Cool Hunting

At the close of our second year producing videos, we're a little boggled by all the incredible places and people we covered. We traveled to Seoul, South Korea for an international b-boy tournament, visited the "Nose" of Chanel at their Parisian perfume labs, interviewed Juana Molina in Argentina and went to Portland, OR twice, shooting episodes that include Audiodregs, Esque and Nau there. The year started in Miami again (getting a veteran's take on the art world courtesy of James Rosenquist), we went on a couple trips to Minneapolis, MN, checked out the San Francisco Bay Area and, in adition to a couple of other cities, of course found plenty in and around our home base of NYC to explore. (See the Dachsund Spring Fiesta and Sam Hatmaker for a couple of examples.)

What follows is a list (in chronological order) of our favorites—ones that we still come back to after watching them repeatedly during editing, those we show off to our friends and family, and those that make us look forward to another year of making our little series.

José Parlá
We visited the Brooklyn studio of José Parlá on a frigid day in late winter. José warmed us with tea, talked with us at length and showed us how he makes his text-based paintings.

How to Make Tofu
Yes, we got to eat the silky, nutty result of this video at the end of the shoot. Paired with Omakase and Sake, it's well worth making yourself and this video will give you a visual tutorial to help you through the process.

YACHT
Making this video started with an impromptu tour of Yacht's Portland apartment and ended with a perfect Korean meal—the resulting episode is both so much more and so much less.

Seoul, South Korea
I think we went to the changing of the guards on three separate occasions before we were there in time to get the footage in this piece. We also happened by chance on another changing of the guards, as well as a parade, both in nearby locations and both similarly captivating. I love how weird the piece is—as North American first-time visitors, even touristy events felt as undeniably absurd as they felt beautifully meaningful.

Hervé This
It was a huge privilege to meet one of the fathers of molecular gastronomy, Hervé This, who led us at a fast clip through the many rooms of his lab, made us coffee and gave us a glimpse of a (mad) scientist at work.