Creativity The New Economy

Early adopter of using blockchain technology in my artistic practice, winner of the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Avant Garde Art/Music Award- Who’s Who in America, I am an artist that continually leverages the latest in technology to further my career.

Early days of digital art

New York City native and Pratt Institute alumnus, I began experimenting with the digital as a medium in art school when only the architecture students had access to a single computer. I grew restless during my time at Pratt as the school wouldn’t let me experiment with digital art. While studying traditional mediums I couldn’t let go of my curiosity to explore how working on a computer could change the way art was created. As frustration grew, I left Pratt in pursuit of creating art the way I wanted and made my way through NYC’s Soho galleries, pushing my own work himself.

We set about to solve the problem of retooling society from the industrial and computer age to the age of enlightenment. Creating an income for creators, marketers, and coders.

I propose the Ikohaus project, a 21st century rendition of the Bauhaus where creative thinkers can realize their creativity and put humanity to work marketing, selling, teaching the technology for adoption.

Now humanity could elevate their value system on art and music instead of created brands knowing the work is authentic because of blockchain provenance and collaborating in the supply chain by becoming part of the economic process. 

No longer would art be hidden in homes, since it’s digital any connected display device would become a frame and with my embedded open source digital media device can be safely shared to anyone, anywhere and the owner can be anonymous.

One of the primary and main problems  we solve is disruption of the artificially created brand value and ecosystem. People want to value and own the work they like by their peers, not what they are told has perceived value and worth and maybe forgeries.

The scale of this problem stretches across the global community. There are many local and indigenous creators all over the world, but without a huge marketing machine usually afforded to profitable shareholder driven galleries these creators may never see the light of day other than Instagram.

Because this is on a global scale physical works create a substantial problem in transportation in shipping works and exchange rates from one country to another. Music artists can reach a global audience and be compensated from a supporter model for streaming.

Art sales in 2019 were $64.1 billion in statistics released by Art Basel and UBS. Scaling and opening the art market to displaced workers and underrepresented artists would be a big boon to creating an entirely new ecosystem.

The Ikohaus project is an actual working prototype project structure from components to form an entirely new system. 

Digital art work is created by an artist in the fine art genre usually with a tablet and stylus. It is created in a unique one of kind format and uploaded to the Codex Protocol records database at inception to record authenticity.

A special media file is created in Google Slides so that the work can be viewed and shared publicly on any connected device allowing for animations and A/V enabled works.

The work can now be shown and transpose to any size digital display screen allowing the owner to remain anonymous and secure that although others can view the work they still are the owner.

The work remains secure in the cloud and cannot be stolen or destroyed by fire but enables the owner to transfer, gift or sell the work at profit if they wish to another.

The musician is now enabled to earn a living from streaming utilizing a network that sits atop the Facebook platform from any connected remote location. Investment funds are gleaned from the artwork so investors have a solid investment.

The project serves a multiple of people and work types. Artists have been previously neglected because of color, locations  or racial background now have a more even playing field because of a decentralized approach.

Coders are needed to take the project from a functioning prototype to a more robust automated system. Artists need freedom to create and know that their works can be sold.

For all the above mentioned people impact is great in a collaborative mode. Artists that qualify now earn a living from creating digital art that is authenticated from fraud. An army of marketing people can create a living by working for commission just banging buttons for referrals to need artists that are solely interested in selling and marketers that need employment that can be done from connected devices with no travel.

Music artists can now sustain themselves and reach a global audience without travel. They would also now earn money from video events in replay vs declining media download sales.

Various worker components will be involved in the development of the project and the direction of the software to solve the needs of functioning in an easy manner.

My Belief is there are no more jobs left at the factory and humanity needs to elevate themselves to a new value of creativity. Others can be inspired like I am when you see an artist from Uganda drawing on bark, transferring the work to digital means and being able to show the work and sell it globally.

It will shine a light on social good when people's creativity is realized and valued and not only academically learned creativity is valued but an actual creative of the box thinking is what becomes valued.

The idea for the Ikohaus Project came from long before 2006 with our current website. In 1994 I began with digital art and sought to get my work on Amazon. Amazon replied to me that a special number was needed and more important only dead artists like Picasso or Dali had any work of value to go on Amazon.

The fact of constantly having to overcome adversity is what inspired me. Not only did  Amazon want the artist to be dead but once they approved my concept Galleries like Sotheby's and Christie's were allowed to use my concept but would not even allow me to join. This is where the idea to democratize the world of art came from. 

Music artists can now level the playing field from discriminating venues and cost prohibitive ones and travel.

