act of reading
We are getting something from the reading, but what is it ? Our mind is traveling + it's helping inmates to hold on.
Two approaches of reading (in the "Redemption through reading" program) : it can be read to educate, to stop this failure situation of reoffending, overcome the lack of culture. & it can also be (depends on the books list) : make them read a kind of books, to control them, to make them think in a special way

processes of highlighting

FLASH SCREENSHOTS

text reaction to the mouse

Then, maybe, it's a freedom constraint. You think that those books are an escape from the prison, but it's settled. You don't have the choice to choose, they are choosing for you.
Is there a real freedom ? They are offering them the path to reintegration, but they created rules and laws to keep things in order, to keep people locked up.
Is this the only way for us to survive ?
After all, in this experiment, what if the WRITING was the only true freedom ?
In the writing you're active, and not passive as in the reading process. That's your ideas, your hand and your brain which are used to DO.
In the experiment, inmates have to sum up the story they just read, they have to reappropriate the story.
it's at that time, that they know if they've been "touched" by the story.
It's a creative process, even though the topic is imposed.
So, writing is a freedom if you don't have expectations. if you're not doing it to get something.
There's always someone that you have to satisfy to obtain something. So it's not pure creativity, it's an oriented action.
It's like a game, you have to unlock things. If you're doing things for you own pleasure, then maybe that's real freedom.

constrained writing

THE WRITING = gives the speech of the prisoner a higher value. During the time of writing, the prisoner may be transformed into a literary man, a writer.
WRITING = KNOWLEDGE
He is no longer the one that belongs to "lower" world of speech, denouncement, but to the world of writing, registration, order.
They reverse the common order, they're offering to those who were the object of so many writings (judges, lawyers, experts, journalists…) to be writer themselves.
RIGHT TO EXPRESS
But it remains ORCHESTRATION

black = book back cover

gray = book quotation

red = self-reflexion about the quote

black = book back cover

constrained way of writing
red = letters strokes

black = letters crossbars

"The exercise of discipline"
(oops-mistake)

"Individuals are inserted in a fixed place, movements are supervised, events are recorded, power is exercised, individual is constantly located, examined and distributed among the living beings"

transform letters in units of time and black & white
how does the text impact on us ?
"If i am not for myself, who will be for me ?"

the story stops at a cliffhanger...
if you could write the end, what would you write ?