Cool Hunting

Saskia Olde Wolbers
by Laurice Parkin The video art of Saskia Olde Wolbers is transfixing to watch not only for the dreamlike fluidity accompanied by surreal narrative, but also to see the intensely complex handmade models that the artists films. These miniature sets combine both the architectural space and uniquely constructed parts to bring the artist's imaginative landscape to life. Unpopulated and desolate, the worlds are beautiful, strange...

Mika Rottenberg
For our final video taking a closer look at this year's Whitney Biennial, we travel to the Harlem studio of video artist Mika Rottenberg. Known for videos depicting women engaging in elaborate systems of production that often harvest their own body, Mika shows us the set of her latest piece (and Biennial installation), "Cheese" and tells us the backstory of making the video. We...

Mock-Ups in Close-Up
Working in design retail, one of my favorite job perks was visiting architecture firms and sometimes catching a glimpse of building models. Beyond architect biopics, I have little recollection of seeing building models used in film, though apparently there's a wealth of footage available. Architect Gabu Heindl and film theorist Drehli Robnik recently compiled such footage (a curated selection of 80 clips) into an...

Duelity
Created by Vancouver Film School students Marcos “Boca” Ceravolo and Ryan Ulrich, Duelity is a pair of short animations that describe the beginning of time from a creationist and evolutionist perspective. An ironic take on the subject, Duelity tells the creationist's version of the beginning of the universe using the language of science and presents the scientific cosmology of evolutionists using Biblical lingo. Beautifully...

Joel Dugan: Ocea
This isn't the first time that Brooklyn-based artist Joel Dugan has been featured on Cool Hunting. In 2005, his nautically themed octopus tees were being sold to raise money for arts education for underprivileged schoolchildren. Dugan continues to be produce, elaborating and improving on the timeless maritime theme in what is his solo debut in the port city of San Francisco where the Iowa-born...