Simon Pummell - The Sputnik Effect

During the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2012, TENT showed the installation ‘The Sputnik Effect’ by Simon Pummell, as a pendant piece for his film and website ‘Shock Head Soul’, which premièred during the festival. Pummell’s project focuses on Daniel Paul Schreber, a patient of Sigmund Freud who became world-famous for his autobiography on insanity and schizophrenia (1903).

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In the media installation ‘The Sputnik Effect’, the visitor wearing 3D glasses becomes increasingly entangled in the schizophrenic world of Daniel Paul Schreber. The title refers to the effect observed in 1951, when, a few days after the launch of this first satellite, a large number of psychiatric patients believed they were receiving messages from the Sputnik PS-1.

British director Simon Pummell (Norwich, 1959) lives in the Netherlands and is writer/director of documentaries, animation and fiction. Furthermore, he is active as researcher and teacher and is head of the masters course Lens-Based Media of Piet Zwart Institute, at the Willem de Kooning Academie.