Finally the missing piece needed was to authenticate a digital work. While working on another live streaming project I was introduced to block chain and found that Jess Houlgrave and Codex Protocol created a system to authenticate and show provenance of a unique digital work with a Non Fungible Token.

As an Black Afro/Hispanic artist I have faced a lifetime of obstructions and structuralized racism to overcome to show my talent.

It’s as if my training in art was solely to take my money for an education that was not completely truthful and had no real intentions of me being able to sustain myself.

What if we change the value system from a select few in the good ol’ boys club to artists that can verify who they are and their creations and have a proven following from social media that appreciated their work.

As the work is digital it is easier to transport and collect, and the people themselves in a social sharing system can be an approved agent of the artists and receive a commission when their assigned work is sold.

Music artists can now level the playing field from discriminating venues and cost prohibitive ones and travel.

The concept I express is about retooling people and putting them to work in an enlightened capacity even including coders dealing with culture.

I sit in a very unique position to fulfill this project as it is already operational in a beta format. The only thing lacking is I have been operating from a bootstrapped potential. 

I have the skills and training from the National Science Foundation’s I-Corp project with a $3k grant administered by East Carolina University and graduated the program with a project, Ikohaus in the STEAM discipline.

My experiences as a Black in overcoming structuralized racism especially in the area of art will help me to be inclusive which I already am but to gain exposure to a wider audience.

Because I have never had the opportunity to be funded I have worked closely using my original concepts and ideas to help Codex Protocol and others just for the sake of furthering humanity beyond the corporate good.

The problem is already solved on how to create, buy, share and transfer the art. The one main problem now is how to hire the coding staff to begin to be able to scale and automate the entire process.

The goal now remains to be how to streamline the process to onboard artists in bulk, upload their work and create a qualified distributed workforce that can get their work sold earning revenue for all involved in an untraditional fashion.

Currently at the time of this writing because of the virus, funds are being consolidated from sales of artworks business and personal stimulus to stage livestreaming music events.

During my time taking the I-Corp training course with a local University I got up to explain my use of the Blockchain using STEAM technology for my work.

At first no one could understand what I was talking about as they were unfamiliar with blockchain including an Intellectual Property director that had a Phd. I asked my associate CEO to explain because she would dumb it down for them. I met with fierce resistance to the idea and was suggested to try crowdsourcing to raise money which is not what I was attempting.

I came back from our Christmas break and it was suggested I attend a talk by IBM on blockchain technology. It was to their amazement when I replied it was unnecessary as on the break I already evaluated Codex Protocol, had everything I needed and was already on the blockchain. 

A local gallery and museum refused to show my work and would mount a friend of the museum exhibit in a City Hall area where no one would see the work. This constant restrictive blockage is what caused me to create my own gallery and have it on line where it would be global with no restrictions.

There was a time in 2010 that my daughter recommended a young teenage Jerking group from California knowing I liked music to put on a show. I quickly realized in my town of Greenville, NC there was nothing for the youth to do other than sports and music at school. It was more of a college town geared to students drinking up a storm at local bars where you had to be 21 years of age at least.

I created a show and brought the Jerk group the Rangers all the way from Californian to Greenville, NC as they had never been on the East Coast but travelled globally. Young people were so excited they quickly scooped up $50 VIP seats to be able to meet and greet the Rangers.

I quickly became the leader of the Jerking movement on the East Coast and took advantage knowing all the kids wanted was to show their talent too so I put them on the stage in a talent dancing competition before the Rangers came on.

Even the Sheriff’s security people saw how well the kids just wanted to have a good time and enjoy themselves with their heroes.

The thing that makes my project really innovative is changing the whole paradigm of how art and music is viewed, transported, owned, sold and socially shared.

In the 20th century art had to be a physical object in a location to enjoy. It is very troublesome to collect physical works and trust the authenticity of the work without verification at the time of creation and leaving it to a third party.

With my system a patron can anonymously purchase a work and share it with friends, family and co-workers in the security that their identity is secure and the work is secure in the ownership. A detailed trail of ownership is created  on the blockchain that can trace ownership from the time of creation. 

No physical tragedies for example like fires or floods can destroy one's works and almost everyone has some sort of display device that can show a person's collection.

The elevating principle that is most desirable is artists can now be sociable with patrons directly and patrons or others can become agents of the artist by selling works they have an affinity for. 

Music artists can now work remotely with connectivity and reach their audiences to sustain themselves with limited travel. The opportunity for various filmmakers and dance companies is very high.

Ikohaus identifies marginalized artists that either approach us or are found in social media platforms. Not only do we work with academically trained artists in art theory, but to have a forward looking impact we prefer to decentralize and democratize the world of art by moving the value system to talent, rather than university affiliation or agent.

