Space Invader

whilst researching for a project a couple of years ago a came across a certain Frenchman, ‘Invader’ as he likes to be called is a street based artist from Paris. He is renowned internationally for publicly ‘displaying’ characters from and inspired by the Space Invaders game. Made from beautifully vibrant coloured square tiles these mini mosaics come in the thousands.

The mosaics depict characters not only from Space Invaders but other video games from the late 1970s also. At the time the images in these games had to be made with fairly low-resolution graphics, because of this they are extremely suitable for reproduction as mosaics. (The tiles representing the pixels) Being outdoor pieces they have to be durable and weather-resistant, the Tiles used as media are perfect for this.

He does this in cities all around the world and documents them as "Invasions", spreading the ‘invasion’ to 35 estimated cities in the world being: PARIS LONDON AIX EN PROVENCE ANVERS MONTPELLIER TOKYO AMSTERDAM GRENOBLE LOS ANGELES NEW YORK BERN AVIGNON LAUSANNE GENEVE PAU CLERMONT FERRAND LYON HONG KONG ROTTERDAM BERLIN BARCELONA AUSTRALIA ISTANBUL DHAKA MANCHESTER MARSEILLE BANGKOK BASTIA MOMBASA LJUBLJANA NEWCASTLE VIENNA COLOGNE COTE D'AZUR BILBAO KATMANDU VARANASI (BENARES) if you click on the name of city you will be directed to the index of his works in that designated city.

Starting in 1998 with his home city of Paris, it is the most ‘invaded’ city to date, totalling a massive 704 pieces. He really has been busy. Whats best is say you want to see some of these mosaics yourself around a city like.. Manchester or Newcastle for instance, well if you look on http://www.space-invaders.com/gmap.html you can download a free map! Alternately purchasing one of his awesome books which feature detailed images, information and the maps of every single piece’s location also.

With this art form you’ve got to think, where’s the money? But that’s just the beginning, he exhibits a lot of work also. His most recent exhibit being