0 to 9

0 to 9 was a conceptual art magazine that was published between 1967 and 1969 edited by Vito Acconci and Bernadette Mayer in New York City. Produced cheaply with a small print run, 0 to 9's content explored issues around language, performance art, visual art and meaning making. It contained a mixture of out-of-copyright material and new work by emerging artists and is viewed as one of the most experimental journals of the mimeograph era.

0 to 9 was published in the late 1960s. Vito Acconci and Bernadette Mayer were previously unknown poets working in the bohemian outpost of New York's Lower East Side. The two were related by marriage: Acconci was married to Mayer's sister Rosemary Mayer, and both used the magazine to seek out like minded writers and readers and discover new audiences. Both Acconci and Mayer wanted to use print to explore the limits of language and experiment with typography.

Acconci and Mayer published experimental poetry, utilising procedural verse techniques and found texts to undermine conventional notions of authorship. They sought contributions to 0 to 9 from authors that were out of print and out of copyright, including the writings of poets Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Arthur Gorge, Novalis, Hans Christian Andersen, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Lord Stirling, Gustave Flaubert, Gertrude Stein, and Guillaume Apollinaire. They also included excerpts from Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style, ninety-nine retellings of the same story, and Stefan Themerson's translation of Li Po's Drinking Alone by Moonlight. Kate Linker noted in her biography of Acconci that these writers were also chosen to be published alongside contemporary texts "in a search for predecessors for the new 'material' work of the 1960s."

Originally 0 to 9 was inspired by Jasper Johns's stencil paintings, and the magazine's title comes from Johns' work 0 Through 9. Acconci and Mayer were inspired by Johns' treatment of numbers and letters as physical entities. Acconci noted that the magazine's title was a conscious change from Johns' work – an attempt to view the magazine as an object rather than a message: "'0 to 9' isn't language, so there couldn't be a language mistake, '0 to 9' is an icon, '0 to 9' is advertising." Acconci also said the magazine's numerical title "had more to do with trying to avoid expression and trying to get some cold, neutral system [of language]."

Due to low rent, many artists shared space in New York City in the 1960s, increasing artistic production and collaboration. Initially, Acconci and Mayer approached the New York School of Poets about their intention to produce a magazine; when they declined to be involved, saying the ideas were too obscure, Acconci and Mayer decided to embrace DIY press instead. Mayer found a mimeograph in her then boyfriend's father's office and used it to produce 0 to 9. The production process was slow; everything had to be meticulously typed, then the ink was left to dry on stencil film between the padding and backing sheets. The magazine's production often took place at night, when the office holding the mimeograph machine was closed.

0 to 9 had a small print run, of between 100 and 350 copies per issue. Each issue was stapled together by hand on cheap xeroxed paper.

Acconci and Mayer then took copies of the magazine to independent booksellers (including Eighth Street, Gotham Book Mart, Sheridan Square and the East Side Bookstore) or mailed them to artists and subscribers. They charged $1 per issue.

0 to 9 followed in the footsteps of other Greenwich Village self-published magazines including Ted Berrigan's C Magazine, John Ashbery's Art & Literature and Fuck You by Ed Sanders. Many of the contributions from living artists were friends of Acconci and Mayer; some artists approached, including Buckminster Fuller and John Cage, declined to contribute.