The Adventure to Space: Invader’s First Successful Mission ART4SPACE, 2012
Originally published: 25 December 2014
Updated: 19 June 2026
Invader’s ART4SPACE – On 20 August 2012, the anonymous French artist Invader sent his SpaceOne mosaic into the stratosphere using a helium balloon, camera and GPS tracker. The mission, known as ART4SPACE, transformed the artist’s long-running invasion project into something literal and astonishing: a Space Invader had finally returned to space.
For more than fifteen years, Invader had been placing his pixelated ceramic mosaics across cities around the world, turning walls, streets and urban corners into part of a global game of discovery. His chosen name had always carried a cosmic wit, but ART4SPACE gave that idea a physical reality. The artist was no longer only invading cities with images borrowed from early arcade culture; he was sending one of those images beyond the Earth’s surface.
Still from Invader’s ART4SPACE film, documenting the SpaceOne mosaic’s 2012 stratospheric mission. © Invader
Invader ART4SPACE
For the launch, Invader and his assistant carefully selected a site within a 100-mile radius of Cape Canaveral, avoiding the Everglades, the ocean and Lake Okeechobee. They arrived with the SpaceOne mosaic, GPS tracking, cameras and the equipment needed to send the artisanal spacecraft into the sky. This time, they also brought two bottles of helium, having learned from an earlier failed attempt when a single bottle had not been enough to inflate the balloon.
Despite the gruelling Florida heat, and with bright sunlight making the device screens difficult to read, they continued with the mission in their plastic jumpsuits. The first bottle of helium filled the balloon successfully, and soon the spacecraft began to spin as it rose higher and higher into the sky. Invader followed its progress closely as the GPS signal reported the balloon’s location every ten minutes, until, after around an hour, the signal was lost. SpaceOne had reached the stratosphere for a short journey into space before beginning its return to Earth.
A later signal suggested that the balloon was still functioning and had landed near a small town around 60 miles from the launch site. Invader and his assistant set out to retrieve it, crossing fields, navigating private property and dense vegetation, and carefully avoiding snakes and alligators as new GPS coordinates arrived. At first, the balloon remained impossible to locate. Only after returning to the hotel and entering the coordinates into a computer did Invader realise that the signal was coming from a field just a few hundred metres from the road.
He returned to the location, negotiated the obstacles once more and finally found the red parachute balloon. Although the balloon had been punctured, SpaceOne was still intact. Most importantly, the memory card had survived. From that card came the images and footage that revealed the full story of SpaceOne’s journey, confirming the success of ART4SPACE.
Stills from Invader’s ART4SPACE film, showing the SpaceOne mosaic, handmade spacecraft, recovery mission and stratospheric journey. © Invader
Invader ART4SPACE Film
The ART4SPACE film documents the mission and reveals the mixture of obsession, preparation and vulnerability behind the project. It is not simply a record of a launch. It is a portrait of an artist pushing his own mythology into a new physical territory.
The film shows why ART4SPACE remains such an important Invader project. The journey is funny, tense, slightly absurd and strangely moving. It has the roughness of a handmade experiment and the grandeur of a symbolic act. The mission does not need the scale of a national space programme to feel important. Its power lies in the unlikely image of a small tiled figure rising above Earth and returning with its own evidence.
For Invader, whose practice often depends on proof, mapping and documentation, the footage is crucial. It transforms the mission from rumour into image. SpaceOne did not only go up. It came back with a view.
“Having spent the last fifteen years spreading space invaders at the four corners of the world, I dreamt of sending – or I should say return – one to space.”
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Video Invader
The film is important because it shows ART4SPACE as more than a symbolic gesture. It captures the practical uncertainty, humour and determination behind the mission, from the failed first attempt to the tense recovery of the balloon. The result is both playful and profound: a handmade mosaic, built from ceramic tiles, rising above Earth and returning with its own evidence.
Why Invader ART4SPACE Matters in Invader’s Practice
ART4SPACE matters because it made Invader’s mythology physical. The artist had spent years placing Space Invaders across the world, yet this mission reversed the direction of travel. The invader did not arrive on Earth; it left Earth.
That reversal gives the project its poetry. Invader’s mosaics usually ask viewers to search for them on walls, streets and unexpected corners of the city. With ART4SPACE, the artist became the hunter, tracking his own work through GPS coordinates after it had travelled into the stratosphere and fallen back to the ground.
The project connects many of the ideas that define Invader’s practice: the pixel, the mosaic, the map, the mission, the game and the idea of territory. SpaceOne did not simply illustrate the idea of space. It entered it.
Invader’s Space Print Editions
ART4SPACE also became central to Invader’s collectable Space print editions. In 2013, Invader released signed screen prints from his Space collection, including Space One Red, Space One Pink, ART4SPACE 2D and ART4SPACE 3D. These works connect the mission to the edition market, allowing collectors to own images tied directly to one of the artist’s most remarkable projects.
