Tag Archives: Space Invader

Art as an Answer to the Tragedy of Life

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This blog is about Start-ups. But from time to time, I take the freedom of touching other topics. Often about Art. It will be again the case here. And also when tragic events occur. Last Friday, Paris was stricken again. And I do not have any answer but to say I believe in Peace and Love, not in war and hate. My brother sent me two beautiful pictures he took in Paris recently. They mean a lot.

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My friend Dominique sent me a quote from René Girard in “Achever Clausewitz”, 2007, Champs Gallimard, pages 57/58« Ces échecs de résolution [de conflit] sont fréquents quand deux groupes « montent aux extrêmes » : nous l’avons vu dans le drame yougoslave, nous l’avons vu au Rwanda. Nous avons beaucoup à craindre aujourd’hui de l’affrontement des chiites et des sunnites en Irak et au Liban. La pendaison de Saddam Hussein ne pouvait que l’accélérer. Bush est, de ce point de vue, la caricature même de ce qui manque à l’homme politique, incapable de penser de façon apocalyptique. Il n’a réussi qu’une chose : rompre une coexistence maintenue tant bien que mal entre ces frères ennemis de toujours. Le pire est maintenant probable au Proche Orient, où les chiites et les sunnites montent aux extrêmes. Cette escalade peut tout aussi bien avoir lieu entre les pays arabes et le monde occidental. Elle a déjà commencé : ce va et vient des attentats et des « interventions » américaines ne peut que s’accélérer, chacun répondant à l’autre. Et la violence continuera sa route. L’affrontement sino-américain suivra…. » which translates as follows:

Girard-Clausewitz

So my reaction goes elsewhere. I recieved emails on Friday night and Saturday from the Space Invader community checking that everyone was all right. People who love street art go out to find the works and take pictures. Indeed Invader was in the same mood last January. He is now invading New York City, with a fifth wave. By following him with a work in progress, I see art as an answer to the tragedy of life.

SI est charlie

Here is my own work in progress:

as well as my map (if I gave you access – Invader asks people not to give inidcations to people who destroy his work).

Space Invaders in Paris and Tokyo: an update

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Not directly linked to my main blog activity, I publish from time to time about Street Art. The summer is a good time for summarize findings and I did some work about my Paris and Tokyo’s quest of Space Invaders. Paris has now 1167 invasions. Tokyo is still at 138 but I could find old ones online.

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Here are also two other nice works. First my favorite artist, “Mirror Man” from Pully (Switzerland) who created this in Paris.
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– Breaking Bad
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– Cost
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More “seriously” here are some stats about Paris (updated as of October 2015 with 1182 invasions)
SI-PA-stats-oct2015

So my synthesis, which you also find on SlideShare gives this:

Paris: from PA_1000 to …

Toyko

Street Art, Space Invaders and Mirrors in Pully

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The recent weeks have been fun for me relatively to Street Art. First I found a really beautiful mirror in Pully. I have now found more than 40 places with about 50 mosaics.

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Second I accidentally found two Space Invaders in Tokyo. Quite nice too! I finished compiling the Tokyo Space Invaders and have pictures for most of the 138 which have been put there..)

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(tk_093)

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(tk_104)

Finally, I finished my crazy work of compiling all Parisian ones. I have counted 1’139 works until now (May 2015). Crazy probably but fun… you can find the full compilation in my post about Space Invaders in Paris.

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(pa_1139)

Space Invader in Paris

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A very short post about Space Invaders in Paris. Up to now, more than 1100 ceramics have been created, most of them destroyed by the way.

In September 2014, I began to compile data about Paris. From time to time I add more info about them. Here are pdfs files about specific arrondissements:
the 1st,
the 2nd,
the 3rd,
the 4th,
the 5th,Preview Changes
the 6th,
the 7th,
the 8th,
the 9th,
the 10th,
the 11th,
the 12th,
the 13th,
the 14th,
the 15th,
the 16th,
the 17th,
the 18th,
the 19th,
the 20th
the Surburbs
and also the 1000+ Paris Invaders. All of them are also available on Slideshare.

If you are interested with my excel file with 1000+ entries, just ask me! Below is / was my Paris map. However, I got a message from the Invader team in June 2015. They complain about the high rate of destruction of their works and asked me to hide as much information as possible about the location the Invaders. My maps are therefore now private and my pdfs much less informative. Sorry for this and good luck to those who look for them just to shoot pictures…

Following this message and after my full compilation, I did a few stats, which I will let you discover if you are interested:

SI-PA-stats

SI-PA-stats1

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Brussels, Street Art and Space Invader

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Two articles tonight on my blog. A serious one coming, a huge criticism of Christensen’s disruptive innovation and an equally important one on Street Art. Yesterday there wwa a magnificent athletics meeting in Brussels where two high jumpers soared ever higher, and tried in vain for the world record at … 2.46m. It was beautiful to see. It was the perfect opportunity to show the work of Invader in Brussels in March 2012.

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Here is the pdf file: Space Invader in Brussels. He obviously did not fail to invade the symbol of the city!

