de humani corporis fabrica (2022)

the body as assemblage

This experimental documentary by the Harvard Sensory Ethnography lab uses medical imaging technology to take its viewer on a challenging voyage through human anatomy. The audience is immersed into the bodies of hospital patients through the use of tiny surgical cameras: we experience colonoscopies, heart surgeries, even brain operations. But meanwhile we can still hear the mundane conversations of the surgeons as they perform the operations. This juxtaposition of visuals and sounds evokes the irreconcilability of two assemblages: the alien assemblage of organs, muscles and bones that is the human body feels completely incongruent with the assemblage of everyday social relations.