Since the mid-70¹s, Simmons has staged scenes for her camera with dolls, ventriloquist dummies, objects on legs and occasionally people, to create images with intensely psychological subtexts. By the early 1980¹s Simmons was at the forefront of a new generation of artists, predominantly woman, whose use of the media as subject began a new dialogue in contemporary art. In 2006, Simmons made her first film ³The Music of Regret,² a mini musical in three acts which premiered at MOMA and has since screened at museums and festivals worldwide including the Walker Art Center, the Hammer Museum, the Tate Modern, the Centre Pompidou, the Kunst Film Biennale in Cologne, and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa Japan.