Cassette 5: Focus, Nose

**Relaxation Cassette #5**

> *"There is a world beyond this. You must listen to me. I am the voice you trust, if you want to achieve the freedom you need, where your body is your own. I want you to achieve this. I want you to be free."*
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## Side A: **I Am a Camera**

### Breathing exercise

Hester begins by likening Oleta to a work of art. Hester, talks about Oleta being "interesting" to the Institute in the same way that a piece of art might be interesting to an art critic. She emphasises that there is no special reason that she was chosen to be studied.

While breathing, Hester asks Oleta to consider the smells in the room, and says that scent is a powerful tool for recalling memory. She also says that with practice, Oleta might be able to acutely control her bodily functions such as her heart rate. The Institute sometimes enforces this for patients, but for the moment they are only interested in analysing Oleta's behaviour.

Hester talks about the processes the Society developed to control the new family structure - some exercises and some medical procedures, which aimed to rid people of nationalism, tribalism, and family allegiance, which were determined to lead to war and violence. She says that flags were burned, soldiers were retired, and guns were destroyed, however this later appears not to be fully the case as the Society has enforcers who carry weapons. Hester says that the Institute was founded to study "how to keep society free". The word "free" triggers a smiling response when spoken in both Hester and Oleta.

She talks next about the Extensive Studies Lab, where the sound of what is referred to as "carpentry" comes from. Although Hester initially says that the Institute used autogenic exercises to extensively study subjects' brains, she adds shortly afterwords that occasionally they would literally bore into brains in order to understand them. She also implies that Oleta was subjected to this treatment after being deemed too violent to be part of the regular patient body. Hester also says that patients at the Institute are only officially referred to as "clients".

Hester states that Oleta could leave whenever she wanted. All she would have to do is fill out several bureaucratic forms, pass a physical and psychological examination. In order to truly test whether a client is suitable for life in the outside world, it must be determined that they are a non-violent individual who poses no harm to others. The tests are specifically designed to frustrate the client into having an extended forced stay at the Institute. This often leads to more violent behaviour and subsequently, checking in at the Extensive Studies Lab. Hester makes finger quotes around the word "free".

## Side B: **A Nose is a Nose is a Nose**

### Visualisation exercise

This cassette is listened to in the garden and focuses on scent. First the lavender of the garden, and then the burning candle wax of one of Oleta's memories. There is a candle on the table, and an orchid. The imagery gets away from Hester a little and she apologises.
Oleta can smell wine, and Hester also asks her to visualise hands moving in conversation. Either Oleta or Nell tells a story about a child in the park who had called a dog "horsie" and trying to ride it. They are laughing, remembering or picturing the caretaker struggle to get the child under control while not being allowed to touch her.

Oleta and Nell lower their voices, touching hands, and Hester could not hear what they were talking about from where she was spying. She did not see the family resemblance, and assumed that the two of them were on a date, quickly getting jealous. Meanwhile, the sisters are also being watched by agents of the Society, who are interested in how and why they came into contact again.

Hester brings Oleta back to visualising the garden and asks her to imagine the scents as she travels from the garden to the Institute corridors, out of the front door, and into the forest. She says that it is vital Oleta can recognise the smell of cedar, because she will not be able to see when she does this for real and needs to know when she is close to the waterfall.

Hester asks Oleta to say the word "free" out loud again, and then realises that looks weird to the other people in the garden. She instructs Oleta to act as if nothing is wrong.

## Additional info

* Smell is deliberately associated with memory here.
* Hester tells Oleta to close her eyes because seeing the experiment would undermine it.
* The description of Oleta's capture by the Institute is deliberately ambigious as to whether Hester aided in her capture in the first place.

## References

1. ↑ Within the Wires (Jeffrey Cranor) on Twitter: "each episode has a body part in its title, which is again our way of connecting the mind and the body. in ep 4, we're associating focus and nose (smell & memory). -jc"
2. ↑ Within the Wires (Jeffrey Cranor) on Twitter: ""close your eyes" is used by the cassette narrator bc seeing the experiment would undermine the experiment. -jc"
3. ↑ Within the Wires (Jeffrey Cranor) on Twitter: "and here we get again that digital distortion sound of the ppl in suits w unpleasant dogs. there was an intentional ambiguity in this scene about whether the narrator helped surveillance on the listener. did she assist in capturing the listener to begin with? -jc""i have no answer to give you regarding this. -jc"