I hold in my hands an idea made manifest in the most ancient tradition of consumption: the physical good. But the good itself is no mundane item. Rather it is a physical embodiment of the modern male ideal/reality itself. This ideality fuses among other traits the ethereal forward-thinking prowess of a Barack Obama with the similarly boundless and equally undefined - and thus, unlimited - potential of a Sergey Brin or a Biz Stone. Apply the delightfully naff and seethingly aggressive aesthetic of a neo-futuristic Beau Brummell and you have freelance journalist Mathew Kumar's latest offering, the seminal small-format ‘zine, exp.Yes, it’s a magazine. If exp. can be faulted for prolonging the death throes of Old Media, only can its non-transformative format be sighted. Indeed, limited by the very nature of physical publication and distribution, exp. cannot act as a dynamic force to affect swift change in the same way as a Tweet, Digg, foursquare check-in, or other network-synergized tidbit of communication. This fundamental problem aside, exp. exemplifies the kind of bold sea change so desperately lusted by the world of publishing. Anyone who is comprehending of exp. is undoubtedly cognizant of the fallacy that has come to be known as the Information Economy. These individuals correctly understand this Economy to be not one of coherent Information, but of perpetually singular Ideas. From the transformational force of Twitter to the more traditional badge of Barack Obama's latest greatest achievement, this theory of an Idea Politic has been all but validated within the socio-media sphere. exp., too, makes great strides to bypass the diversions inherent in substantive discourse. And in doing so it maneuvers the parallel hurdle of Content, the vaunted and ultimately perfunctory commodity of modern media whim. Rather, exp. breaks bold new ground by providing no Content at all. Try it - you have absolutely nothing to gain. But most importantly, you have absolutely nothing to lose.
(except $5, which you can dispatch with here: http://expdot.com/shop/)
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