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THE ASTERISK MACHINE
The Asterisk Machine was originally commissioned as part of the exhibition Now See
Hear! at the Wellington City Art Gallery, 15 July - 30
September 1990. Co-curators Ian Wedde and Gregory Burke commissioned four
poets to produce site-specific texts for the show. Bill Manhire, asked for
something to put on a three-faced rotographic display unit; came up with The
Asterisk Machine we can now call Mark 1:
Manhire's asterisks machined quietly from a corner of
the gallery coffee shop, one every 18 seconds during expected opening hours
over three months. There was a note on the wall nearby:
Statisticians estimate that by the time
NOW SEE HEAR! closes on 30 September 1990,
The Asterisk Machine will have produced
approxiametely 121,800 asterisks
- an impressive figure in anybody's language"
Michele Leggott, editorial note in Landfall 177,
March 1991.
The issue published a print version of the Asterisk Machine
(Mark 2). THE ASTERISK MACHINE (Mark 3) updates
the original work in a web setting. A Windows screensaver
version is also available for downloading (EXE file, 1.4 MB)
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