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Is Bansky’s Identity Revealed? Scientists Believe They Know Who He Is
A group of scientists claims to have discovered the identity of the world’s most renowned and elusive graffiti artists.
Scientists at London’s Queen Mary University revealed they believe the street artist known as Banksy is a man named Robin Gunningham. The researchers used geographic profiling, a technique used to catch serial criminals. It is a sophisticated statistical analysis technique used in criminology to locate repeat offenders. The scientists looked for a correlation between 140 artworks in London and Bristol attributed to Banksy, and 10 commonly touted names purported to be the elusive street artist.
The study concluded a series a hotspots that Bansky frequented. The hotspots include a pub, a playing field, a residential address in Bristol, and three addresses in London. Scientists cross-referenced all these places and revealed that these were the places that Gunningham frequented or lived in.
“I’d be surprised if it’s not [Gunningham], even without our analysis, but it’s interesting that the analysis offers additional support for it,” Steve Le Comber, a biologist and co-author of the study, told BBC.
“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. If you Google Banksy and Gunningham you get something like 43,500 hits,” Le Comber concluded.
This isn’t the first time somebody tried to unmask the mysterious street artist.
Some of the individuals thought that to be Bansky have previously been arrested outside of London and New York. Others believe that Bansky is a parking attendant in the small resort England town of Weston-Super-Mare. This was later proven wrong. Many people also believe that Bansky could be a woman.
Until it is fully proven, the identity of Bansky is still unknown.
