SOLD

The painting has a buyer. It has been sold. Sorting out the bits and pieces at the moment. Update soon.

A Deathly Silence

Sorry. There’s been a deathly silence around here but as I’ve already explained it’s difficult getting onto the only computer we have over here.

Things are moving rather slowly at the bit. Negotiations are still, unfortunately, underway with “the buyer” but it’s taking longer than I thought. I will be updating the list of linkers later this afternoon, but in the mean time I’d thought I’d share a link with you that is, well, not exactly positive.

How we sell the Mountain Rescue Painting

What is something worth? Obviously some things have more value than others but in a society where most people have everything and the rest have little or nothing at all, how do you accurately define the value of things. What has value? What is important or has “authority”.

For some it’s their car, for others it’s their diamond watch. Then there are those who cherish time with their family and then there are those among us who can’t leave home without their Louis Vuitton handbag. Then there are people who dream of clean water and a safe place to sleep.

So what, in all honesty, is a work of art, a painting, worth? What is its value? Now, before you all scramble to Walter Benjamin and dig out that old text of his, I would like to propose something a little different. The Mountain Rescue painting is, to me, priceless as priceless as the Mountain Rescue of Glencoe was to Paul and his mate on the worst Sunday of their life’s. But, I suppose, that doesn’t ring your value system bell because you were not painting the painting with me and neither were you stuck on that bloody mountain thinking you were about to die.

But you can now be part of the “value” of the painting and indeed some of you already are for you have already created value by talking about the painting, Paul and linking to this site. Herein lays the basic model for valuing the painting. If you wish to call this a blog project you may.

The Model.
There will be no auction. None. It will not be sold at Sotheby’s nor will it be sold on Ebay but the painting will be sold, of that you can be sure. There will be only one buyer and one buyer only. The person that agrees to buy the painting enters into a challenge; a battle of wits and yes it is a gamble but one well worth taking. The person who agrees to buy the painting (and remember ALL of the money goes to the Glencoe Mountain Rescue) agrees to buy the painting at value on the 1st July 2007.

How we calculate the value.
There is a rather clever little algorithm that calculates what your blog is worth (the web page you are reading is called a blog) and it’s based on how Technorati rates your site. Technorati does this by tracking how many other blogs (multiple links from a single blog don’t count) link to your’s and Dave Carlson has come up with a widget that tells you what your blog is worth. So apparently this blog is worth $10,726.26 (US Dollars). That’s $10K of link love and conversation. But is the painting worth $10K? Maybe, maybe not. But that would be too easy, way too easy and people we want a challenge don’t we? And here’s how we do it:

We take the value of the blog on the 1st of July 2007 and divide it by the date of the Mountain Rescue; the 4th of March 2007 = 43.07. So that means, that of today (11th May 2007) the value of the painting is $249.04 (US Dollars) and that’s what the buyer would have to pay. The more conversation, the more discussion the more links to this blog means that the value of the painting goes up. Simple really. If we had as many links as Seth Godin the painting would be worth $105,594.01 (US Dollars), which would be kind of useful.

The rules.

• There is no auction but a single buyer


• The buyer agrees to buy the painting at the value, based on the model described above, on the 1st of July 2007.


• Every single blog or person registered as a “linker” by Technorati will be documented in a certificate that remains with the painting for all time. Without the certificate the painting looses its value and is worth nothing.
  
• Marcus Brown (The Dead Artist) and Paul Colman receive absolutely no money as a result of the selling of the painting.


• The final payment (value) is paid in full to the Mountain Rescue organisation of Glencoe.
• The blog “the dead artist” ceases to exist as of the 1st of August 2007.

The Buyer,
Negotiations are underway as to who the buyer will be and I hope to make an announcement some time next week and believe me, if we pull this off it will be amazing and very, very exciting.

Of course, if you are up to the challenge you can always get in touch but remember it’s a huge risk. But it’s a risk for a good cause.

How does that sound? Now, be good boys and girls and talk about it, link it and drive the value up.

