About this Event
LES VAMPIRES - EPISODE SIX, “HYPNOTIC EYES” (Louis Feuillade, 1916, approx. 60 min, 16mm)
The celebrated Chicago string trio provides an improvisational score to “Hypnotic Eyes,” the iconic sixth episode of Louis Feuillade’s silent crime serial, presented in 16mm.
LES VAMPIRES (1915-1916), Louis Feuillade’s 7-hour crime serial, is one of silent cinema’s greatest pleasures. A tale of an underworld gang terrorizing French society, LES VAMPIRES is stuffed with brazen heists, spectacular assassinations, and larger-than-life villains – among them, the chameleonic Irma Vep, played indelibly by screen diva Musidora. Each of its ten episodes offers an intricate narrative of crime and detection, capture and escape, brought to life with thrillingly inventive filmmaking. After over a century, LES VAMPIRES (1915-1916) still feels like a glimpse into an emerging world: as critic Jonathan Rosenbaum has observed, “Feuillade looks forward to the global paranoia, conspiratorial intrigues, and technological fantasies of the 20th century and beyond.” Championed by the surrealists, venerated by the great film archivist Henri Langlois (who famously rescued the only prints of the film from the trash), an inspiration to French New Wave fabulist Jacques Rivette and arthouse titans Leos Carax and Olivier Assayas – LES VAMPIRES remains a step ahead of us today.
For this special 16mm screening, Block Cinema will present “Hypnotic Eyes,” the longest and most iconic episode of the series, with live accompaniment by the improvisational string trio of Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, and Macie Stewart. On their recent album Body Sound (International Anthem), described by the Chicago Reader as “sometimes tranquil, sometimes quietly turbulent, and always beautiful,” the trio’s electronically-treated drones invite attentive, responsive listening – a perfect complement to the transfixing suspense of LES VAMPIRES.
Presented in partnership with International Anthem. 16mm print courtesy of the Film Studies Center at the University of Chicago.
RSVPs are encouraged for this event, but do not guarantee admission. In the event of high audience interest, we will create a standby line for all non-RSVP guests. At 6:50pm, we will begin admitting standby guests. Guests with RSVP are encouraged to arrive before 6:50pm to ensure admission.
About the accompanists
is a Chicago based, multi-instrumentalist, composer/arranger, songwriter, and improviser. Stewart primarily works with piano, violin, voice, guitar, and synthesizers. From a very young age Macie was drawn towards sound; learning to communicate with music while simultaneously learning to communicate with words. Stewart’s experience as an open collaborator and composer in their own right has led their music to become fluid and expansive- drawing on all that has come before while intentionally searching for something new. “Mouth Full of Glass” was their debut solo project: released fall of 2021 in the US and as an international release in fall of 2022. Since then, Macie has created two full length sound installations, "Hisako's House", a site-specific multimedia piece involving dance, visuals, and music with choreographer Robyn Mineko Williams; as well as "The World Doubles in Size", a quadraphonic sound installation through Experimental Sound Studio at Lincoln Park Conservatory in Chicago, IL. Stewart is also a founding member of the band Finom, who have released 4 full length records, created the multi-media theater performance, “Full Bush”, and have been touring internationally since 2016.
is a cellist, composer, and sound artist based in Chicago. Trained as a cellist, she also incorporates synthesizers, field recordings, toy instruments and radios into her work, searching for a balance between virtuosity and curiosity. She gravitates towards sound practices which reveal and speak to their time and place: field recording, improvisation, radio broadcast and transmission. She often focuses on mundane or pedestrian sounds – sounds which often go unnoticed or under-documented, searching for the profound, unknown, or beautiful in everyday life.
She performs as a soloist, a collaborator and composes works for ensembles. She has presented work and performed at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Walker Art Center, Chicago Symphony Center, and Eckhart Park Pool. She has created sound installations for Experimental Sound Studios' Audible Gallery, Grunt's Rare Books, and Roman Susan Art Foundation. She has been a resident artist at ACRE, Vashon Artist Residency, High Concept Labs, dfbrl8r Performance Art Gallery, Mana Contemporary, Stanford University, and Mills College. Recent releases include The Ceiling Reposes on American Dreams Records and Normal Sounds, on Moon Glyph. She tours nationally and internationally.
is an artist living in Chicago. Currently, she composes, performs, and installs multi-channel sound with viola, sine waves, Max/MSP, organ, synthesizers, vocalization, tape looping, and field recording. As artist-in-residence at Elektronmusikstudion (EMS) in Stockholm and Inkonst in Malmö, Sweden, her latest LP, Hav (2024, Drag City), composed sine waves, marimba, viola, ARP Odyssey synthesizer, and Halldorophone into a multi-channel performance-installation. As Matchess, the Stena cassette (2024, Drag City) embodies an alter ego to join the cult of Hermaphroditus in Cypriot and Greek antiquity. Recent performance-installations FIAT (2025, Roulette Intermedium and 2023, Forecast Platform Berlin), The Tuning of the Elements (2023, Renaissance Society of the University of Chicago), Huizkol (2020, Lampo), and Fundamental 256 Hz (2019, Longform Editions) consider the possibility of brainwave entrainment, an alternative healing technique using binaural beats to induce relaxed or energized mental states. In tandem with her sound practice, she received her doctorate in the sociology of sound from the University of Chicago in 2018 and completed a postdoctoral research fellowship on sound and technology in the Centre for Gender Research at Uppsala University in Sweden in 2022. She is currently Assistant Professor of Art and Technology/Sound Practices at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Event venue & nearby stays
Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, 40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, United States
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