Webbittown Corporation - The Artcall Premise

What the ArtCall is all about.

Background:

In 1980, I bought my first stock. It was a Minnesota company called Gamble-Skogmo.
They were instantly gobbled up by Wickes Corporation. I doubled my money in a matter
of one month. It was one of the first "LBO's" (leveraged buyouts). Now at the time, I didn't
realize how significant a thing it would be until 1985.
In 1985, I was working at Ray's News in the East Village, in New York. I started investing
some of my earnings into stocks. The object was to create "The Candy Store Mutual
Fund Index". It contained shares of Coca-Cola, Merrill Lynch, Wang Labs 'B' & 'C', Turner
Broadcasting 'B', Micro D, Lotus Development, and some smaller companies that have
since reverse split themselves out of existance. One of the things I did was get the
actual stock certificates themselves. And I became enthralled in the shares themselves.
As part of my performance art pieces, I would distribute copies of the shares, and talk
about what and why I'd invested in these shares. I'd also discuss the art in the share
itself and what it meant. It lead me to going to the New York Stock Exchange itself, and
starting a publication called "Outsider Trading News". I spent the better part of two
years at the exchange every trading day, talking and learning all about the art of stocks.
Another aspect of performance art led me into MC'ing. Matthew Courtney of ABC NO RIO
Gallery on Rivington St. in New York was my role model. It led to many collaborative events
over a four year period from 1988 to 1992. "The Greatest Performance Video, Ever!", "The
Spring, Summer and Fall Performance Review Series", were all part of these events. They
led to collaborations of 100's of performance artists at a time. It was those collaborative
efforts that led to having this artist call.

Establishing Working Relationships:

The Artist Call will help Webbittown and artists alike. As we are a company involved in
creating a 3-D operating system, we will need all the artistic input we can generate. From
an artistic standpoint, this allows artists another means of expression and exposure. By
helping redesign the Webbittown stock certificate, it will also lead to other certificate
redesigns, merchandising opportunities, and last but not least redesign financial history.

Raising Capital:

As Webbittown gathers all of these redesigned certificates, they create "add-on" value
to our shares. This is something that virtually all companies have shunned to date. While
it is an interesting sidelight to investing as a whole, it has not been an actual part of any
business strategy.

Establishing Revenue:

With the shares themselves now redesigned, they can now be used in any other creative
process. Webbittown will then grant licenses to the artist to use the design in other product
format. We will then help the artists market the products and services, splitting the resulting
revenue 50-50, after marketing costs. We have used an example provided by Paul Kostabi,
to show you one way this can be done. Other ideas include having a Webbittown 'brick
and mortar' store, art gallery, band, etc. It is our aim to be revenue producing during our
development of the 3-D operating system. We have even used 'pre'-Webbittown artifacts
as a source of revenue. That led to an art grant from The Forecast Foundation in St. Paul, MN..

Creating Collaboration:

One good thing about artistic collaboration is that it creates even more collaboration. As
artists view each others redesigns and marketing scenarios, it will lead into better and
better methodology of redesign and marketing. It isn't our aim to discourage any form of
expression, for no one knows just what will go into a 3-D operating system. Nor will anyone
know just what the final version of Webbittown the city will look like, until the collaborative
effort makes it presence felt. And it is basing this effort in the "Creative Capital Of The
Universe" (New York City), that will allow this effort to succeed.

09/25/01 01:57:52 PM

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