The Soviet architect Vladimir Tatlin wanted to build a massive spiral tower reaching four hundred meters into the sky. Tatlin's Tower, as the idea was known, was designed to honor the Third International, a communist organization. The tower was never built, but artists Alexei Shulgin and Aristarkh Chernyshev have created this smaller replica that looks like an iPhone. Appropriately, it's called 3G International:
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.
Link -via My Modern Met