Found on the Ground

Whoa! New Toynbee Tiles?

I saw this when the B.F. Parkway was closed to cars during Unity Day '06.

Are they new Toynbees?  What do you think? 

I'll go check them out later this month and see if the tar has worn away to reveal a message.

Found 8/20/06, Benjamin Franklin Parkway

[Click photo for larger view]

Toynbee Tile- Harvest You to Prison

Here's a Toynbee tile I never noticed before, outside a Cosi restaurant I walk by a lot.

The latest spate of tiles I've found is pretty threatening, and this one is clearer than most.  I think this is a different tilemaker from whoever made the other threatening ones. This one has hyphenation that I haven't seen on the others.

Here's a Flickr stream of other Philadelphia Toynbee tiles (the pictures aren't mine).

TOYNBEE IDEA

MOVIE 2001

RESURRECT DEAD

PLANET JUPITER

YOU MUST LAY TILE

-ALONE- AS HELLIO-

-NS AND FEDS INFIL-

TRATE AND HARVEST

YOU TO PRISON

Found 10/11/06, 15th & Locust

[Click photo for full view]

Toynbee Tiles at Market and City Hall

Found 3 Toynbee Tiles in one crosswalk on the way to City Hall! Two of them feature vague threats to other Toynbee Tile makers... Such is the life of a "hellion", I suppose.

Most tiles I've seen or heard of do include something like "Movie" and "2001" pretty regularly, so when I first moved here I thought they were a viral ad campaign for a re-make of "2001: A Space Odyssey".

This one was at the start of the crosswalk, nearest Market Street.

TOYNBEE IDEA

MOVIE 2001

RAISE DEAD

PLANET JUPITER

LAY TILE ALONE [AS?] HELLIONS

UP [EN?] [M?] [Y?]

AND GIVE YOU [ASS?]

BEATING[S?]

This one was in the middle of the crosswalk, as you can see from the lines painted over it.  I'm sure by this time you can fill in the blanks mostly:

IN [?]

RESURRECT

ON PLANET

And finally, at the end of the crosswalk, nearest City Hall.

TOYNBEE IDEA

MOVIE 2001

RAISE DEAD [?]

PLANET [?]

YOU MUST LAY TILE ALONE AS HELLIONS

AND FED[?]

IN [FILM?]

Found 7/28/06, in crosswalk from Market Street East to City Hall.

[Double-click photos for full view]

Toynbee Tile

For the next couple of days, Found on the Ground will feature the wonderful things that are permanent fixtures on the ground of Philadelphia.

I was procrastinating about posting Toynbee Tiles.  But since Matt O'Donnell over at Ch. 6 scooped me earlier this week, I might as well just do it.

They are a mild form of culture jamming, which I don't usually include here.  Thrill of discovery is simply not present for me in sticker art, graffitti or adbusting/subvertising, although many beautiful examples of all of these flourish in Philadelphia. 

I think this tile says:

TOYNBEE [text illegible]

MOVIE 2001 [text illegible]

RAISE DEAD [text illegible]

PLANET JUPITER

I'M ONLY AN [text illegible]

WHEN [text illegible]

DISEASE [text illegible] GN

ITS FAGS AND [text illegible] IED A

ALL HELLIONS- HAD

PISS ORGIES OF JOY OVER ITS DEATH

Wikipedia's explaination is a very good place to start:

"The "toynbee" referred to in the text is almost certainly Arnold J. Toynbee, a famous historian. "Kubrick's 2001" certainly refers to filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, co-writer and director of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

A possible interpretation is that the Toynbee reference comes from the science fiction writer Ray Bradbury's short story "The Toynbee Convector", which alludes to Toynbee's idea that in order to survive, humankind must always rush to meet the future, i.e. believe in a better world, and must always aim far beyond what is practically possible, in order to reach something barely within reach. Thus the message might be that humanity ought to strive to colonize Jupiter — as in Kubrick's work — or something greater, to survive."

Culture jamming is advertising as shrill as any.  But to me, Toynbee Tiles are different.  You learn to screen out "BUSH" stickers slapped at the bottom of stop signs, and Che's face spray-stenciled onto newspaper boxes, but most people will walk right over a Toynbee and truly never see it. 

The plastic tiles are carved with the message, covered with tar paper, and adhered to the street when no one is watching.  The heat and pressure of the cars driving over slowly wears away the tar paper to reveal the message, which means almost nothing.  The cars sink the tiles deep into the pavement.  In this way, they become part of the city's body, while other culture jams are like a temporary tattoo.

Found 7/12/06, 15th and Locust

[Double-click photo for full view]