How a chance encounter with an art mosaic in Paris turned writer Mihika Jindal into a geek hooked into the immersive art experience.
I don’t understand art; a blasphemous thing to say, especially when you are in Paris but art has never been my cup of tea. Whenever people sing praises or discuss art movements, I—otherwise eager to chime-in in every discussion—find myself coyly snuck in the corner. Even at museums, I diligently try to read the appended information with an art piece, but my brain fails to process anything. I now live in the art hub of the world, served with a glorious chance to immerse myself in it, but nothing happened and then I experienced Invader.
Invader is an anonymous French street artist who has been carrying out “space invasions” since 1998 by installing tile mosaics on random street corners. He calls himself, UFA: Unidentified Free Artist. Through “invasion waves” he and his team have installed 3,999 mosaics across 79 cities in the world. Inspired by Space Invaders, the 8-bit Japanese shooting video games of the 1970s and 1980s, his designs range from tiny aliens to other video game and pop-culture icons like Mario, Pink Panther, Princess Leia, Pacman, Goku from Dragon Ball-Z, to name a few; basically a complete pre-Y2K nostalgic trip.
Invader tile mosaics across Paris
On World Music Day this year, I was loitering the streets of Le Marais, one of the prettiest neighbourhoods of Paris when unbeknownst to me, I was going to come face to face with what would become my very own immersive art experience–an Invader mosaic. After two years of Parisian living and consuming more than my share of street art, it was refreshing to be wonderstruck again. I immediately pulled out my camera to capture it. Turned out, I was not going to be stopping anytime soon. I was around the Pompidou Center, the iconic spot which houses Europe’s largest Modern Art Museum—Musée National d’Art Moderne—besides being a popular exhibition centre. I kept finding one mosaic after another and I just kept clicking. I remembered these from a YouTube travelogue I had watched. The video made a passing mention to Invader art and how going on a hunt is an amazing way of discovering the streets and the by-lanes of Paris. I didn’t realise till the day at Le Marais, how that information had stuck with me. In my head, posting these finds on my Instagram and tagging the artist is just how far it went.
But I was minutes away from unlocking a whole new world.
Around the next corner, I was clicking the sixth mosaic of the day when I saw another woman do the same. A usual scene, or so I thought. Although the camera she was using looked a bit dated, with a pixelated screen in neon colours, like we were back in the 90s. Her phone then made a funny sound and she jumped with excitement. “20 POINTS!” she exclaimed looking at me. Half expecting me to join in the celebration but I was nonplussed and had to ask. Truth be told, I wasn’t expecting a reply in English but she surprisingly obliged me and explained the Invader app to me.
It’s a simple app. It has a basic point-and-shoot with a zoom slider camera, a leader board, a point-tally, some tips to help you understand the rules (no, you can’t upload pictures to the app. You have to be physically present to score, it tracks your GPS), and a map of cities to tell you where invasions have happened. What makes this even more interesting—though in an annoying way—is that there is no street map that can take you to the exact spot; you’ll have to put in the effort. There are also impostors (we found so many at Bastille) that ape Invader’s pixelated mosaic-style but is not his work, and the app is more than happy to tell you that when you click it. For every legit Invader art you click, you get points ranging from 10 to 100. Something like Pokemon Go, if you must.
A screenshot of the flash invader app
The Flash Invader community is a big one, constantly going clickety-click around the globe. And since 21 June 2021, I am a part of this addiction. Thanks to this immersive art experience, my husband and I have walked around 15-20 km cumulatively hunting for mosaics. We scour google for any clue we can lay our hand on, and then with some obscure details, we head out scanning and scrutinising the walls as we walk.
“It is first of all about liberating Art from its usual alienators that museums or institutions can be. But it is also about freeing the Space Invaders from their video games TV screens and to bring them into our physical world,” he mentions on his website. And it gives us—the Flash Invaders—a big reason to achieve the daily goal of 10k steps. An ongoing project, Invader’s highest art piece is enjoying zero gravity on the International Space Station (ISS). But how can you possibly click that? Well, if you keep a tab on the ISS and aim the app camera towards the sky as it passes over your city, Invader’s Instagram page claims that you’ll get your 100 points for that. On the other extreme, his lowest work is located well below the sea level in Cancun Bay accessibly through a scuba dive. Closer home, Varanasi is one of the 79 cities and the only Indian city that houses 14 mosaics hidden through the streets.
My husband is mostly on GPS duty leading the way and I am ready with my phone to click as we step out to hunt these. In about three weeks since we stumbled upon this beautiful immersive art experience, we have gathered 28 mosaics in Paris. And now, we can’t wait to travel to different neighbourhoods, cities and countries to continue on this Flash Invading journey.
The game has just begun!
Mihika Jindal, a features writer, is on a constant quest of collecting and telling stories. When she is not consuming copious amounts of content, she's finding creative ways to tell her stories. She loves experiences, rejects the hustle culture and believes in mindful living.
