A French street artist known only as ‘Invader’ just got done dropping over a dozen new mosaic tile installations all over Los Angeles while in town for the group show Beyond the Streets. The best one might just be a portrait of The Dude himself, the eponymous figure from the cult film The Big Lebowski, standing outside a bowling alley with a cocktail in hand. Others are modeled after characters from the 8-bit video game Space Invaders, which the artist has left in over 30 countries over the past two decades.

Invader chooses his target cities, scopes out the locations for his installations in advance and preps them as much as possible before putting them up. The oldest ones can be found in Paris, but if you want an idea of just how prolific Invader has been over the years, check out the interactive map on his website.

The mosaics are relatively small and often quite discreet, occasionally blending into the color schemes of their environments. He doesn’t typically get permission to put them up, but they’re so charming, it’s easy to see why they can remain in place for so long. Invader’s choices for placement have sometimes been controversial, however – in January 2018, he came under fire for installing a few in sacred Buddhist temples of Bhutan. The government ultimately removed them.

Scope the whole gallery of recent Los Angeles pieces, or head over to Invader’s Instagram to keep up with the works as they’re completed.

Urban street artist Invader has installed tile mosaics modeled after Space Invaders 8-bit video game characters in over 30 countries over the past 20 years.

Although he prefers to remain incognito like Banksy and many other street artists, Invader has a known personal history aside from his art. Born in France in 1969, he graduated from the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts in Paris though one wonders what his instructors think of his trademark works.

Classical training aside, Invader’s main artistic focus relates to the 8-bit graphic style of visual displays common to the first wave of electronic video games from the late 1970s. His choice of “Invader” as an artistic nom de plume reflects the influence of Space Invaders, one of the first shooter-style video games, released in 1978. The images above, captured by Flickr member Philosofia in Rome in June of 2011, are typical of the artist’s style and preferred placement in public urban settings easily visible but less than accessible.

We’ll Always Have Paris

Invader is not your typical tag & go, fly-by-night graffiti artist though many of his works ARE installed in the dead of night so as to avoid traffic and police. Instead, Invader typically plots his so-called “Invasions” of a chosen city far in advance, scouting out locations for his mosaics and semi-completing the works before he goes out to install them.

The artist’s earliest mosaics began appearing in Paris about 25 years ago. The examples above come courtesy of Flickr members Wally Gobetz (wallyg), Nelson Minar, and Ferdinand Feys.

High Plain Invaders

As time went by and word of Invader’s distinctive works spread, a black market for his pieces sprang up. Naturally, the artist disapproved of this – his works were and are designed to be not-for-profit installations.

In response to a rash of thefts and subsequent resales, Invader has made efforts to make his work more complex (and therefore more difficult to remove) and he’s also been placing them in higher, less accessible locations. The above images were snapped by Flickr members Allison Meier (allisonmeier), KnitSpirit, and victorillen in 2009, 2011 and 2009, respectively.

Miles Of Tiles

In June of 2011, Invader celebrated the installation of his 1,000th work in Paris alone. Over his “career” to that point, he had created 2,692 space invader style mosaics in 77 cities using approximately 1.5 million ceramic tiles. The mosaic above dates from February of 2013 and was snapped by Flickr member sinkdd in Tokyo, Japan’s famously trendy Harajuku shopping district.

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8 Bitten Space Invaders Street Art Tells Tile Tales

Rubik’s Cubes are meant to be solved, right? Wrong – the art of cubing takes on a different meaning under the 8-bit eyes of Invader. Twisting dozens, even hundreds of Rubik’s Cubes into precise patterns of pixelated pointillism, Invader updates artistic techniques pioneered by Picasso, Duchamps, Seurat and others into a new and distinctly modern form: Rubikcubism.

(image via: Gradient Magazine)

Who or what is Invader? One clue is the name of this former French street artist’s website: Space-Invaders.com. Indeed, Invader’s first pieces of what has been dubbed Rubik’s Cube Folk Art were representations of early 8-bit arcade game characters such as the digitized alien enemies from Space Invaders.

(image via: Space-Invaders)

As the above angled photo shows, it doesn’t take many Rubik’s Cubes to form a simple representation of an 8-bit video game character – in this case, just nine. You’re probably thinking what Invader was thinking back in ’05… with more Rubik’s Cubes, more complex and detailed images could be formed.