Background Info: Ready for the mountains.

This is Paul Colman the day before he headed up to the snow and height of Scotland. As you can see he’s all kitted up to go climbing with a friend (and not Skiing as mentioned in the BBC interview). Two days later this happened this happened to him; “The Worst Sunday I’ve ever had”. If you haven’t read it yet then do, it’s why we’re doing all of this stuff.

So here an updated list of people who have helped to raise the value of the painting:

• Wieden + Kennedy London
• BBC Radio Five Live
• Young William
• A Sporting Bet
• Stan Lee
• John Dodds
• AdSurd
• Age
• Amanda
• Frederik Sarnblad
• Cheezy Cheeky
• She sees red
• Undefined

Many thanks to you all (again, if I've missed you let me know). Click here to find out how you can help raise the value of the painting.

[If you do link here, after reading this, please leave a little note in the comment section so that I can update. Thank you.]

The BBC Radio 5 Live Interview and Major Announcements

Our IT department is rubbish but the guys over at the BBC aren’t. They managed to set up a satellite link to our side of the void and I had a jolly nice chat to Chris on Five Live’s Pod’s and Blogs programme. You can read the show notes here and listen to the interview here (The Dead Artist pops up around 44 minutes into the show – and there’s even a surprise guest). If you’re new here maybe you should read this first and then maybe this.

There is rather a lot going on behind the scenes at the moment, and I am planning to make a major announcement as to how The Mountain Rescue Painting will finally be sold sometime towards the end of this week. It is very exciting. Very, very exciting.

Remember, we're selling the painting to raise money for charity. If you want to know how to help read this. If you've already helped, and you've not been listed let me know.

Raising the value.

If you look on the right hand side, there underneath the picture of the Mountain Rescue Painting you find a list of people who've helped to raise the value of the painting. If you've helped, and you're not on the list let me know. Keep your eye on it, it should grow and grow and grow. Here's who has helped out so far:

Andrew Hovells

Dan Germain

Drew McLellan

Faris Yakob

Gavin Heaton

Graeme Douglas

John Grant

Paul Colman

Planning Liberation Front

Rob Campbell

Russell Davies

thibault_thibault

Woweewow

Click here to find out how you can help raise the value of the painting.

[If you do link here, after reading this, please leave a little note in the comment section so that I can update. Thank you.]

Meeting God, Interviews with the BBC and raising money.

As I mentioned before, Jackson Pollock hogs the only computer we’ve got over here and this means that I don’t get to post very often. But this doesn’t mean up not up to stuff like meeting interesting ghosts and things. So, here are a few things you can expect to see over the next couple of days.

• I will be meeting God over the weekend, Sunday in fact. She’ll be popping into our garret for a quick chat and has agreed to answer any questions you may have. So put your thinking caps on and post a question in the comments section.


• The BBC is amazing and managed to get a satellite link to “our side of the fence” and I had a rather nice chat to someone from BBC Radio 5. There will be an update on Monday about this.


• I will be announcing details of how we intend to sell the painting next week. It’s a little bit complex, but should work and there are things that you can do now to help our cause (if you’ve not been here before we’re trying to raise money for charity and you should maybe read this).
  
  I can tell you this much; the Mountain Rescue Painting (based on the model I’ll present next week) is currently valued at $78, which is obviously not enough. You can increase its value by linking to this blog. You can either write a post about The Dead Artist (you may use any of the artwork, videos or texts and posting the painting itself would be just brilliant), or simply put a link in your blog roll. Lot’s of links means lots of cash for Mountain Rescue and that’s the point of what we’re doing. And why I’m dead. Please make the darkness worth while.

So remember, questions for God (and be polite she’s a lady) and links.

P.S. Does anyone have any good press contacts? If you do can you either contact them or send me an email at theotherside [at] brown-mpm [dot] de and I'll get in touch. Thanks!

UPDATE: We've got a cool magazine over here, called "Dead Ringer", and look who's hit the cover! (Vincent Van Gogh is really, really jealous about this. Ha!)