Tag Archives: Space Invader

Space Invader Flashing and Flashed

Space Invader last strengthened his invasion of London in 2016 and from a peak of 150 the number of Invaders stationed in London has slowly diminished. Some have been kidnapped and a number of those have been held to ransom on Planet Ebay. Some went dark, contact lost as they simply disappeared. Some deteriorated and decayed with time. The lucky few however returned to their sentry posts restored, refreshed, reinvigorated and reactivated by Space Rescue International. They prefer “Reactivation.”

Space Invader LDN_133 mosaic street art vigilant at Elephant and Castle

Space Invader LDN_133 Reactivated – see also top image

News of recent reactivations prompted a bike ride this morning to wildernesses south of the river where a number have resumed their stealthy monitoring activities.

mosaic space invader street art near waterloo London

Space Invader LDN_84, grumpy so-and-so

LDN_84, perhaps not happy being south of the river

Space Invader LDN_134 mosaic street art through the bushes close up

Space Invader LDN_134 stealthily observes London

Space Invader LDN_133 scrutinises alien craft

Space Invader LDN_131 mosaic street art near Kennington

Space Invader LDN_131 eternally lurking

Space Invader LDN_131 going nowhere

The most far flung was way out in Brixton, its remote location prompted an invader health check with one of the supreme reconnaissance group on the leader board of Invader’s smartphone game “Flash Invader”. This guru advised that LDN_42 had actually been sighted and recently cleaned by another Master of the High Score screen, Mr Steam and as a result, the signal was strong.

Space Invader LDN_42, old school Brixton resident

It’s not about the stats or the ego of soaring up the high score chart but five invader’s inspected, 100 points scored and a huge 678 place rise smashing into the top 40,000 on the leader board made this a very productive hour! It took my flashed London Invaders into treble figures, 101 of 150 mosaics flashed, this is the kind of stats fetish that satisfies the inner nerd.

screengrab Space Invader Flash Invader game high scores

Lost in Space (but getting higher)

LINKS

Read more about the work of the Reactivation Team in our 2016 interview with this highly secretive group of space operatives here.

Space Invader

Reactivation Team

All photos copyright Dave Stuart

Manchester Street Art

A couple of weeks ago I made a trip to Manchester to explore that city’s street art. Manchester has great architecture, a distinct exciting personality adn plenty of locations where stencils, stickers, paste ups and graffiti flourishes. There are also some impressive murals.

This next gallery is a sample of the roughly 800 photographs taken over a 2 day exploration.

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Space Invader aficionados will doubtless be aware of the Manchester invasion that took place in 2004, 47 street mosaics were left lurking and without too much effort 31 of them were located and dutifully “flashed”.

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These are just a small number of the photographic highlights, this is a SHOREDITCH blog after all!! The full write up can be found on the Graffoto blog.

All photos Dave Stuart

Stop Street Art Cos It’s Cold? No Chance!

The trains may be up the spout and the motorways down to a single lane slush slalom but it takes more than a cold weather to stop street art activity in Shoreditch, or indeed to get in the way of our awesome guests! The feature shot at the top of this post shows a solid group of hardcore street art fans, they are 3 hours into a tour during which the snow barely paused yet here they are, cheerful, smiling and standing in front of an equally hardcore piece of graffiti by legend EINE.

Through the snow we found quite a lot of new street art this morning put up by artists determined to remain active despite freezing temperatures over the past few days.

I was particularly impressed by this Jake character by Losthills, it may look like a paste up which is his usual medium on the streets but this is actually a relief sculpture.

Street art, street artists, Shoreditch, London, snow, paste up,Losthills

#Jake by Losthills

Nice to see new stuff from Orrible in Shoreditch with the stencil on paint rat paste up.

Orrible

Mowcka was also new since yesterday and as with nearly all of this small, clandestine street art the beauty is as much in roughness of the layers, colours and textures in the surround as it is about the actual art piece.

Street art, street artists, Shoreditch, London, snow, paste up,Mowcka

Mowcka has a natural connection

RIP Smith has been making regular trips up from the West Country this year, this Slimshady stencil was spotted yesterday.

RIP Smith

A fresh addition roughly pasted over some beautiful abstract colours comes courtesy of dmstff.

DMSTFF

Broke Art‘s fresh piece comments on the huge increase in dependency on foodbanks, particularly among those whose part time employment means they fall out of the state support system yet find the work does not provide a living wage. Plus it’s always good to see street art appearing over advertising.

Broke Art

Even Invader LDN_106 was looking blue from the cold today.

Street art, street artists, Shoreditch, London, snow,mosaic, tiles, LDN_106

Space Invader LDN_106 in the snow

Some of this art came from a group of regular London paste up provocateurs who had a group show this weekend (only) at the 5^th Base Gallery on Heneage St.

Winter is coming but it isn’t stopping the street artists nor the Shoreditch Street Art Tour guests!

Links:

Losthills Instagram

Orrible Instagram

Mowcka Instagram

RIP Smith Instagram

dmstff Instagram

Broke Art Instagram

Space Invader website

All photos: Dave Stuart

Space Invader Strikes Back!

In our regular street art updates we have talked a couple of times about disappeared ancient Space Invaders reappearing, the so called “Reactivation”. We were very lucky to secure the first ever interview with the UK Reactivation Team, check my other blog to see how and why these passionate extra terrestrial art restorers are doing what they do.

