Invader's street art, another way to explore cities

[This article was first published on our site on August 7, 2022, and republished on May 9, 2025]

At the top of the Eiffel Tower, while most visitors immortalize the panorama, Laura Fromm turns her back on the City of Lights. Her zoom is focused on a small, colorful mosaic, about 25 centimeters in size, attached to the monument itself.

This artwork made of small tiles is inspired by the pixel characters from the 1978 video game Space Invaders . There are thousands of these mosaics, on buildings, sidewalks, under highway bridges, in major cities in France, but also elsewhere in Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and, more recently, in Bolivia.

Laura Fromm has spotted these invaders in Paris, Marseille, Avignon and Brussels – to date, she has counted 1,675. She knows the exact number of these invaders because she downloaded an invader “hunting” app [called FlashInvaders] that allows her to collect points for each one found.

The artist behind these mosaics, who calls himself Invader, has been placing his works in the most unexpected corners of major cities for over twenty years now – in his approach, street art denounces the grip of digital technology on our daily lives. In Paris alone, you can find his little invaders even in bookstores