The Artist Joint – 10 Years
The Artist Joint was a business idea I had in 1999-2000 that involved both online and offline spaces (IRL) and targeted to my region in NY (Poughkeepsie). Their were 4 phases outlined. To start, I focused on building what was commonly referred to as the ‘Virtual Community’ as well as forming relationships with local temporary spaces/locations that could be borrowed/rented until the time came where more formal rent/purchase deals could be made. Some of the thinking was rooted by my experience going to Raves. Rotating The Artist Joint’s physical presence around neighboring cities throughout the year.
The target audience were obviously Artists. The nice thing about the word Artist is that it can blanket a range of people who involved themselves in the culture of creatives. Whether you make clothes or websites… This was intended to be a juxtaposed community that would eventually, if success and logic were clear, expand to more cities around NY and beyond.
Their was organized structure with intention for official Collaborative Projects that would financially assist both the community and the AJ Project as a whole. Performances, Films, Merchandise etc…
And the Web would allow for community cohesiveness where so much content and media assets and profiles and resources and project collaboration tools would be available. Remember, this was 10 years ago. Though it would not have been the first online collaborative space, it was certainly a time of early and innovative thinking and experiments where many software solutions were coming out of University Labs and not startup companies. A time when blogs were unknown and the web was more saturated with Message Boards or sloppy web sites (GeoCity etc).
It was very ambitious and forward thinking and required deep dedication of a core team with excellent people skills in order to get the momentum it needed to have success that would make it possible to complete the early phases. This core team was very difficult to form. I ended up trying to solely do too much and unable to influence local businesses to share their space as part of my lofty concepts.
Over the years, I used the domain artistjoint.com for related purposes and made a second attempt sometime in 2003-2004 period. But mostly, nadda.
And today I received a reminder to renew the domain, 10 years after I registered it. That sparked this blog post:
And also i stumbled upon a noteworthy thread in Google Buzz today:
http://www.google.com/buzz/ericrice/dmcby6qYSTy/Empty-but-for-sale
This comment stood out as it closely resembled the thinking of The Artist Joint as local active and vacant theatres were the main target for acquiring/sharing space:
History aside, today I am still very interested in the future of IRL Spaces that cater to not just consumers of media but to creators of all kind to intermix and commingle and collaborate…. and casually drink and eat and relax… and showcase and perform and speak and influence and teach and cowork. Multifunctional spaces that can be leveraged for income and are not
“fixed” in appearance and layout…. but that can be useful to rent out for conferences and various events as needed. Even a place to rent Media Rooms where you can watch the big game with friends without taking over your living room to your wife’s displeasure 
It’s an interesting discussion, still.
No related posts.