In May 2005 Bansky's version of primitive cave painting depicting a human figure hunting wildlife while pushing a shopping cart was found hanging in the British Museum.On 4 August 2005, the BBC reported that Banksy had painted 9 images on the Palestin-ian side of the Israeli West Bank barrier, including an image of a ladder up and over the wall and an image of children digging a hole through the wallBanksy has also self-published several books that contain photos of his work in various countries as well as some of his canvas work and exhibitions, accompanied by his own subver-sive and often witty writings. His first book, published in black and white, is Banging your head against a brick wall followed by the full color Existencilism. In 2004 he published his third book, Cut it Out, and 2005 saw the publication by Random House of Wall and Piece.A common technique in Banksy's art is to play on the perspective and edges of the item on which he is stencilling. Examples include 'trapdoors', 'criminal rats', photo opportunities and 'peeing soldiersPerforming a whois lookup on Banksy's website reveals that the registrant is Stephen Lazarides, a photographer. It has been suggested that Lazarides is Banksy also going under the name of gHOSTbOY. However Lazarides is actually Banksy's manager and Banksy has gone to great lengths to conceal his identity. Whilst creating artwork for Wall of Sounds's "Two Culture Clash" in Jamaica a number of photographs were purportedly taken of him by the event's official photographer, Peter Dean Rickards. After the pair had a number of disagreements, Rickards later sold the supposed photos of Banksy to the London Evening Standard. Rickards then published an article on a website entit-iled "Just who the fuck is Banksy?!?". There are arguments for and against the veracity of the photographs.

Banksy (1974 -- ) is a graffiti artist from Bristol, UK, whose artwork has appeared throughout London and other locations around the world. Despite this he carefully manages to keep his real name from the mainstream media. However, many news-papers assert that his real name is Robert or Robin Banks.Banksy, despite not calling himself an artist, has been considered by some as talented in that respect; he uses his original street art form, often in combination with a distinctive stencilling technique, to promote alternative aspects of politics from those promoted by the mainstream media.Some believe that his stencilled graffiti provides a voice for those living in urban environments that could not otherwise express themselves, and that his work is also something which improves the aesthetic quality of urban surroundings; many others disagree, asserting that his work is simple vandalism (a claim made by at least Peter Gibson, spokesperson for Keep Britain Tidy), or that his (apparently left wing) beliefs are not shared by the majority of the inhabitants of the environments that he graffitis. This political purpose behind his vandalism is reminiscent of the Ad Jammers or subvertising movement, who deface corporate advertising to change the intended message and hijack the advert.Banksy does, however, also do paid work for charities (e.g., Greenpeace) as well as demanding up to £25,000 for canvases. It has also been alleged [citation needed] and denied [citation needed] that Banksy has done work with corporations such as Puma. This has led to him being accused of being a sellout and a careerist by other artists and activists.Due to the shroud of secrecy surrounding his real identity and his subversive character; Banksy has achieved somewhat of a cult following from some of the younger age group within the stencilling community.In 2004 the Space Hijackers gave out spoof vouchers outside a Banksy exhibition to highlight the artist's ironic use of anti-capitalist and protest imagery while doing work for corporations and art galleries.Another of Banksy's tricks involved hanging a piece of his own art in London's Tate Modern, and as of March 2005, the New York Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History.

BanksyApplause

BanksyBart

BanksyIn the Bronx

BanksyCamera girl

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BanksyCans buffer

BanksyThe fall of man

BanksyFlower

BanksyFlower chucker

BanksyHave a nice day

BanksyKissing coppers

BanksyLooters

BanksyPissing guard

BanksyPoison rat

BanksyRain girlzzz

BanksyRat

BanksyRed carpet rats

BanksyRoller rat

BanksySmiley coppers

BanksyWindow lovers

BanksyTag climb

Futura 2000 (born 1955) is an internationally acclaimed graffiti artist. He started to paint illegally on New York's subway in the early seventies, working with other artists such as ALI. Futura 2000 began painting "legally" as the live on-stage backdrop painter for The Clash's 1981 European tour. More recently, he is a successful graphic designer and gallery artist. One of the most distinctive features about Futura's work is his abstract approach to graffiti art. While the primary focus, during the 1980s, of the majority of graffiti artists was lettering, Futura pioneered abstract street-art, which has since become more popular. Conversely, his aerosol strokes are regarded as differ-ent from those of his peers, as they are as thin as the fine lines achieved only through the use of an airbrush.While he is an infamous graffiti artist, his most prolific work is as an illustrator and graphic designer of record sleeves, first becoming involved with The Clash; producing a sleeve for their "Radio Clash" 7" single and handwriting the sleeve notes and lyrics sheet for their LP Combat Rock. Years later James Lavelle resurrected his career by getting him, alongside Ben Drury, to produce the artwork for several releases on Mo' Wax records; this also led to Futura producing the imagery which has largely defined James Lavelle's unkle project.During the 90's he was involved with clothing companies such as GFS, Subware and project dragon. More recently much of Futura's artwork has evolved into the production of highly col-lectible toys, sneakers; and a diverse range of creative media. Working with Recon, Nike, North Face, Medicom Toy, Under-cover, Supreme, Levi's, and A Bathing Ape.Futura also designs his own clothing label futura laboratories with a store located in Fukuoka, Japan.

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Who are you ? I'm Invader (that's my alias). I always appear masked in public, so no one knows my face. Some people call me a polluter, others say I'm an artist. I prefer to think of myself as an invader !

What's the Space Invaders project about?The idea is to "invade" cities all over the world with characters inspired by first-generation arcade games, and especially the now classic Space Invaders. I make them out of tiles, meaning I can cement them to walls and keep the ultra-pixelated appearance.

How many people are involved?Just me. In the eight years I've been working on this project, I've traveled to 35 cities on all five continents with the sole intention of "invading" them!Having said that, people have sent me photos of Space Invaders in towns I've never set foot in! I see it as a positive thing, a kind of tribute. I did consider setting up a group strategy but it's a hard thing to delegate. So while I don't encourage this kind of copying, I don't especially condemn it either.

What made you choose Space Invaders as the main character for the project?Lots of reasons. I see them as a symbol of our era and the birth of modern technology, with video games, computers, the Internet, mobile phones, hackers and viruses.And "space invader" is a pretty good definition of what I'm doing... invading spaces!

How do you stick them down?Do they ever get damaged or stolen?I use extra-strong cements. Nothing lasts for ever, but if a thing's worth gluing, it's worth gluing well! It has been known for a disgruntled building owner or the council to tear down an Invader. As for "Invader thieves", nine times out of ten they end up with a few broken tiles; they're too fragile to be prized off in one piece.

How do you choose your spots?I go everywhere in the city, and I watch carrefuly. A spot is like a revelation... it jumps out at you.

Taito Corporation owns the rights for the original game. Have they taken action against you?No. They might if I invented a game and called it "Space Invaders", or made t-shirts with the original desing on them, but that's not my intention. Also, my Space Invaders have evolved away from Taito's, as I've combined the original four characters to create thou-sands of variations.

How do you go about an invasion? Do you make the Invaders in advance?It depends. I've developed all kinds of techniques so I can adapt to different contexts, like how busy the spot is, when the invasion takes place, the size and weight of the Invader, how high up the wall it's going to be, etc. It takes at least two weeks to invade a city. I don't just put up a couple of Invaders in the center then go home. I set out to cover the entire city.

Have you ever run into trouble with the police?Sometimes, but that's part of the game. Then it's a case of "go to jail and miss three turns"!

Do you keep a record of all your Space Invaders?Yes. Because they're all different, they're all numbered, photographed and carefully indexed. Some of this information is given in the "invasion guides", each of which retraces the history of a particular invasion. The first two volumes are for Paris and Los Angeles. I'm working on the next ones.

What are the "invasion maps"?Street maps are an important part of my invasions. For every city I invade, I make a note of where each Invader is on a map. After certain invasions, I've drawn up an "invasion map" which is a kind of record of how the invasion happened. This map is then printed and distributed in the city in question, and sold in the Space Shop. So far I've produced 15 "invasion maps" (out of 35 invaded cities).

Are all the Space Invaders photos online?No. Only a fraction of them are on the site. You can see a lot more on photo-sharing sites like Flickr.com.

Is there a political message?The act in itself is political, as 99% of the time I don't have authorization. Otherwise, it's more an experiment than a protest. Obviously there's the gaming aspect too, as I've spent the past eight years traveling from city to city with the sole objective of getting a maximum score.

How does your scoring system work?It's very straightforward. Each Space Invader is worth between 10 and 50 points depending on its size, composition and where it is. So each invaded city has a score that's added to previous scores.

Are you still invading?Absolutely. Not a week goes by without new Invaders appearing.

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