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Street art again: Space Invader in Grenoble

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Street Art is a strange combination of references to art of course, but also to sociology, politics and economy. It might be why I became interested in the phenomenon and mention it here, in a blog related to start-ups which are also a strange combination of creation, social policy and economy. Both reconsider the established world, the institutions. Street Art interferes with private property and invades places it is not allowed to touch in theory. Street Art revisits consumerism and capitalism in a very interesting manner. And in the end, it became a part of consumerism, capitalism and the established art world. In a way, it’s exactly the same thing with start-ups. The successful ones become a part of the established economy. Also, both appeared without a clear objective. The computer, the Internet were nearly as useless as art in its first years. In the next picture, what does belong to advertising and what to art?

banksy-ad

Whatever I continue my virtual and real visits to street artists with Space Invader in Grenoble in 1999. As you may imagine, there is not much left, but still a lot online! Attached is my pdf compilation of Space Invader Grenoble invasion.

SI-Grenoble-Map

PS: You can find my compilations of Banksy in New York, the beautiful mosaic-mirrors of Pully and the invasions of Lausanne, Geneva, Bern, Basel, and Toyko under the tag Street Art.

Space Invader in Tokyo

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Summer is not the season for start-ups, news is rather thin, with the exception perhaps of the GoPro IPO. I also use this blog to talk from time to time about street art and in particular of Space Invader. I also found an indirect way to discover a city, physically or virtually, is to start looking for these ephemeral works.

SpaceInvaderTokyo

Japan has always been an attracting place for me, so I became interested in what the artist has done there. There are dozens of photographs online, some maps, so I made ​​my own synthetic work in pdf format. [Other examples of SI fans in Tokyo include Nalice_Malice or True2death.]

Here is an updated version (May 2015) of my pdf file with more images.

I still have to make the actual discovery … Latest topic, Invader has launched its application for smart phone, Flash Invaders. It is perhaps this slight argument that will change my device!

flashinvaders

After Banksy and Invader, Pully’s Mirror Mosaic Man…

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What is fascinating with Street Art is that you might not be aware of it but when you begin to see it, it does not stop appearing in front of your eyes. After following Banksy in New York and then discovering Space Invader’s work in Switzerland (Lausanne, Geneva and Bern), a colleague mentioned to me the poetic mirror mosaics in Pully. I spent a few hours walking around and they blossomed everywhere!

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The beauty of life also comes from chance as Paul Auster artistically expresses it in his novels (check The Music of Chance). While I was taking a picture of one of these mirrors, someone behind me asked “So you like my snail?”. It was “Mirror Mosaic Man”. We had a short chat. I mentioned Space Invader in Lausanne and Pully’s artist told me I should contact Pierre Corajoud who publishes very nice little books about walks around Lausanne. Pierre Corajoud had indeed published a small booklet about Invaders in Lausanne. I thank him here again for offering me a copy because unfortunately, many works have been destroyed or stolen after its publication and Corajoud took his book out of the shelves. A pity! I hope the mosaics will not disappear… Here is the map though.


Afficher Mirror Mosaic Man on a bigger map

Finally here is a pdf document with all the works I saw or found online. But the best is to go and find them directly on site!
GillesPandel-Pully-2020

also on Scribd:

Bern Space Invaders (and in the Rest of the World – including Paris, Basel, Ravenna…)

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A very short post which is a complement to Space Invaders in Lausanne and in Geneva.

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Space Invaders arrived in Bern in 2000 and for those passionate by his work and close to Switzerland, he was also in Basel in 2013 and Anzère in 2014…

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Here is the map and you can also have download my pdf which includes what I have found so far… An update will come when/if I go to Bern!

PS: I went to Bern on June 15, 2014. A strange coincidence étrange is that I finished reading that day La Vie mode d’emploi by Georges Pérec. I thought then that Bartlebooth is a kind of analogy for Street Art and its fans… I just updated also the pdf above and here are the ones which survived after nearly 15 years. Another coincidence: they are 8 surviving pieces out of 29, similarly to start-ups where 50% still survive after 5 years and about 25% after 15 years…

Invaders-Bern-2014

PS2: from time to time, I add chapters to my Space Invaders discoveries. Here is a synthesis essentially based on the artist site and using other passionate data: SpaceInvaders around the World (pdf – 8Mo)

You may find in other posts data about Lausanne, Geneva, Basel, Grenoble, Brussels. In September 2014, I began to compile data about Paris. Here are pdfs files about specific arrondissements:
the 1st,
the 2nd,
the 3rd,
the 4th,
the 5th,
the 6th,
the 12th,
the 13th,
the 14th,
the 15th,
the 16th,
the 17th
and also the 1000+ Paris Invaders. Below is my Paris map.
You will find more recent Paris data here.

In October 2014, I followed in invasion of Ravenna. Here is what I found on line: Space Invaders in Ravenna.

Space Invaders were also in Geneva

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It was tough not to add the Geneva invasion by the Space Invaders after the one in Lausanne (After Banksy in NYC, Space Invader in Lausanne). But this one is far from perfect, many images are missing and I did not take the time to go on site.

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Still, you can download my pdf compilation of what I found online as well as a Google map of the places.


Afficher Space Invader Geneva sur une carte plus grande