Not sure if this really counts as a creation, since I'm just taking pictures of them, but whatever.
Toynbee tiles are small, enigmatic rectangles of unknown material embedded in the roads of many major cities in North and South America. Most of them say something along the lines of "TOYNBEE iDEA KubricK's `2001 RESURRECT DEAD PLANET JUPiTER". Yesterday, I went out to find as many of the ones in Philadelphia as I could, based on a list compiled in 2003. For some reason, all of them seem to be at intersections.
This one is at 12th and Berks, in front of Gladfelter Hall at Temple University. This seems to be one of the newer ones, as it's rather small and says "MOViE 2001" instead of the more traditional "KubricK's `2001".
This should give you an idea of how small it is.
This one is at 15th and Arch. About the same size as the last one. Got partially painted over.
16th and Chestnut. This one, like several others, says "LAY TILES ALONE" in smaller letters on the side, which may be instruction to the reader if he or she wishes to put more tiles like this down. Apparently there used to be one in Pittsburgh that gave a description of how to make them ("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").
15th and Chestnut, same design as the one on 15th and Arch.
A very interesting one on Broad and Sansom. Different type of terrain than most, and it seems it either needed a different method, or reacted differently to the normal method. The word IDEA can be seen where a missing chunk of the tile would be, either a residue from the chunk or where someone wrote it back in. On the side, it says "YOU MUST LAY TILE ALONE AS HELLiON [tiles in other cities make reference to "HELiON JEWS"] AND FEDS iNFiLTRATE AND HARVEST YOU TO PRiSON"
An unorthodox design on 13th and Chestnut.
From Wikipedia, a picture of the 13th and Chestnut tile when it was more intact.
12th and Chestnut. Ones like this seem to give some weight to the theory that most or all of the recent tiles have been laid by copycats, not the original artist, who many believe is now dead.
This one, on 11th and Chestnut, wasn't on my list. Since it's so close to two other ones, I assume they would have noticed it, so it's probably relatively new. You can make out what may be the remains of ALONE up in the corner.
9th and Chestnut. One of my favorites. The letters are kind of sparkly when you see them in person. I may try and get a better shot of it later.
5th and Walnut has a tile that looks like the one on 9th and Chestnut, and also a person. Probably connected somehow.
A quite large one on 4th and South in front of Starbucks. Looks a lot like another one in Washington, DC.
Last, I went downtown where there were supposed to be three more: Broad and Oregon, 11th and Oregon, and 9th and Shunk. I didn't see anything at 11th and Oregon, and I couldn't even find where 9th and Shunk intersected, and this was the closest thing I could find at Broad and Oregon. Traffic was too heavy to get a closer shot.
All in all, a pretty good way to spend 5 1/2 hours and three subway tokens.
