A team of designers has taken iconic images of major global cities and added a “rich graphic language and vibrant visual effects” to blend each one with elements of Japanese infrastructure and visual culture.

Presenting their work at the Venice Architecture Biennale, this strange art series from Daigo Ishii + Future-Scape Architects aims to question our ideas of locality and our sense of civic imagery and identity.

What happens, they ask, when a familiar underlying environment gets an overlay, sending mixed signals to observers? Is it the underlying shape and form of a place that make it what it is, or those other visual cues that lend familiarity?

The firm set their cities on cities including New York, Buenos Aires, Copenhagen and La Paz, each time pulling in distinctively Japanese elements, from neon signage to cherry trees.

In each case, the result is a surreal hybrid, playing off cues in source photographs shot in the United States, Argentina, Denmark, France, Bolivia and Italy, becoming something that is neither here nor there, original or artificial.

“The project seeks to present an amalgamation between traditional architectural studies and surprising artistic elements.” The display in Venice consists of “a video work shown on a large-scale monitor, with six surrounding boards displaying the final scenery of each city after ‘Tokyo-lization’ has taken place.”

A set of mathematical processes developed for use in crime-fighting and disease-tracking indicates that one already-suspected individual may indeed be the infamous graffiti and installation artist known as Banksy.

The approach of “geographical profiling” is often used to track down repeat offenders, serial criminals whose strikes began to form patterns that can be productively analyzed by experts and run through models by mathematicians.

The findings help paint a picture of probable places of residence and areas of everyday operation, criminal or otherwise, sometimes narrowing the search to an area as small as a few hundred square feet.

Steven Le Comber, a biologist at the the University of London, learned of geographic profiling from Kim Rossmo, a criminologist at Texas State University, growing interested because of potential applications for disease vector studies. The two then began teaming up to find both pathogens and people.

In this case, their modeling shows clusters of activity in London and Bristol based around 140 data points, specifically: sites of known or alleged works by Banksy. Their findings, reported in the Journal of Spatial Science, suggest a handful of addresses in London (a pub, park and residence) all associated with one Robin Gunningham.

Already suspected of being Banksy, Gunningham may yet be a ruse or a plant, but science suggests the individual is very likely connected with the artist, one way or another. As to the question: who is Banksy? We may never really know for sure.

From the abstract: “The pseudonymous artist Banksy is one of the UK’s most successful contemporary artists, but his identity remains a mystery. Here, we use a Dirichlet process mixture (DPM) model of geographic profiling, a mathematical technique developed in criminology and finding increasing application within ecology and epidemiology, to analyse the spatial patterns of Banksy artworks in Bristol and London. The model takes as input the locations of these artworks, and calculates the probability of ‘offender’ residence across the study area. Our analysis highlights areas associated with one prominent candidate (e.g., his home), supporting his identification as Banksy.”

By now you may know that the world’s most famous street artist has indeed not been detained by police and his identity remains secret, but how much do you know about the prankster who perpetrated this scandalous subterfuge? For those who missed the start of this affair: a supposedly anonymous author claimed Banksy was unmasked and taken into custody by London police a few days ago during an elaborate sting operation – the story spread like wildfire despite being easy (for those so inclined) to debunk.

Paul Horner, the man behind the National Report piece, fingered himself as the real Banksy. In reality, he is a serial hoaxer with a history of viral exploits (often involving his own identity) of which this is simply the latest. In many ways, he is a subversive and comedic artist in his own right, arguably not so unlike Banksy after all, who has himself been known to dupe fans for fun if not profit. One could argue that Horner’s artistic stunts simply take other shapes, like writing, coming out of a background of activism and comedy. He is also not the only one who has cleverly used Banksy’s own stunts for creative monetary gain.

His fake story, titled Graffiti Artist Banksy Arrested In London; Identity Revealed, has been shared 3.5 million times on Facebook so far, despite being published on a website well known for reporting fictional (and frequently  hilariously improbable) news. Another early clue: the article’s thin sourcing is relatively transparent: a link to the BBC takes you to their homepage, not an article. For anyone in doubt, there is also fresh new work up on Banksy.co.uk, shown below.

Beyond that, the article is riddled with inaccuracies, including inconsistent locations and names as well as an image of an arrest that took place years prior in an unrelated incident. Indeed, the further you read, the more ludicrous the entire thing looks, and yet it fooled millions of believers, too gullible or perhaps simply too eager to finish the piece before sharing it. Superficially, in defense of those duped, it has all of the trappings of a real breaking news piece, including seemingly-relevant pictures and videos peppered throughout.

As for Horner, he “has been alternately described as a media troll, a liar and a hack, but he sees his work in a different light: one part activism, one part fan fiction, and many parts subversive, absurdist comedy.” His exploits include (but are not limited to) claiming he was cast in The Big Lebowski 2 (a film that is not even in production) and the mastermind behind a plan to charge Facebook users for pro accounts. Some would call his pranks and pretensions cruel, but in the midst of the controversy, one has to wonder: what does the real Banksy think of all of this? Does he see a kindred spirit or simply someone using his name to turn a profit?

Our brains recognize brands before we even get to the text … but what happens when that second of the process process yields the reverse of what we expect?

In this series of experimental logo swaps by Graham Smith, our expectations are subverted right at the point of recognition – Coke replaces Pepsi, UPS becomes FedEx and so forth in realms ranging from fast food to digital technology.

The result is a kind of temporary cognitive dissonance, and poignant reminder of just how much we rely on visual cues – from shape and layout to color and typography – to interpret input and apprehend iconic designs.

Some of the trades work relatively seamlessly – a surprise number actually work visually – you could almost believer that Twitter, Facebook and Google could simply have gone a different direction with their designs.

But given our own familiarity biases when viewing them, it is hard to say in some cases, too. Either way, it is clear that our experience and associations play a major part in the power of branding.