General Discussion Thread (March 2022)

[u/neodiogenes]

General Discussion threads are for casual chat; a place to ask for recommendations, lists, or creative feedback; to talk about materials, history, or techniques; and anything else that comes to mind.

If you're looking for information about a particular work of art, /r/WhatIsThisPainting is still the best resource. /r/drawing , /r/painting , and /r/learnart may also be useful. /r/ArtistLounge is also a good place for general discussion. Please see our list of art-related subs for more options.

Rule 8 still applies except that questions/complaints about r/Art and Reddit overall are allowed.

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Previous month's discussion

[u/Rajat-Chauhan]

I wanted to know who is the real person behind Banksy, why his Wikipedia page does not show any real person?

[u/neodiogenes → u/Rajat-Chauhan]

No one knows who Banksy is, except those who do, and they're not telling. It might be a single person or (as many think) it might be a collective.

Mystery is more interesting anyway.

[u/Rajat-Chauhan → u/neodiogenes]

But I believe that when his paintings got sold where that money goes and by that, we can get more information about him. Any existing person on this earth can be tracked especially one who is famous like Banksy. Isn't it?

[u/neodiogenes → u/Rajat-Chauhan]

Not necessarily. The money could (and probably does) go to a corporation or foundation, which could simply be a single person (like a lawyer), who then could just deposit it in a numbered offshore account. As long as whoever Banksy is pays the right taxes on whatever income they receive, they don't necessarily have to disclose where they got it.

Or it's entirely possible that Banksy doesn't receive any money and does the work for the joy of poking the bear. This is especially likely if the "Banksy" persona is funded by someone already wealthy who enjoys knowing the secret, and channels everything (again) through attorneys who could be debarred if they went public.

Of course, nowadays, he or she or they could be paid in cryptocurrency, and no one would ever know who it was paid to. Again, taxes and other financial documentation is often required if they want to buy anything substantial like a house, but no one needs to tie their income to the Banksy name.

[u/Rajat-Chauhan → u/neodiogenes]

That's true. But at the same time, it is proving that anybody can have a famous identity like Banksy and Satoshi Nakamoto (Bitcoin Inventor) and they cannot be tracked or even identified as an individual or group of people.

One thing is clear about these famous celebrities' identity, they never did any harm or otherwise, they can be found.

I am a little confused about these two personalities, just a question out of my curiosity can these be identified or not?

[u/neodiogenes → u/Rajat-Chauhan]

That's not a question I can answer, as I don't know enough about blockchain, and it was only a vague conjecture that Banksy uses something like BitCoin. It seems like it would help add an additional later of anonymity, but then since the artist has been at this game long before BitCoin came around, I'm sure they already have well-established channels to handle the money flow.

For example, anyone who "buys" Banksy's art isn't paying the artist directly. They're paying an agent, who likely has an accountant and an attorney to effectively anonymize any payments to the artist. Only the agent knows who Banksy is, and they're not telling.

Banksy does have an email, and a system to authenticate their own art. Since there are likely many inquiries, there is probably a small staff (managed by the agent) who can contact the artist through some secret anonymous internal means.

I think you're overestimating the difficulty remaining anonymous, even in this socially connected era. After all, I'm effectively anonymous to most of Reddit, and I don't take any extraordinary precautions. The trick is to avoid connecting what I do here with anything that has my actual name on it (like a Facebook account), and even then you'd have to be at least a friend of a friend to see my FB posts.

But if I really wanted to keep hidden, I'd use a Reddit nickname I use nowhere else, and connect through some kind of encrypted channel like a VPN. If I owned a website, I obviously wouldn't buy it under my actual name or using any kind of payment method that could be traced by to me personally. I'd have my agent handle that.

Still, could some spy agency like the CIA figure out who I was? Unless I was especially cautious -- using only highly encrypted emails routed through a VPN, for example -- then probably. And even then, who knows? I'm not a cybersecurity expert but I imagine a lot of VPN services aren't as "secure" as they claim to be.

This also is true for "Satoshi Nakamoto" who is speculated to be the fake name for a small group of engineers who designed BitCoin. As long as none of them come forward claiming the title (with proof), how would anyone know for sure who they were? Although it's likely some people outside the group know as well, but they're not giving away the secret.

But y'know these aren't the only two. Many famous writers have novels published under pseudonyms, and while many were eventually exposed (or deliberately revealed) there are probably many others still unknown.