The image of a rat, an iconic character in early and present-day Banksy works, is seen within the artist’s oeuvre striking many different poses and delving into many various scenarios. Of course, an anagram of the word ‘rat’ is ‘art’. 

Here, the rat wears headphones, carries a recording device and holds a directional radar to listen in and spy on the world around it. 

This comment about intrusion and surveillance, seems to raise awareness of a Big Brother state, particularly considering that London has an estimated 950,000 CCTV cameras in operation today. This theme of spying and ‘listening in’ was repeated by Banksy in 2014 in his famous public ‘Spy Booth’ street mural in Cheltenham, UK.  

The Sonic Rat you see here, also known as a ‘Radar Rat’, was first released as a limited edition signed print in 2004 at Banksy’s pop-up Oxford Street exhibition, Santa’s Ghetto. The image though, was previously seen on the streets of London in 2002. Here it is seen used on the cover of the band Dirty Funker’s Future album from 2004. The album had 5 slightly different variant screen-printed covers – this being the rarest with its round advertising sticker placed on.