Virus en Numeros: Animated Bitcoin art inspired by Alex Grey, COVID, & They Live

My latest animated artwork, 'Virus en Numeros' ties together influence from different sources to deliver a powerful image that promotes bitcoin as better money, spreading like a virus that uses computer code and a decentralized network.

The title 'Virus en Numeros' is a play on words from the phrase 'Vires in Numeris', which means 'Strength in Numbers' in Latin. These words have a strong tie to the bitcoin ethos, as many bitcoiners see the decentralized money movement as a one for the people, a populist movement in the true sense of the word. 

The title's #Virus reference serves to capture attention for the viral/virus theme within the artwork (non-obvious visually) and is not to be taken literally. Literally translated into spanish, this means  'Virus in Numbers'

In its entirety, this artwork serves, as with the rest of my body of bitcoin art, to spread the message that Bitcoin is Better Money.

As a base for the image, I used a mix of two artworks  by visionary artist Alex Grey -  'Net of being' and 'Godself', which are themselves based on Ayahuasca experiences. Alex's Grey describes the image as a vista of inter-connected godheads which represent 'nodes of awareness' (Net of being) and a similar image, focusing on a central node (Godself).

The art piece by Alex Grey emulates visions many would familiarize with trips on heavy psychadelic drugs, such as dimethyltryptamine. I can attest to seeing similar visions under the influence of similar substances.

While psychadelic visions have little to do with bitcoin, I made my own connections to the artistic concept, showing each of the 'nodes' with the satoshi godheads, each crawling with the code from bitcoin's genesis block which are layered through the sequence of the animation. The decentralized network of bitcoin nodes can be seen cornering and outnumbering those of the central banks, which are destroyed eventually along with the currencies that fill them.

As with most of my animated artworks, this piece was illustrated using the Adobe illustrator program & each frame was exported individually and compiled into an animation. This sort of animation must be very carefully created and compiled, as each layers must be in its correct place and sequence throughout the animation. 

The two masks used in this image are the Satoshi on the Brink mask & Banker Buddy mask, and both are available on instagram to use as augmented reality filters. 

The banker buddy mask is inspired by the movie They Live. As you may notice, there is a resemblance between the masks. As John Carpenter used this mask to represent the 'others', the corrupt power structure who are behind all the bizarre things happening throughout the movie in order to control humanity, I have appropriated my own version to do similar - to represent the private bankers who have total control over our currency & credit systems. 

The Banker Buddy  mask uses $100 dollar bills, and is packed full of pills representing big pharma, missile explosions representing the military industrial complex, and credit card representing debt & consumption.. Banker Buddy is at the center of it all printing off those magical boomer bucks like there's no tomorrow. Brrr...

The banker buddy is oriented 'upside-down' signaling that the the central banking system controlling our money is wrong. As I was creating this character and decided to make it upside-down, a quote ran through my head:

''Just look at us. Everything is backwards. Everything is upside down. Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, [banks destroy money], the major media destroy information, and religion destroys spirituality.'' - David Icke

As can also be seen in this close-up, the bitcoin symbol is shown throughout the image taking the form of eyes representing the truth machine that is the bitcoin blockchain, on top of a viral cell created using an image of the COVID19 cell.

 Endless hall of bitcoin nodes

At the end of the hall, the last remnant of banker buddy

Defaced, with digital graffiti.

Worthy of Meme? What?

Bitcoin is definitely worthy of meme.

Preview of animated artwork is now on the www.luchopoletti.com homepage.
 

The full version of Virus en Numeros has been tokenized via knownorigin and can be purchased for 0.21 ETH on my gallery