Ever seen one of these?

[miajag]

They're called "Toynbee Tiles." I took that picture yesterday at the intersection of Chase and Cathedral streets in Baltimore, but there are hundreds in cities across the US and even reportedly in South America and Europe. Their origin and meaning is a mystery.

Weird, mysterious cultural phenomena like this (Kilroy was here is another good example) have always deeply fascinated me. What are peoples' motivations for creating them, or if not the original creator, participating in them?

Has anyone here ever been a part of something like this? I'd be interested to hear any stories. Also feel free to post other similar examples of weird things you've seen in different places.

[TiK]

There's been a person defacing street art in New York City as of late. Nicknamed "the splasher", it seems he/she likes to splatter paint on existing street art in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

From the NYTimes article:

"Many of the paint splatters were accompanied by messages printed on plain white sheets of paper and pasted near the splatters. Those communiqués appeared to condemn the commodification of art, but it is difficult to be sure what the messages really mean. One reads, in part, “Destroy the museums, in the streets and everywhere.” The author has kept his or her identity a secret."

Link in the Gothamist.
Also, an article in the NYTimes


Edited to add images:
From the Gothamist page:

The splashing:


And the accompanying manifestos:

[Slow Play Ray]

OP kind of reminds me of the cover of Prisoner's Dilemma:



*edit* maybe i'm just high

[Hoi Polloi]

I've been seeing these in NYC for years.

Back in the days of payphones and graffitti artists (remember them? probably not) some crazy person was scratching the word "pray" on the coin boxes of payphones among other places. Probably some religious nut like the folks over in SMP. Anyway, I remember hearing some graffitti artists singing the praises of "pray" b/c she had gotten her tag up so prodigiously. Go figure. [they were convinced "pray" was a woman.]

[RUFFNECK]

I find it funny there is a pretentious Williamsburg section art [censored], crossing over other pretentious Williamsburg art [censored].

[daryn]

what about andre the giant has a posse? same idea?

i too am interested in who actually participates and propagates this stuff.

[ThaSaltCracka]

Found this very interesting, thanks.

[Osprey]

If you're interested in this stuff, there's a good novel to read- Pattern Recognition by William Gibson- it's about a viral film spreading through the internet, and all about corporate branding and style.

[WhoIam]

There are a couple in downtown Pittsburgh including the famous "resurrect the dead on planet Jupiter" one. I walked by them several times and thought "wtf?" before I finally read an article in a local paper about them.

[Apokrupto]

These were fairly common in Italy whenever I go

"Whatchu talkin about Willis" FTW