The impact of artists joining a global gallery that will not only exhibit their work but use a vast pool of displaced workers to help sell their work is a win-win situation.

In the immediate output patrons get a unique work of art or music by an artist they can converse with and share with many, knowing they helped to sustain a creative individual. On the other hand normal people with nothing more than a cell phone can promote a work they have an affinity for and receive a commission from the work when it is sold helping to support a circular economy.

Artists feel really proud when they see an organization promoting their works in the hopes of becoming a sustained artist. Our findings from beta art dealers find they are ecstatic when they receive compensation for a work sold by them that is unique with nothing more than the patron loving the work they are receiving.

Long term it can be expected for coders to help us scale and automate the process, but more important as adoption increases people will increase their collections and a whole ecosystem will evolve around this 21st Century  art and distribution method.

Currently our project serves about 100 people but has an organic reach of over 25,000. 

I believe in one year given proper funding our adoption rate in conservative estimates can reach 250,000 people. In 5 years is when I believe the project and the concept would really reach its stride in the millions.

As the adoption rate increases with the more visibility that funding and exhibitions will afford so will all aspects of improving the software and amount of art work the gallery can handle.

Along with this increase as new social norms of social distancing and remote workers take effect more and more of the populace will embrace the idea of an enlightened society working more with creativity than brands and products.

The impact is huge when you realize the amount of cell phones in use in 2019 4.68 Billion and even those in rural areas with a cell phone are capable of working with us and promoting works to work by commission thus negating the reasons for relocating to large cities when simply working from home with a cell phone is possible.

My goal within the next year is to have at least 100 artists from various parts of the globe on board and works in the gallery. More important with the current crisis is interesting workers to remote work a la the Gig economy and for a start make extra money with sales commissions from art work.

I already have over 300 works in my gallery, association with over 100 quality music artists, and adoption of the format is key to creating a cyclical income for all involved artists, coders as well as sales and the gallery.

Within the next 5 years we look to become the defacto standard to online verified digital art and music. Already we work in a method no one else does. We accept fiat, paypal crypto and Amazon pay eliminating the problem of people having to understand crypto and blockchain. Our music arm works on a subscription model on a huge platform.

Paramount to scaling and selling works which is what artists are looking for is putting people to work promoting the works they will make a commission on. It can also be a fun game for investors that can speculate on the market and then turn and sell their works at a profit.

All and all it is a very promising concept to elevate all concerned into working in culture and the distribution rather than a canning factory or meat production plant and they can work right from home with social distribution and social distancing.

Financial is the biggest barrier I face as being Black company banks are scarce to make  loans to someone without collateral.

Technically what I am doing now manually would have to be automated at scale and coding can become quite an expensive proposition. Legally agreements would have to be made and I do have one of the top lawyers in the culture and entertainment industry but again it would call for money. 

I have already experienced what market barriers can do with some of my artists that live on the continent of Africa. #1 working with physical works can be prohibitive for mailing which is why we decided to go strictly digital which also helps with climate factors from shipping.

Getting money back and forth to many areas in Africa can be quite daunting and the only cost effective way I have found is Money Gram.

As we progress the outlook looks better as Facebook, and some crypto companies plan an easier way of authenticated exchange with Africa.

Overall the impact would be great with the many marginalized artists from different areas around the globe where commercial companies tend to do as music companies do and exploit artists while they are young and hot and then dump them after a couple of years. 

Financially, with a prize from The Elevate Prize program all the aspects of marketing and promotion will alleviate pressure from my own pocket to achieve. Coders are a big ticket item that need to be paid to create a site and an app that does what we require and don’t want to have to do manually.

Coders can be hired freelance on a case by case basis and when the objective is realized they can be released.

In market barriers I plan to start artists that cannot get funds to the US to transfer and upload their work started with one or two works and deduct transfer amounts from works sold and perhaps always hold one work on account to recover investments.

One of the main resources we would have are existing or new customers. We have in place on our website an affiliate referral program where each person that purchases a work can opt into the affiliate program and when they refer someone that buys they can earn a commission.

The Small Business and Technical Development Center provides us with a business mentor helping us with concepts, government contracts and strategizing the best ways to approach the markets.

It has been a long association with them and East Carolina University where we had NSF I-Corp program was administered in conjunction with the SBTDC.

The most impactful organization we work with is the creator of the database platform on the blockchain Codex Protocol. Codex Protocol has been instrumental in instituting many of the ideas and functionalities that we need as creators needing to authenticate our work on the blockchain.

We are to the point now that to move forward we need to be able to work with their API to automate processes for our uploading and on boarding of other artists.

