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Ex~Voto: Simon Pummell

Ex~Voto: Simon Pummell

Combined programme | IFFR 2001

The anatomy of the human body returns in all the films of Simon Pummell as a continuing obsession. From Surface Tension (1986) to Temptation of Sainthood (1993) and Evolution (1995), it looks as though each time he has primarily developed very different techniques to further liberate the human figure from its (conceptual as well as material) harness. Between the early pencil-drawn studies of a figure in motion and the recent computer graphics, Pummell also works with paint, skeleton armatures and pixillation. This original body of work is admirable in its technical diversity and sophistication, while also being surprisingly coherent in style and intention. Sober yet intense soundtracks set the mood, a combination of elegance and elegy. Surface tension occurs each time Pummell plays with the distinction between inside and outside, transparent and opaque, ‘the spider’s web of textures beneath the skin’. This parallels his desire to reconcile ecstasy and pathology, conscious and subconscious. He invites us on an excursion, the journey through a body, to reach ‘the intensified eroticism of the soul’. (Edwin Carels) Simon Pummell’s new short Blinded by Light is part of the compilation programme Ex~Voto: Mapping the Mind. His piece How long is a minute? is featuring on the Ex~Voto CD-ROM. In the media lab (Cinema Calypso) he will participate in a discussion on interactive story-telling.