Edited and self-published by Bernadette Mayer and Vito Acconci from 1967 to 1969, 0 to 9 not only documented some of the most compelling examples of intermedia performance, contemporary poetry, and post-formalist art of the period, but also pioneered new ways of conceiving (and using) the magazine as medium and instrument.  0 to 9 and the New York Avant-Garde: Publishing by Numbersexamines how the magazine both responded to and helped shape key developments in New York&s often fractious avant-garde communities. The book pays particular attention to the ways in which Mayer and Acconci foregrounded the material and generic qualities of the magazine and conceived their periodical as a means of generating (as well as documenting) art and poetry.

0 to 9 and the New York Avant-Garde considers the ways in which 0 to 9 interacted with other artistic movements and theoretical concerns of the period-including cybernetics, Pop Art, structuralism, and information theory. Arguing for the enduring importance of the magazine, and its unique position in the history of New York&s experimental art and literary scenes, this study contends that 0 to 9was both a swan song of 1960s idealism and a precursor for the directions that avant-garde art would take in the decades that followed the magazine&s demise.