Cinema as Mind, Avant-garde film and post-war brain sciences

Cinema has played a pivotal role in the 20th century development of ’neuromania’ and the belief that we might ’be our brain’. Within the programme ‘Cinema as Mind’, it was possible to experience some special mind-brain connections: from footage of flying brains and mad scientists, to a cinema ’inside the head’ and film as a tool for ’mind expansion’. Flora Lysen (researcher at the UvA), introduced the experimental films of Stan VanderBeek & Harry Smith of the 1950s and ’60s and talked to filmmaker Simon Pummell (director of the acclaimed feature film ’Shock Head Soul’) about his fascination for Smith’s work. They also discussed Pummell’s installation ’The Sputnik Effect’ and talked about his upcoming film based on historical brain-atlases of Museum Boerhaave. Patricia Pisters (professor of filmstudies, UvA) introduced the famous (but rarely screened) documentary ’De Ingreep’ (1965) by Dutch film maker Louis van Gasteren, about a trepanat