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Noontime Nuggetz: Philly-Produced Toynbee Doc Nabs Honors At Sundance

The above is a featurette on Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles, directed by Philly’s own Jon Foy. The doc, which examines the mystery of the Toynbee tiles — a series of cryptic street art pieces that have been showing up in the U.S. and South America since the 1980s — played at Sundance last week, where Foy nabbed honors for Best Director in the Documentary category.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 1st, 2011 at 12:12 pm.

  • http://theaffectedprovincial.blogspot.com/ lord_whimsy

    “Toynbee-tile enthusiast Justin Duerr claims to have once found and examined a newly-installed tile. This new tile was wrapped in tar paper and placed on a busy street early in the morning. From this find and other evidence, Duerr believes that the pressure exerted by automobiles driving over the tile for weeks on end pushes the tile into the road surface. Eventually, the tar paper wears away, exposing the message.

    “A Toynbee-tile enthusiast website reported a tile found in Pittsburgh that included deployment instructions, which the reader transcribed as “linoleum, asphalt glue (?) in several layers, then placing tar paper over it so that car wheels won’t mess it up, and apparently the heat of the sun on the tar paper will bake it into the street”. This tile was located near the Pittsburgh Hilton, and has since been paved over.”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toynbee_tiles

  • mBeck

    yes. they’re impossible to separate from the asphalt without destroying. they crumble or split apart

    I’m hoping that no one decides to make a fucking t-shirt out of these . . . don’t ruin it people!

  • http://theaffectedprovincial.blogspot.com/ lord_whimsy

    But yes: Foy seems like a good fellow who’s put in his dues. Good for him!