Space One Red
Space One Red is a limited edition signed screen print from Invader’s 2013 Space collection. The print depicts the SpaceOne mosaic sent into the stratosphere during ART4SPACE, making it one of the most recognisable works connected to the mission.
Medium: Screen print
Edition: 100
Size: 15 × 14 4/5 in, 38 × 37.5 cm
Description: Hand-signed, signed and numbered by Invader
Year: 2013
Space Invader – Space One (Red) Print
Space One Pink
Space One Pink is a limited edition signed screen print from Invader’s 2013 Space collection. It presents the SpaceOne mosaic in a bright pink palette and is more limited than the red version.
Medium: Screen print
Edition: 70
Size: 15 × 14 4/5 in, 38 × 37.5 cm
Description: Hand-signed, signed and numbered by Invader
Year: 2013
Space Invader – Space One (Pink) Print
Invader ART4SPACE 2D
Invader ART4SPACE 2D is a limited edition signed screen print from Invader’s 2013 Space collection. It shows the SpaceOne mosaic against the view of Earth’s stratosphere captured during the mission. The image connects the physical artwork to the extraordinary moment it travelled above Earth.
Medium: Screen print
Edition: 50
Size: 42 × 30 cm
Description: Signed and numbered by Invader
Year: 2013
Invader ART4SPACE 3D
Invader ART4SPACE 3D is a limited edition signed screen print from Invader’s 2013 Space collection. Like the 2D edition, it shows the SpaceOne mosaic with Earth’s stratosphere in the background, but this version includes ART4SPACE-stamped 3D glasses, extending the visual theatre of the mission into the collectable edition.
Medium: Screen print with ART4SPACE-stamped 3D glasses
Edition: 50
Size: 42 × 30 cm
Description: Signed and numbered by Invader
Year: 2013
GraffitiStreet Perspective
Invader ART4SPACE is understood as one of Invader’s most poetic and conceptually complete projects. It carries the wit of his practice, but also its discipline. The mission takes the artist’s central idea and follows it to an almost impossible conclusion: a Space Invader, made from ceramic tiles, leaving Earth and returning with proof of its journey.
“ART4SPACE is one of those Invader projects that stays with you because it feels super fun,” says Donna Haden, GraffitiStreet Co-Founder. “It has the playful edge of a Space Invader returning to space, but also the ambition of an artist testing how far his visual language can travel.”
Founder & Director Rosh, GraffitiStreet’s Banksy specialist and Invader expert, brings over 13 years of experience in the urban and contemporary art market, advising collectors on authenticated Banksy works, Invader works and editions, provenance, edition history, condition, market context and acquisition strategy.
“Space works are especially important within Invader’s collecting world because they connect directly to one of the artist’s strongest narratives,” says Rosh, Founder & Director of GraffitiStreet and Invader expert. “With ART4SPACE, collectors are not only looking at an image. They are looking at a documented mission and a defining moment in Invader’s practice.”
Frequently Asked Questions
ART4SPACE is Invader’s 2012 mission to send the SpaceOne mosaic into the stratosphere using a helium balloon, camera and GPS tracker. The project returned with images of the mosaic above Earth.
The successful ART4SPACE mission took place on 20 August 2012, after an earlier failed attempt caused by insufficient helium.
SpaceOne is the ceramic mosaic Invader sent into the stratosphere during ART4SPACE. It depicts one of his pixelated invader figures and became the central image of the mission.
SpaceOne was attached to an artisanal spacecraft equipped with a helium balloon, camera and GPS tracking. The balloon carried the mosaic into the stratosphere before it returned to Earth.
Yes. SpaceOne returned to Earth intact, and the memory card from the camera provided the images and footage that documented the journey.
ART4SPACE is important because it made Invader’s Space mythology literal. It extended his invasion beyond the street and into the stratosphere, creating one of the most memorable space-related projects in contemporary street art.
Invader’s ART4SPACE prints are signed screen prints from the 2013 Space collection, including ART4SPACE 2D and ART4SPACE 3D. They show the SpaceOne mosaic with the stratospheric view captured during the mission.
Space One Red and Space One Pink are signed screen prints from Invader’s 2013 Space collection. They depict the SpaceOne mosaic sent into space during ART4SPACE.
Collecting Invader’s Space Works
Invader’s Space prints are especially compelling because they sit at the intersection of street art, 8-bit visual language, performance, documentation and space mythology. They are not simply prints of a famous image. They are connected to a specific mission, a specific mosaic and a defining moment in Invader’s career.
For collectors, works such as Space One Red, Space One Pink, ART4SPACE 2D and ART4SPACE 3D carry added significance because they preserve the image of SpaceOne’s journey into the stratosphere. They belong to one of the most imaginative chapters in Invader’s wider invasion project, where the artist’s pixelated language moved from the street to the sky.
GraffitiStreet works with collectors seeking carefully sourced works by Invader and other leading urban contemporary artists. For availability, acquisitions and private viewings, explore the collection online or contact the gallery directly.
If you are searching for a specific Invader print or Space edition and cannot locate it in our store, please contact us. We are happy to advise and help source works where possible.