“I was playing Space Invaders on an Atari when I was 12 years old; it’s part of my story and culture…”
– Invader, Street Artist (France)
“Though the work tends to have a cute, computer-like aesthetic, which may appear totally apolitical, it is in fact the contrast of the nostalgic, utopian imagery he places on the street and the often grim reality of the context that provides the work with a sense of political poignancy. The idea of turning the entire world into a hyper-reality game board also adds an element of existential simulacra to the locations where the work is placed.”
– Street Art
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I recently volunteered at a mural based workshop. We discussed several artists: one of which was Invader. There were a lot of statements to be made, but the first thing that came to mind was, “It’s all a game.”
I used to be a pretty big gamer. I played Invaders with Atari too along with The Lion King and miscellaneous other games on an old school Sega and Nintendo consoles (read about my retro gaming antics here).
The most recent (“recent” being a decade ago) game I’ve played though is World of Warcraft. I was pretty strategic about it: I would plan my way through my quests, leveling up, where to go – I wrote shit down…and yes, there were days when I would spend the whole day playing it. My friends and I even bought one of those guidebooks.
Just like what the book, “Street Art” says, Invaders’ works give its environment an existential simulacra. I personally think we can view life in that sense – we control our characters, we get to assess our stats: the level of our health, the amount of coins we have, our weaponries (tools), geographic points explored, skills and our success depends on how well we manage ourselves with our objectives along with current terrain conditions (challenges and opportunities) along with accurately assessing our assets and liabilities.
I don’t really know what else to say as a foreword, except, I wish they provided books or studies like these when I was in high school. I know they take this up in art school, but I think this should be a mandatory study for all students.
High school = catch them while they’re young and they haven’t made their minds up about much things yet… so hopefully in the future, when they’re older, they’ll be able to make decisions with a broader scope of experience/mentality/perspectives.
Street Art and Graffiti, just as much as the book proposes it to be a rebellion, to me, is the raw voice of the youth, the communities and the common folk.
Whenever you get the chance: widen your horizons. It doesn’t matter if you’re an artist or a technician or a driver – the more you have on your experience bag, the better you will be able to contribute to whatever it is you end up doing.
This is why I like Pop art: it’s more accepting of a variety of stuff. It takes out the meaning in certain contexts where one person or artist or piece of work is “important,” it/he/she is just another nobody or meaningless somewhere else.
I personally really like that idea.
It’s very in line with my “It’s All a Joke” philosophy.
I recommend MTV and VH1 for televised pop art.
I’m not that updated myself and I don’t know the latest trends, but MTV and VH1 Asia were a huge part of my pre-teens and adolescence (they would have contests encouraging viewers to create stuff and the winners’ works go live on TV. It’s a good thing to get the masses involved and it becomes interactive that way. They have digital booths and virtual stuff everywhere now…and it’s not a bad thing to peruse those opportunities for the sake of your joy, participation, and creativity)
I encourage you to read the book yourself, so you can make up your own mind about it.
Check it out at the Toronto Public Library here
If you wanna own a copy, buy it on Amazon here
There’s also a really good documentary that I highly recommend, “Exit Through the Gift Shop” which features a lot of street artists mentioned in this book (Banksy, Invader, Shepard Fairey etc)
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