Another Non-Print Periodical

Yesterday I posted briefly about The Thing Quarterly, a quarterly art object-based periodical. Well, it appears that there is a similar sort of experiment going on in the UK. Tim Siedell over at Bad Banana Blog posted about Matter. According to Tim,

The people behind Matter view the service as a type of magazine, delivering interesting content (not crap) to interested households.

According to Matter's own marketing,

Matter is a box full of FREE things you might like… to keep

Matter is a new way for companies to talk to you by giving you real, physical things you might like to keep, use or give to your friends.

Matter is a box full of nice things delivered to you on a Saturday morning. Inside the box is a selection of items from different companies–which might be useful, entertaining or just fun.

Obviously this is not for someone like myself who is an incurable pack-rat and whose home is already stuffed to the gills, but for anyone else (sane) this frankly looks cool. Sadly, it is currently only available in the UK.

What other sorts of non-printed-page "periodicals" or "magazines" are out there? And let me take this one step further (since I think the Brooklyn Museum already is with their 1st fans Twitter Art Feed), how can museums use these unbound (ha!) ideas to revitalize their own approaches to their publications and communications with their communities?

The Thing Meets 1st Fans Twitter Art Feed

Just a quick note because I think it's neat when different parts of my life sort of intersect. I just received in the mail issue 4 of The Thing Quarterly, a self-proclaimed object-based periodical. Every few months, another piece of art in the form of an everyday object that somehow incorporates text arrives at my doorstep.

Back in the museum world, the Brooklyn Museum just announced that they will be collaborating with Brooklyn-based writer Jonathan Lethem, having him on the museum-based Twitter Art Feed.

Basically, the idea behind the 1st fans Twitter Art Feed is to use popular micro-blogging social networking site Twitter as a conceptual art space. Each month, the museum invites another artist to participate, sort of like a virtual artist in residence.