Good morning, comrades. Know what goes great with coffee? Tunes. Know what else? Toonses:

McQueen-sized awesomeness.

Oh, hey, know what makes Holy Fuck‘s adorable-yet-badass music video even more enjoyable? The fact that their music’s actually comparably rad! The Toronto-based band’s Red Lights EP has become yours truly’s favorite drive-to-work soundtrack lately, number one with a Bullitt, baby.

But just in case those kittehs didn’t get you smiling/shakin’ ya ass awake, here’s a classic canine electro chaser, of Pleix and Vitalic:

Madame Peripetie does it again. The Polish-born, Dortmund, Germany-based photographer, whose Insectarium shoot and collaboration with Eva Nyiri were featured on Coilhouse in 2009, has released a surreal, colorful new collection titled Dream Sequence. Some of the images can be seen here, and more can be found on her site.

Set against a stark, hazy black background, the dreamlike characters in these images appear to evoke haunted forests, chrome spaceships, traveling circus shows, and early ’90s NYC club culture. In almost every image, you can find a spray of brightly-colored wildflowers decorating the otherwise synthetic-looking subject, recalling these images of the Surma and Mursi tribes of East Africa by Hans Sylvester. Many more images, after the jump.

While everyone else in the world is giving face time to the over-exposed (but, admittedly, awesome) cephalopod, Mark Garro prefers to branch out; immortalizing the less glamorous of sea creatures, like Malcolm L. O’Clam, a bagpipe playing oyster. Mr Garro’s imaginative paintings are showing at Corpro Gallery in Santa Monica through December 4th for those who wish to get a look at Malcolm up close.

Via Super Punch

Neck not supporting head? Eyes won’t focus? Daily grind? Sausage grind? Welcome, sons and daughters. Welcome to the machine. Specifically, the infamous Bagger 288:

0:47 = tragically accurate visual metaphor for the author’s current state.

Yep. An internet classic. When in doubt (or too sleep deprived to think straight), Joel Veitch to the rescue!

Felled Forest Reliquary, 2010. Oil and egg tempera on shaped panel. 30 x 39 x 2 inches; 76 x 99 x 5 cm.

Madeline von Foerster, whose incredible work we’ve previously featured on the blog, and in Issue 02 of Coilhouse Magazine, has just completed a new series of paintings, called Reliquaries.

“This new series of artworks grows out of the artist’s fascination with reliquaries: the jewel-covered statues and treasure chests where remains of sainted persons – from bones, to scraps of clothing, to vials of blood – are enshrined. Old, beautiful, and mysterious, reliquaries often become objects of worship themselves. The impulse to preserve and make precious seems to represent a common human urge, spanning across many cultures, and not only confined to religion: we create reliquaries for vanquished cultures in our Natural History Museums, and living reliquaries, in the form of zoos, for animals all but extinct in the wild.”

The Red Thread, 2010. 48 x 62 inches. Oil and Egg Tempera on Panel.

Consistently, Madeline von Foerster’s oil and egg tempera compositions are technically masterful and emotionally powerful. And she keeps upping her game, refining her message.  Viewing these most recent works, I’m haunted by something she said a couple of years ago in our interview for the magazine:

“I am incredibly pessimistic about the future of this earth. As E.O. Wilson describes, we are hurtling towards “The Age of Loneliness,” the coming time when half of the world’s species will be extinct, and all the magnificent wilderness denuded and torn. Till my dying breath I will rage and fight against that future, but I am only one person…”

She went on to explain that in spite of everything, she still has hope. In her loving depictions of endangered and extinct wildlife, that message of hope is clearly conveyed, along with urgency, and grief.

As jaw-dropping as these pieces appear onscreen, they must be even more astonishing in person, so German comrades, achtung: The Reliquaries series will be showing this winter at the Strychnin Gallery in Berlin, November 12th through December 18th.

Ex Mare, 2010. Oil and egg tempera on shaped panel. 30 x 39 x 2 inches; 76 x 99 x 5 cm.

“858” by Jessica Joslin

Our darling Jessica‘s been keeping busy! She’ll be exhibiting an array of gorgeous new work at the La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Hollywood, November 5 – 28, 2010.

Jessica Joslin’s Hybrids show is a circus of oddities, a mixed-media menagerie of unexpected creatures. A whimsical cat in a red leather harness harness pulls a polycephalic partner on a wooden cart. An exquisite two headed tropical bird with lush brass plumage preens on it’s perch and a troupe of monkey-cat hybrids engage in mysterious shenanigans. Hybrids is a menagerie of distinctive creations, its frolicsome fauna beckon you to come see the show!

The reception’s being held on Friday, Nov 5th, from 8-11pm. Book signing to precede from 7-8pm. LA conclave, be sure to go and cuddle Jessica and blow some air kisses her critters’ way! (Especially Clio & Loci. Yours truly met ’em in Arizona earlier this year, and fell hopelessly in lurrrrve.)

“Helios” by Jessica Joslin (front and side views).

It’s Friday night. It’s time to get fancy.

Thanks for spreadin’ the love, Gooby.