(images via: Space_Invaders and The Frisky)

The above image of student anarchist Florence Rey is shown both in-progress and completed (above, lower right). As can be seen, the image used a Polaroid instant photo of Rey as its source. Rubik’s Cubes were then twisted into the proper sequence of pixels and then affixed to a backing board. Invader needed a total of 221 Rubik’s Cubes to complete the Rubikcubism work in late 2005.

(images via: Space-Invaders)

Even complex images with wide variation in color, shade and intensity can be successfully rendered using Rubikcubism but as always, the more cubes (and thus, more pixels), the more detail which can be rendered. The above Atomic Bomb blast took 294 Rubik’s Cubes to create and the six colors of the basic Cube (red, orange, yellow, white, green, and blue) were sufficient to capture and display the image.

(images via: Space-Invaders)

Although most any image can be represented with properly prepared Rubik’s Cubes, faces – especially familiar ones – spark recognition much faster. Our brains are hard-wired to perceive faces in less than ideal conditions; forming them from Rubik’s Cubes allows for the same effect, regardless of the fact that both the Rubik’s Cube and 8-bit animation are both less than 40 years old. Just in case their names are overly elusive, from the top left: Gene Simmons of KISS, Jack Nicholson in the film The Shining, and Frankenstein. Below is a Rubikcubism triptych of notorious terrorist Carlos the Jackal.

(image via: Torontoist)

Rubikcubism isn’t Invader’s sole artistic niche, not is he the only artist creating pictorial folk art from the ubiquitous geek icon. Robbie McKinnon (above), an electrician from Toronto, Canada, created much of his so-called Cube Works in the late 2000s and has, at last word, moved on to other forms of visual expressive art.

(image via: Torontoist)

McKinnon’s version of Frankenstein, above, shows many similarities and some differences to Invader’s portrayal of the classic Hollywood movie monster.

(images via: Torontoist and Space_Invaders)

Here are versions of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa side by side, above: McKinnon’s on the left used 315 Rubik’s Cubes, Invader’s on the right used 330. Curiously, the artists use different techniques to create what appear to be astonishingly similar end results. McKinnon uses Photoshop to pixilate his source images, then manipulates the individual Rubik’s Cubes manually. Invader uses a computer program to dictate the exact arrangement of facets required for each Rubik’s Cube. Either way, the finished works measure about 3 by 4 feet and weigh around 80 pounds each.

(images via: Space-Invaders)

While both McKinnon and Invader have chosen, for the most part, to use Rubikcubism to put a new face on pop culture, Invader’s body of work covers more ground with a particular focus on crime, criminals and anti-heroes as depicted in films. Those above include (from top, clockwise) Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in 1967’s Bonnie & Clyde, Robert De Niro in 1976’s Taxi Driver and Al Pacino in 1983’s Scarface.

(images via: Space-Invaders)

True life anti-heroes and villains are also fodder for Invader’s Rubikcubism tributes: from above top left and working clockwise, we have Al Capone, Charles Manson and the late Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious posing for a well-publicized mugshot.

(images via: Jonathan Levine Gallery and Videdesign)

Music is an integral part of modern pop culture and that fact hasn’t escaped the attention of Invader or exhibitors like the Jonathan Levine Gallery in new York. Rubikcubism constructs of some famous album covers include, at the extreme top left to right: The Clash and Iron Maiden. Below from above upper left and moving clockwise are homages to The Beatles, The Velvet Underground, Nirvana and Roxy Music.

(images via: Game Set Watch)

In the summer of 2009, the Lazarides Rathbone gallery in London, UK, put on an exhibition titled Low Fidelity, featuring Invader among others. Music-inspired works by Invader included Rubikcubism album covers from Michael Jackson and The Doors.

(images via: Hustler Of Culture and If It’s Hip It’s Here)

Erno Rubik invented the eponymous Rubik’s Cube back in 1974 and received his patents on the device in 1977. One wonders what he thinks of the current status of his claim to fame some 30-odd years later… well, let’s just quote him, from 2007: “I’m glad the Cube is reaching new generations, who face it with fresh wonder, curiosity and enthusiasm.” We’re glad too, Erno!