But that year saw the release of Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of The Toynbee Tiles, a documentary about the tiles, and in the mid-2010s, Toynbee Tiles began reappearing in cities across the country and parts of South America. Louis, Chicago, Boston, and Washington D.C.īefore 2011, there seemed to be a gradual decline in the number of new Toynbee Tiles that were being placed. These strange tiles, dubbed the Toynbee Tiles, first began popping up in Philadelphia, but over the decades they have been spotted in roughly two dozen major American cities including New York, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, St. Since the 1980s, colorful license plate-sized mosaic tiles have mysteriously appeared on city streets, most commonly bearing the phrase: “TOYNBEE IDEA IN KUBRICK’S 2001 RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPITER.” It is written and produced by Jon Foy and Colin Smith, and executive produced by Doug Block.Twitter One example of a Toynbee Tile, bearing the original cryptic message alluding to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and the philosopher Arnold Toynbee. The film is directed, edited, photographed and scored by Jon Foy. Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles is a Land of Missing Parts production. The documentary creates an atmosphere of magical realism as the unexpected pieces of this complex puzzle click into place. The information age has seen few mysteries as impenetrable as that of the Toynbee Tiles, and the film champions the underdog accomplishments of these unlikely investigators. As the picture of the Toynbee Tiles' narrative slowly entered into focus, Duerr was shocked by the answers he was uncovering and his unexpected emotional connection to the elusive tiler.Īn artfully crafted documentary, Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles is both an account of Duerr's own obsession and a meditation on the broadly defined drive towards cathartic realization in the face of towering obscurity. Along the way, the team met with the eccentric residents in the deepest reaches of South Philadelphia and dedicated shortwave radio buffs for clues and guidance. The investigation led the team through a series of strange and unexpected turns from the discovery of a Jupiter colonization organization to the David Mamet play “4 a.m.” and a TV news hijacker with a cryptic message. Teaming up with local Toynbee Tile fanatics Steve Weinik and Colin Smith, Duerr began his quest with few clues towards the tiler's identity. Having missed the tiler by minutes, Duerr vowed to definitively solve the mystery of the Toynbee Tiles. In 2000, his obsession was amplified by a near run-in with the tiler when Duerr found a freshly laid tile in front of a local convenience store late at night. Despite this prolifacy, Duerr could find no answers as to what the texts meant or who was responsible for them, although marginal clues towards the artist's identity slowly began to mount. Louis and Boston, which he would later visit soon, tile sightings soon appeared as far away as Buenos Aires and Santiago. He was shocked when, several years later, he discovered an obscure website on the Internet documenting tile sightings in other cities like New York, Baltimore, St. He documented dozens of tiles downtown, and was struck by how little attention the bizarre phenomenon received from other pedestrians. While the text on the plaques was clear enough, neither Duerr nor the numerous media outlets that had documented the phenomenon knew what these tiles meant, how or why they were installed, or who was responsible for them.ĭuerr's interest in the tiles began in 1994, when he moved from rural Pennsylvania to Philadelphia and began noticing them while working as a foot courier in the city's business district. Having appeared on hundreds of reported examples from the mid-1980s to present, the cryptic four-line message of the Toynbee Tiles read: "Toynbee Idea / In Kubrick's 2001 / Resurrect Dead / On Planet Jupiter". and South American urban intersections that had held Duerr's fascination for over a decade. Five years later, they began filming their investigation of these strange street plaques embedded in the asphalt of major U.S. But as Justin starts piecing together key events of the past he finds a story that is more surreal than he imagined, and one that hits disturbingly close to home.įilmmaker Jon Foy and Philadelphia-based artist and musician Justin Duerr began planning a documentary film about the Toynbee Tiles in 2000. He has been collecting clues that the tiler has embedded in the streets of major cities across the U.S. For years, finding an answer to this long-standing urban mystery has been his obsession. Most people don't notice the hundreds of cryptic tiled messages about resurrecting the dead that have been appearing in city streets over the past three decades.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |