SpacedOut
Space Invaders, at full scale: a fleet of glowing drones descends in formation while a player on a rail-mounted chair fires real lasers.
I — The workConcept
SpacedOut is a real-life remake of the arcade classic Space Invaders. Drones fitted with LED strips and light sensors are animated as invaders and arranged in attack formation by autonomous flight software. On the ground, the player rides a gunner station that slides along rails and fires laser beams.
II — DocumentationPlates
III — The storyMaking & meaning
The 1978 game is a fable about a single defender against an endless descending grid. Re-staging it in physical space reverses its abstraction: the invaders become fragile, buzzing creatures, the player becomes a performer, and the audience — absent from the original — becomes the crowd at a joust.
SpacedOut was built by a thirteen-person team during the Geekcon makeathon. The making-of film is, to us, as important as the result: it shows the work as it really happens — many hands, improvised solutions, and a formation of machines slowly learning to hold its shape.