A cine-concert based around three mythical films from surrealist cinema.

As soon as Bruno Chevillon and I met, we realised how closely linked the singularity of our musical careers were to the visual arts: Bruno by the fact that he had simultaneously studied classical double bass and photography (he is a Fine Arts graduate) and me by the fact that works of art have insistently imposed themselves as music scores, notably in the series Pour Suite.

The films proposed for Histoires d’œil were directed or adapted by visual artists: Man Ray, Duchamp and Dali who co-signed the scenario of Un Chien Andalou with Buñuel. Hence the intensified powerfulness of the work of images within the image and the numerous references to the eye with regard to painting. 

The other leitmotif is the presence of music in image, like Man Ray’s cello and instrumental sculptures or Duchamp’s rotating optical discs. 

Histoires d’œil is a dreamlike exploration of the poetic relationship between surrealist cinema and musical performance. Alternating between melodic or textured, acoustic or electric, adhering closely to the scenario or improvising, finely carved or archaic, the musical gesture is inseparable from the script and the plasticity of the images which allow us to deploy a rich and resolutely contemporary imaginary soundscape.