“The fusion of man and whale is now possible with modern technology.” Or something. Yeah…

You may never experience anything more meditative and calming than this. The short clip below has the amazing ability to turn nervous, fidgety thoughts into a state of pure halcyon, and I’m not the only one who says so! Many people who viewed this irresistibly cute video told me they felt literally mesmerized by the Rabbit Which Did Nothing.

The title is almost perfect. Almost, because the rabbit breaks his zen routine and cleans his paws at about 0:51. Oh, and he disapproves, like rabbits usually do, too. Apart from that small departure from the rule, the rabbit is definitely doing nothing throughout the entire 2:46 minutes. A friend suggests that looping and extending the length of the clip would make it the perfect video to John Cage’s “4’33”.

The only question remaining is whether it’s the mysterious fluffy being in the foreground who is, in fact, the true Rabbit Which Did Nothing.

A preface for the unfamiliar, potentially aghast reader: the English Victorian taxidermist Walter Potter was, according to all accounts, a gentle and kindhearted man. (Read more about him here, and here.) All the animals Potter used in his work were said to have died of natural causes. Apparently, he never harmed any creature presented in his displays. Rather, he arranged to take carcasses off the hands of a local farm and veterinarian. Additionally, as his reputation grew, the community he lived in began to donate expired critters.

Bride from “Kitten’s Wedding”

Today, many perceive his elaborate anthropomorphic dioramas –featuring various dead animals: kittens, puppies, rabbits, ducks, squirrels, frogs, etc, imitating domestic human life– as grotesque, but bear in mind that at the time they were made, and for many decades following, the creatures in Potter’s vast collection were well-admired as an elegant source of “Victorian whimsy”.

Long after Potter’s death, crowds still came to view his thousands of creatures at the Potter Museum in Bramber, Sussex, England. (Then, later, at Cornwall’s Jamaica Inn.) However, sensibilities change.  By the end of the 20th century, fewer and fewer devotees were making the pilgrimage to see Potter’s body of, well, bodies. The vast collection was finally dismantled and sold off in bits and pieces in 2003, to a wide array of buyers, for roughly £500,000.

“Rabbit and Hen”

“It caused outrage when John and Wendy Watts split up and sold the historic dioramas. […] Artist Damien Hirst, a huge fan of Walter Potter’s work, said he would have paid £1 million to keep the collection together.” Now, eight years later, many of the pieces have been reassembled in an exhibition at the Museum of Everything in Primrose Hill, London. Co-curators James Brett and Peter Blake did their best to retrieve as many of the dioramas back on loan as they could. Opening today, the gallery showing includes several of Potter’s most famous pieces: “The Death of Cock Robin,” The House that Jack Built”, and “Happy Families”.

“A Friend In Need”

Unsqueamish Coilhouse readers in the UK/Europe, don’t miss this rare opportunity to see Potter’s fascinating work in person! (It runs through December.) Please be sure to report back. Several more images after the jump.

Guest blogger Olga Drenda writes about war crimes and home-made drugs for a living, but it’s fluffy rodents who are her true love. She hails from the land of pierogi, supermodels and death metal bands, and is an editor at seelebrennt.com.

When going on an urban exploration trip, what do you expect to find in an abandoned building? Non-functioning devices, dilapidated furniture, calendars from 1975, some good graffiti on the walls, traces of cybergoth photo sessions. Sometimes you might even come across unexpected peculiarities like a carpet made of adult magazines and empty vodka bottles with rainbow-like, holographic labels (the last two, I’ve seen myself). However, occasionally you find something even more surprising, just like it happened earlier this year in Riga.

Inside a crumbling building (property the Latvian Museum of Contemporary Art), the duo of fashion designers Mareunrol’s, together with Austrian scenographer Rūdolfs Bekičs, light artist Krišjānis Strazdītis and sound designer Kaspars Groševs created an unusual installation called Eden: a road to a luscious forest growing inside the structure. While the building was left unused for years, trees grew there on their own. With the help of Mareunrol’s and team, this abandoned space became a temporary shelter from the constant noise and hum of the outside world. After conquering a labyrinth of claustrophobic, somber corridors, the visitors entered a wild indoor microcosm, an urban garden of Eden.

But Eden isn’t the only indoor forest in existence. Another, completely different example, is Singapore’s Elok House. Constructed by Chang Architects, the “purposely wild”, however paradoxical it may sound, green area inside an utterly modern building is an oasis of foliage within one of the most industrialized cities on Earth.

Even if Elok House may be more designed rebellion than high art, the project is more than a mere decorative garden and and is still worth noticing. The architects indeed endeavored to equip the house with realistic forest qualities. Leaving enough room for plants to grow freely, letting rainwater collect in an indoor pond, covering the interiors with layers of moss is certainly more extreme than what most designers set out to achieve. The smell of wet soil completes the picture. I wouldn’t mind a squirrel or a deer running around, but even without them, the place – aseptic and nobly minimalist on the outside – appears to be alive enough to be called a radical statement of eco-design.

So how do you decorate an indoor oasis? Ayodhya‘s moss table certainly seems fitting – just looking at this photo makes me turn into a forest pixie in my imagination! The table would perfectly match a meal of blueberries and morning dew. And what about music? Apart from field recordings, which appear to be a natural choice when we think about forest surroundings, consider Pyramids and Stars. This little-known, but worthy of attention, music act with its aptly named song makes for a good soundtrack here.