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Banksy is an infamous street artist originally based in Bristol, England, though he has been around the world leaving his art in many corners of it. His true identity is currently unknown, though there are theories of who he is with decent supported evidence. Banksy's art can range from whimsical to satire on political and social themes.

The following image is of Banksy addressing a camera in his documentary "Exit Through The Gift Shop."

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The painting is a canvased copy of Banksy's stencil graffiti which had originally started appearing on buildings and walls in the Bristol, England area. The painting was half shredded by a make-shift shredder hidden in the frame shortly after bidding on the painting had concluded during an auction. Banksy had intended for the painting to be completely shredded, but the machine had malfunctioned.

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This vide was posted to Banksy's website (http://banksy.co.uk) shortly after the event, going over what had happened and what had been intended to happen.

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Shredding the Girl and Balloon - The Director’s half cut

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The prank was conducted as a way to protest the sale and collection of art. This practice has been something Banksy has been very vocal against for nearly the entirety of his career.
He believes that his art should be left where it is, in public to be viewed by the public and that moving, destroying or selling his art is reprehensible. (Alice Vincent, 2014
The following mural was done by Banksy in retaliation to the art show "stealing Banksy" which he had no part of and denounced.

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Banksy could have chosen any of his stencils to preform this prank with, but in the end, he decided on the girl and balloon. The girl and balloon is one of Banksy's most notable works, being one he has recreated and re-imagined many times over his history and is one which is highly thought of by the community, being voted by many as Britain's best artwork (Katie Archer, 2017)
It is also one that has historically sold for high value, with a copy of it on a piece of cardboard selling for above £400,000 (BBC News, 2012)
It is clear that he had chosen this stencil for the soul intention of having it sell for a high price, something that would normally go against his ethics, after making abundantly clear in the documentary he created, "Exit Through the Gift Shop" he was against art being sold, walled off, and being paid to view. He had done all this not to make money, but to be sure the high price tag on the painting is taking into account by spectators of the prank when he destroyed the painting.

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The Operator had waited until just after the painting's auction had been finalized (but before the actual sale) to activate the shredder and destroy the painting. The timing was very deliberate to associate the act of shredding directly with the sale of the painting.

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The most prominent weakness for his statement is how staged the act seems. There are many people picking apart his videos for inaccuracies and inconsistencies. This has left many people believing that this was simply a ploy to make himself more money, taking a painting and doubling it's value through a spectacle centered around the painting.

One of the notes was how he was improperly handling the soldering iron, which resembled the way the woman in the following article is handling one, and for the same reason the author of that article hated that image, people are skeptical of the legitimacy of Banksy's work on the mechanisms in the frame of the painting.

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Stock photography is a big field, and with it comes some nice photos, but also some serious stinkers.

Case in point, especially for Makers: the photo below. In it, a woman is performing a delicate operation on a circuit board using a soldering iron. At first glance, cool, nice photo. But if you hone in, you realize there's something downright frightening about her soldering technique. Rather than holding the iron by its insulated handle, this woman is grabbing onto the heated element, which if turned on, would be at a bit over 600ºF. As much as any of us have wanted to choke up on our irons for more precise control, you would be dealing with nasty burns for quite some time if you were to grip your iron like this.

There's also the issue of the woman soldering the component side of the board, rather than its back side where the soldered joints are. Or maybe its a surface-mount board - but who in a lab like that would be using a $10 25W RadioShack soldering iron (which I own, incidentally) on a surface mount board? Or on any board, for that matter?

But the biggest irker of all is the photo's title: "Beautiful woman repair soldering a printed circuit board." I understand how marketing works, but I still lament that we continue to point out the physical attributes of a person doing an activity. In this case, it says that the woman is an anomaly, rather than just a woman doing something that women do all the time. Something we see through incredible female electronics superstars like Limor, Becky, Star, Lenore, and all the others who represent this field. All know damn well how to hold a soldering iron. Insinuating that women don't know how to solder perpetuates a gender divide that we should have overcome long ago.

Plus, we all know that anyone soldering electronics is beautiful, so this is just plain redundant.

Shortly after these stock photos were taken, all three models were taken to the ER with third degree hand burns. pic.twitter.com/X5koBsGkPP

- Rob Griffiths (@rgriff) March 7, 2016

Two other photos of wrongly held soldering irons have surfaced along with this one, one of another woman, and one featuring a man (who happens to be a man of color). So the stock photography world may not be insinuating that it's only women that are soldering-iron ignorant, but since the majority of soldering-iron stock photos feature men, having 2/3 of the "holding it wrong" examples be of women is pretty bad representation.

Photographers, you can do better. Step it up, and learn to solder while you're at it. Come to Maker Faire, we'll teach you.

(h/t Chris Weisbart/2BC)

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This "Beautiful Woman Soldering" Stock Photo Is Awful | Make:

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Stock photography is a big field, and with it comes some nice photos, but also some serious stinkers. Case in point, especially for Makers: the photo below. In it, a woman is performing a delicate operation on a circuit board using a soldering iron. At first glance, cool, nice photo.

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Banksy's Prank Was successful in that it had shocked the witnesses in the auction house who saw the painting be shredded, and several news outlets and journalists have reported on it. The notoriety of the event would definitely have people see what happened and they would think about the message that was conveyed. But because the event was very targeted towards the art collecting community, which i have no ability to tell if it has made any impact on the target audience.

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Archer, K. (2017) "Banksy's 'Balloon Girl' beats paintings by Constable and Turner to be named Britain's favourite artwork" Independent. Retrieved from: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/banksy-britains-favourite-artwork-balloon-girl-john-constable-jack-vettriano-jmw-turner-a7858856.html

"Banksy artworks sell for £400,000" (2012) BBC News Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-17559526

Banksy (2018) Retrieved October 20, 2018: http://banksy.co.uk

Cushing, H. (Producer), Banksy (Director) (2010) "Exit Through the Gift Shop." United Kingdom, Paranoid Pictures.

Day, C. (director) (2017) "Saving Banksy." USA, Parade Deck Films

Vincent, A. (2014) "Banksy condemns 'disgusting' Stealing Banksy exhibition on opening day." The Telegraph. Retrieved from: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/10785417/Banksy-condemns-disgusting-Stealing-Banksy-exhibition-on-opening-day.html#top