Space Invaders: The Pixilated Martians’ Urban Invasion
A Frenchman creates Martian shaped mosaics and sticks them onto street furniture in cities all over the world
A pixelated martian
There’s a new addition to that peculiar urban art that includes graffiti, stickers, stencils and trompe l’oeil Martian mosaics created by a French urban artist. His tiles are scattered all over the world. You can see them in big cities such as Hong Kong, New York or London, and also in some smaller cities such as Bilbao, Lyon and Cologne.
Most of these tile figurines were created by this anonymous artist, although some are the work of amateurs. The artist began this project 8 years ago and named it after that mythical videogame featuring pixilated aliens: Space Invaders.
On his website, you’ll find a map of “invaded cities”- 35 to date – and information is displayed videogame-style indicating total number of Martians and points or Score. In Los Angeles, for instance, there are 2540 pixilated extraterrestrials. Does that seem like a lot to you? Well, in Paris there are over 15 thousand. You’re more likely to run into a Martian than to pass a Parisian walking by with a baguette under his arm.
The tiled Martians are already part of the urban art in many invaded cities, which is why their creator has published these Space Invaders Maps, an alternative leisure guide that points out where the Martians are located in each city.
His pieces are famous and several city councils have even enlisted his help in decorating various public buildings. His latest intervention has been in Vienna, where he’s covered an 18 meter-long bridge that leads to Vienna’s Museum Quarter with an enormous mosaic.
The mosaic technique consists of mixing several tiles of different colors in order to create different sorts of figures. You can see a sample of his work in this video:
If you travel to one of the 35 invaded cities, don’t forget to take your camera. You can find little Martians hiding in bus stops, on facades, or under bridges.
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A pixelated martian
