Minimalist mosaic, exploring Space Invader

For many years, French street artist and mosaic artist Invader has been decorating the walls of cities around the world with small mosaics that feature the minimalist design of "Space Invaders", inspired by the Japanese video game created in 1978. He was born in 1969 and trained at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He revealed his birth name which is Franck Slama. On the other hand, he preferred to keep his anonymity and appear masked during his interviews.

Invader, a public space hacker

Invader's artistic process is known as the Invasion, as he usually poses his works without obtaining prior approval from the holder of the location. In fact, its first realization was placed in 1996 in a street in Paris, near the Place de la Bastille. But it is now covered with a layer of plaster. Hence he talks about the fossilized Space Invader. From 1998, Invader defined himself as a hacker of public space who spread a virus of mosaics or tesserae in the streets of major international metropolises. But everyone appreciated what he does and encouraged him to do it, considering that "the street is his web and his contributions to the city and its inhabitants".

Invader and his artistic approach

At the start of 2021, there were 3,962 Space Invaders in 79 cities around the world. In fact, Invader supports the idea that museums and art galleries are not accessible to everyone. So, we must leave works of art in public spaces so that they are visible to as many people as possible. Moreover, his approach can be summarized as follows: the encounter between the mosaic and the pixel, the transposition of a video game into reality and the process of invasion on a planetary scale. However, it should be noted that Invader does not pose his works haphazardly. He chooses the locations according to different criteria. For example, he has a preference for high traffic sites. Then, he is also interested in the most isolated urban sites. In his words: “A good spot is like a revelation… It is obvious”. The interesting thing about Invader's works is that they are each unique. He opts for different themes including Star Wars, Pink Panther, Mega Man, Spiderman, Dr. House and Martial Arts. And he does not place his mosaics between 3 and 4 meters above the ground, he dares to place them in dangerous and difficult to access places.