In the music arena we evaluated many and have settled on Folkes music management with the aspect of traditional Reggae music primarily from Jamaica and the Caribbean.

Our business model is unique works of digital art authenticated on the blockchain available to purchase in Fiat currency, PayPal, Crypto currency through Coinbase or Amazon Pay.

The works that we provide are assured from being fake because they are authenticated by the artists at their time of creation making a clear path from the creator to all the purchasers that have owned the work in succession.

Also any changes to the record are also documented on the record.

We uniquely added a media app that allows the owner to share his work just for viewing without fear of the work being stolen or sold. The user can view on any connected device or TV screen and allow the image to go full screen.

We provide this service through our website but also have points of contact on most any social media platform and exposure on a large Crypto sales site called OpenSea.

The patron benefits by owning an unique work that is an investment. It can be sold and accrue increased value due to its rarity and creator.

One of the other benefits built into this model is the ability to create affiliate marketing sales so that a viral movement of art culture can occur.

The artwork funds our music so that investors actually have a tangible asset that they own and can increase in value and be invested in and sold with showing the chain of ownership.

Financial sustainability comes about because there is a very low overhead on the works we create. Since they are all in the digital realm no hard goods or materials are used and hence the real value delivered is in the creativity and the appeal of the work to the eye of the patron.

The music division has the same benefits of very low overhead and the ability to reach large numbers of people with the easily affordable subscription model.

The financial cost of placing the record in the database is rather low and over time we can really start with our work in demand and priced appropriately in the product cycle before it becomes commonplace.

As we have done already and are doing now funds are brought in to sustain operations from the sale of work along with combining income from our supporter subscription model. With a coming to scale profits for all can increase because the more artists we have and the more salespeople we have the more money can be generated.

Unlike brick and mortar galleries or homes our work is all digital and does not occupy physical space, therefore a person's collecting capability is unlimited.

The music arm is sustainable because it can go wherever there is connectivity, therefore making a worldwide appeal more available for people where travel is unnecessary.

The start of the year 2020 has been fraught with hardship with the unexpected Corona-19 Virus. Our sales became decimated with only one patron at $100 in the first four months of the pandemic year.

Financially I have kept my company afloat with a personal investment of $800 of my own money from Social Security.

Luckily just at this time the SBA came through with a much needed $4000 to keep our business afloat during the crisis. 

This money is being utilized at this time to keep the independent workers we do have employed and to initialize artists to stage live streaming events to generate supporter revenue for both parties.

Things are really bright and promising for the disruption our concept will bring in leveling the playing field and sustaining creatives.

We seek funding in the amount of $5 million US dollars grant money. The reason for this is we are a social responsibility company. The US has no corporate designation for this so it is a mantle we have assumed in these years on our own and by our actions.

As such we are not looking for shareholder value, our value is in culture and being able to retool society in moving away from the industrial computer age.

We hope to raise this money soon after the application closes. Things in this field are developing rapidly and we don’t see ideas or concepts that are looking to put people to work but rather automated and take work away from people to pursue profits why we need to gain traction and exposure for our model.

Fixed Costs/Overhead

• Rent home office $6,000

• Utility bills $3000

• Phone bills/communication costs $360

• Accounting/bookkeeping $7800

• Legal/insurance/licensing fees $8000

• Technology $500,000

• Advertising & marketing $400,000

• Salaries $380,000

The Elevate Prize is something that would help me to afford my vision. Ever since I was young in Junior High School I always wondered why industry never bothered to retool their workers for the future.

We can overcome the lack of jobs as industries are changing and moving to automation as Solve is describing elevating humanity to a higher plane of service jobs and arts culture.

One of our goals is to democratize the world of art and music. No longer are their barriers to enter because of sex or race the criteria for being and artist is to have value culturally and be more than just a brand and product that can sell.

Financially, Elevate would eliminate the problem of getting marketing off the ground and give us the necessary exposure in working with viable artists in music and arts.

Funding and revenue models would help us ease through crucial first years and pick the right revenue points.

Talent recruitment is very important as artists we need to know the best affordable coding workers we can acquire.

Mentorship and/or coaching would help by providing someone that's been there before.

Dealing with creative art we want to know our rights in legal or regulatory matters as pertaining to customers.

We are involved with one of the most influential Reggae music management companies in the world that would be an integral part of our partnership.

The partners we have in mind and that we work with some now are Facebook, Codex Protocol, Marwan Juicy Patties, artists Kityo Kits from Uganda, music artists Pressure Busspipe, Jah Mason and Demo Delgado.

They can help advance our project by bringing necessary exposure to the global network we offer and funding economic initiatives of artists and their work in turn to fund our network streaming operations.