{"id":16113,"date":"2021-06-14T12:37:22","date_gmt":"2021-06-14T12:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci0285a090500024a6"},"modified":"2021-06-14T12:37:22","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T12:37:22","slug":"greg-mike-on-the-bitcoin-2021-mural","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/culture\/greg-mike-on-the-bitcoin-2021-mural","title":{"rendered":"With Bitcoin 2021\u2019s Iconic Art Wall, Muralist Greg Mike Captured The Community"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If you were one of the thousands of Bitcoiners in attendance at Bitcoin 2021 in Miami, it was hard to miss the giant art mural onsite, featuring a mix of well-known and newly-inspired cartoonish characters adorned with Bitcoin iconography.<\/p>\n

Over the course of four days, the mural was painted by American street artist Greg Mike<\/a> and his Atlanta-based team, which has been creating ambitious blends of classic American cartoons, Mike\u2019s own imaginary characters and cultural symbolism around the world for years. Still, even for such experienced artists, the mega wall (which ran some 100 feet wide and 20 feet tall, by Mike\u2019s estimation) at Bitcoin 2021 was a unique challenge \u2014 one that required two scissor lifts, a team of extra help and more than 200 cans of spray paint.<\/p>\n

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But following Mike\u2019s experience completing a similar (though much smaller) mural project for the Bitcoin 2019 conference, it seems that deciding on the blend of imagery and Bitcoin references for the 2021 wall was less of a daunting challenge than the execution.<\/p>\n

\u201c[At Bitcoin 2019], I would pop into some of the speaker rooms and just hear some of them speak and that kind of sparked my interest just to dive deeper into the culture and community and learn more about it,\u201d Mike told Bitcoin Magazine<\/em>. \u201cSo, coming into this one, I definitely had some tricks up my sleeves in terms of the visuals to kind of get people excited about it and make pieces.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resulting wall featured a colorful, energetic smorgasbord of icons, pulled from Mike\u2019s own psyche as well as the deep channels of Bitcoin\u2019s internet culture. There is Scrooge McDuck holding a physical bitcoin, Lenny from \u201cThe Simpsons\u201d with laser eyes and Mike\u2019s Larry Loudmouth with diamond hands. It captured, likely perpetuated, the event\u2019s celebratory festival atmosphere.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI have my original characters and then my original characters hang out with all of these iconic characters,\u201d Mike explained. \u201cIt\u2019s cool to mix them together and make them hang out together in one big party or event. And that\u2019s kind of what\u2019s on this wall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond the incorporation of Bitcoin memes, it\u2019s hard to articulate just how well the mural encompassed the spirit of the event and the ethos of Bitcoin in general. Bitcoin is, after all, ultimately a software project with no inherent visual component. But Bitcoin 2021 was wild and weird; there was no shortage of original characters roaming about; it was loud, colorful and ambitious. Mike\u2019s mural captured this in-person spirit, as art is always uniquely positioned to do, and offers a visual that may not be inherent in Bitcoin, but has certainly sprung from its deepest roots.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like art is very outside-of-the-box thinking and trying to carve your own path and own lane and do things that are different,\u201d Mike said. \u201cSo, I definitely feel like there\u2019s some parallel to explore, you know, if you\u2019re into Bitcoin and that way of thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Renowned muralist Greg Mike discussed the inspiration for his iconic art wall at the Bitcoin 2021 event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2705,"featured_media":10778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[74,2213],"class_list":{"0":"post-16113","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"tag-art","9":"tag-bitcoin-2021"},"author_data":{"id":2705,"name":"Peter Chawaga","nicename":"peter-chawaga","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/peterc-96x96.jpg"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/bitcoin-2021-graffiti-wall-main-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2705"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}