London, Street Art, Tour, Walk, Space Invader, Reactivation, UK Reactivation Team, Art4Space, mosaic

LDN_058 Reactivated

Bonus news – back in 2012 I was fortunate to be in a select audience for a one evening only private showing in a London hotel of a 24 minute documentary made by Space Invader. It was an exciting little movie about his attempt to send one of his Invaders into space and film the result. This week Invader has finally released the documentary to the public and it is very interesting.

Photos: Dave Stuart

Video: Space Invader

Reactivated Invaders Pt II

A little while ago we discovered that the legendary street artist and star in the Banksy film Exit Through The Gift Shop was putting back old classic Space Invaders in London, written about HERE.

London, street art, Shoreditch, guided tour, graffiti, Space Invader, RessurectionTeamUK, Protect Them, mosaic

#Protect Them! Ressurection Team UK

We found another one this afternoon. After this morning’s tour I decided to cycle home via Spitalfield’s market and as I leaned into a corner I spied a Reactivation Team sticker on a lamppost. “They’re usually close to Space Invaders” I thought so I pulled over, walked back and pretty soon found another reactivated Space Invader.

LDN_68 Reactivated!

The impressive thing about this one is its location, although the lip of the canopy it is located on is pretty deep, you have got to have both the ability to get up to that lip and also the willingness, or the “cojones”.

LDN_68 Reactivated!

Yesterday, immediately after a tour with a school group I discovered another long lost Invader classic.

LDN_97 2016

This is what it looked like when I photographed it in October 2007, though I can’t vouch for when it disappeared.

London, street art, Shoreditch, guided tour, graffiti, Space Invader, RessurectionTeamUK, Protect Them, mosaic, Nick Walker, Stencil

LDN_97 2007 (feat Nick Walker)

So, two “reactivated” Space Invaders in 2 days, I better go through my library of old Space Invader photographs and start visiting “Il disparus”.

UPDATE (Dec 2016) – despite the presence of a reactivation sticker, LDN_068 at Charterhouse St is actually the original, not a reactivation. The Cargo Invader LDN_097 is a fruit of the Labour of the UK Reactivation Team.

All photos: Dave Stuart

London Space Invaders Resurrected

Guests on a tour a couple of weeks ago will recall the excitement of spotting a curious new Space Invader sticker.

London, Shoreditch, Ladbroke Grove, Kings Cross, Street art, Space Invader, mosaics, reactivation, ressurectin, stickers

Over a classic Union flag invader was the legend “Reactivation Team UK” and the motto #protect_them. A little bit of digging resulted in finding 5 Space Invaders which have been “reborn”, in other words they are old classics which had disappeared from their locations due to the ravages of time, authority, disgruntled property owners or plain old sticky fingered fans.

Space Invader LDN_01 – the first!

Space Invader LDN_27

Space Invader LDN_28

Space Ivvader LDN-45

Space Invader LDN_88

More information and photographs is on the Graffoto blog

London, Shoreditch, Ladbroke Grove, Kings Cross, Street art, Space Invader, mosaics, reactivation, ressurectin, stickers

All photos: Dave Stuart

UPDATE (Dec 2016) – despite the presence of a reactivation sticker, LDN_027 at Bayfield Road is not a reactivated Invader, also LDN_028 was activated by the French team. Also, the Union Flag Invader was not reactivated by the UK Reactivation Team.

Whats On: Street Art gallery shows Nov 14th and 15th

Quite an exciting end of week for gallery related street art work. Or is it street related gallery work. Or perhaps Urban Art. Who cares, good art, friendly faces and possibly some free liquid refreshments thrown in.

Pure Evil Department Store

Pure Evil has long been a corner stone of Shoreditch’s street art scene. From the murky leafs of his address book all kinds of radical international street art talent have had their first London break through the Pure Evil Gallery. Names like Roa, Pablo Delgado, Artiste Ouvrier, Spectre and Robbo had legendary solo shows in the Pure Evil dungeon. Always seeking the novel and bizarre, Pure Evil has decided to open what he calls a department store just a couple of doors down from his own gallery. Expect carpets, sports equipment, cookery and a perfume counter just inside the front door …hang on a minute….no, sorry, that’s a normal department store. Actually, the only thing to expect from Mr Evil is the un-expected.

Pure Evil Department Store

96-98 Leonard St

London EC2A 4RH

D Face One Man And His Dog,

Stolen Space Gallery

Banksy hasn’t returned the calls from his publisher for quite a while so perhaps the most significant street art literary disclosure for many years will be DFace’s book. They call it a monograph but I don’t know what one of those is so on account of the covers, pages, words and pictures I am sticking with “Book”. Certainly there should be no lack of material regarding the man, his art and his contribution to the London street art scene to make this a fascinating read and we look forward to doing just that. Hang on…isn’t Banksy’s publisher…Banksy? So what’s his excuse then?

While there punters can also take in the work of Gregory Euclide’s “Whose Land We Laid Down & Wiped Away” show, which continues.

STOLENSPACE GALLERY
17 Osborn Street
London E1 6TD

Space Invader – Art4Space

On Friday Lazardes hosts the London Premiere of Space Invader’s film Art4Space. Shoreditch Street Art Tours guests will be familiar with the work of Space Invader . All we know thus far about the film is that the mosaic meister does somehow genuinely invade space. It will be interesting to see if Space Invader avoids the arrest episode which accompanied his time in New York recently for a screening there.

Lazerides hosts but the film is being screened offsite at Soho House. There are two fully screenings which we understand are likely to have been fully booked and there is rumour that a third 9pm screening has been added. RSVP definitely required (info@lazinc.com)