Banksy is a famous graffiti artist, political activist, and film director whose “real” identity has never been released. For years, there has been rampant speculation about who exactly Banksy is, but his true name has remained under wraps at least in part because graffiti is still a crime. However, his identity may now be easier to figure out than ever before, thanks to some British criminologists who have tested a new system of “geographic profiling” to help catch serial offenders.

Geographic profiling is not new–in fact you’ve probably seen some early derivations of it on your favorite crime procedural. At its most basic, it can be used to pinpoint origins of all sorts of things, including disease outbreaks. When applied to criminology, it can be used to pinpoint serial offenders, by taking crime scenes and then using mathematical formulas to map where an offender may live or frequent.

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London have been trying to create improved versions of geographic profiling, and in order to test their new system, inputted incidences of Banksy’s graffiti in both London and Bristol. The formula spit back the name Robin Gunningham, which shouldn’t really surprise Banksy fans because Gunningham’s name has come up as a Banksy suspect before. The researchers published these findings in the Journal of Spatial Science. However, they were clear to point out that they didn’t think that their method was going to work as well as it did. Steve Le Comber, one of the authors of the study, stated:

What I thought I would do is pull out the 10 most likely suspects, evaluate all of them and not name any… But it rapidly became apparent that there is only one serious suspect, and everyone knows who it is.

As with almost any application of academia, there have been criticisms of the study, including the fact that the researchers didn’t include some outliers, and that because Banksy’s work is anonymous, they could have unknowingly included copycats. And Le Comber and the other researchers are careful to say that Banksy is not definitely Gunningham, but just that their research offers additional support for the theory.

After the findings of the study became known, Bansky’s legal team contacted the researchers, apparently taking some issue with a press release that was going to accompany the study’s journalistic publication. That press release has since been yanked. The paper itself, which apparently Banksy’s legal team did not take issue with, was published Thursday.

The researchers’ findings certainly don’t prove anything definitively about who Bansky actually is–but the fact that they match up with a man who has been accused of being Banksy before isn’t a coincidence. This look into Banksy’s identity was certainly an interesting application of geographic profiling, but if this kind of technology works it could have a huge impact on tracking serial offenders of much more vicious crimes.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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“I have a confession to make,” Patti Smith said on a dimly lit stage, “I am Banksy.”

On May 19 2014, the ‘godmother’ of punk rock presented the Webby Award Person of the Year to Banksy, the street artist, activist, and all around prankster, who in October 2013 took New York by force in a month-long residency engaging the city with tags and stunts. The eighteenth annual ceremony took place at Cipriani Wall Street (once home to the New York Stock Exchange, and headquarters to the National City Bank), celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Internet, honoring “excellence on the internet” – a distinction that becomes evermore dubious in America post net-neutrality. The elusive street artist did not make an appearance of course, but he did issue a video response summarizing his month in New York. In October 2013, the video begins, Banksy became New York City’s Artist in Residence, “an honor so prestigious he made it up and awarded it to himself.”

The month-long tour began October 1, 2013 when the artist vowed to produce a new piece of work every day somewhere in the city. Banksy’s website named the residency “Better Out Than In,” which, as Roberta Smith of the New York Times pointed out, “may seem to elevate the streets and the outsider artist above insiders and their pristine galleries, but it is also a crude British version of ‘gesundheit,’ except for expulsions other than sneezes.” The name evokes the playfulness of Banksy’s aesthetic, which he sometimes uses to convey stark political messages. “This British graffiti artist, purported millionaire, activist, filmmaker and prankster spent the last month roaming the city,” Smith continued, “perpetuating what is — depending upon your point of view — street art, political resistance or vandalism.” Banksy’s art was a social experiment, “using the city as a rat maze into which he dropped different kinds of bait to see how New Yorkers would react.”

What type of political graffiti? For starters, “The Sirens of the Lambs,” was an obvious critique of the meat processing industry; the piece consisted of a delivery truck overflowing with adorable animated heads of sheep and cows, screeching to the public on their way to the slaughterhouse — appropriately driving through Manhattan’s Meat Packing District.

carnegenyc via Flickr

On October 4, the artist made a traditional spay-paint tag in Bushwick, “OCCUPY! The Musical;” another tag he produced on October 23 read, “Today’s art has been cancelled due to police activity.” On October 16, Banksy staged a performance piece where a dirty young man shined the shoes of a Ronald McDonald statue, which frowned down at the wastrel. The piece critiqued the low wages in the fast food industry, and even drew complaints from the passersby for the working rights of the performer.

the cardinal de la ville via Wikipedia

My favorite piece, however, was a stall that Banksy set up selling original artworks. The art would have totaled half a million dollars; however, “without any of the art hype,” Banky’s recent video explains, “the results — a total take of $420.”

If Banksy’s residency was a series of “social experiments” as Roberta Smith interpreted, what do they tell us about New York — about America? Banksy points out obvious yet controversial social issues such as the ethics of animal slaughterhouses, and wage-slavery of fast food service, but he does so with subtle ironic playfulness, making his art appealing to a popular audience. Banksy invites public interaction, and in doing som discussion of the issues he presents, which I think is the prime value of his dada-esque confluence of political prank and art. The public responded resoundingly to Bansky’s New York odyssey; in October 350,000 people followed Banksy’s Instagram account and spread photos of his art further on Foursquare, Tumblr, Vine, YouTube, and Twitter, where #banksy was used more than 38,000 times during the month. Ultimately, Banksy has demonstrated how social media influences our daily lives, shaping social and political discussions; he presents the intrinsic value of public space, both physical and virtual, as a space for political and social dialogue. As transnational private wealth continues to conquer the public sphere, Banksy ever more so stands out as a beacon of public resistance.

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Ryan D. Purcell (@RyanDPurcell) holds an MA in American History from Rutgers University where he explored the intersection between hip hop graffiti writers and art collectives on the Lower East Side. His research is based on experience working with the Newark Public Arts Project and from tagging independently throughout New Jersey and New York.

Featured image courtesy of [Infrogmation via Wikipedia]

Ryan Purcell

Ryan D. Purcell holds an MA in American History from Rutgers University where he explored the intersection between hip hop graffiti writers and art collectives on the Lower East Side. His research is based on experience working with the Newark Public Arts Project and from tagging independently throughout New Jersey and New York. Contact Ryan at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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