On Nocturnes for Anatomers, (2012) by Christina Kolozsvary
originally published in Video Video Zine, June 2016
In a soothing ASMR whisper, in the comforting babytalk of therapy, we are given this reminder: "because any living thing, including the flesh of which you are made, resents neglect, it may retaliate with a message of its own.”
Our bodies are masters of code, of symbolic gesture. They write us poems to scrutinize in private rooms. Underneath some therapeutic gaze you can be a girl again, forever newly horrified by the pink drip sliding out of you, forever wondering what happened to your voice, forever trying to decipher the texts composing themselves inside you.
To wage war against the body is an impossible fight, but one we are trained for early, one we are trained for often. The fingers pull out hair as a show of control. The body spools out hair in new locations as a show of control. The head floats out over the scene, a cool moon.
Nocturnes for Anatomers by Christina Kolozsvary feels like an illustrated route or a guided meditation, navigating through the bodily dissociation that can come from all manner of psychological maneuvering. That construction, anatomer, brings to mind cartographic occupations--an astronomer turning their telescope inward, anatomical.
Doctor Mid-nite is a comic book hero who can only see in the dark. To look inside the body is to grow new eyes.