Giant constructivist iPhone sculpture

Russian art collective and electronics hacker group Electroboutique created this giant iPhone Monument to 3G (image left) inspired by Tatlin's Tower (image right), a Constructivist monument designed in 1920 but sadly never built. From the artist statement:

Tatlin's work is considered one of the avant-garde icons, whereas iPhone is a bright techno-consumerist icon of today. Back in the 20's of the last centuries avant-garde artists have invented design as a way to bring art into people's homes. During the 20's century designers were gradually taking artistic ideas and implementing them into product design. Today we see companies claiming their products are art objects themselves; art has to re-define its role in the society again. The Monument to 3G links together the beginning and the current state of nearly a century of art-to-design dialogue and follows the strategy of re-claiming the designers' ideas back into art.

Monument to 3G (via Imaginary Foundation)

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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javitrino

the monument tatlin proposed was truly revolutionary. consider that constructivist movement was blown away with the coming of stalin and true totalitarism. all of them: lissitzky, rodtchenko, popova… they were either expelled, fleed from the ussr or slowly retired into lesser works in socialist realism, stalin’s choice.

again, fun fact: it was comented that tatlin’s monument was the first one that didn’t have a beard!
jetfx

Nothing like never built triumphalist totalitarian architecture to get us to reconsider Apple.
man2busy

Nothing new under the sun – looks like
Al-Malwiya (Spiral) tower in Samarra (Iraq)
sparkdale

You can also purchase a version of Tatlin’s Tower made out of various pork products: http://thebluehouse.org/details.php?id=951
Anonymous

There actually is a mini Tatlin-tower in Moscow on the roof of one elite residential building (“Patriarch house”).

http://wikimapia.org/5980274/ru/%D0%96%D0%B8%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B9-%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81-%D0%9F%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%85
Stucipher

kinda looks like a depiction of the tower of Babel