Professor Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Assistant Professor Joana Pimenta interviewed for The Crimson

A mechanical arm scrapes at the walls of a pink tunnel. The surface gives way easily — soft, almost airy.

The camera moves forward, through the flaky matter, pulling the viewer with it. For a moment, it feels more like traveling than viewing.

“It’s like cotton candy,” a low voice remarks from somewhere off-screen.

Except this isn’t a tunnel. And it’s certainly not cotton candy. It’s the inside of a human brain.

Scenes like this define “De Humani Corporis Fabrica,” the immersive film co-directed by Harvard Anthropology professor, Lucien Castaing-Taylor. It’s a film that doesn’t just show the human body, but places the viewer inside. Watching each scene feels less like observation and more like immersion, as if the boundary between subject and spectator has dissolved entirely.

This kind of experience has a name: Sensory Ethnography. Read more.