More from Roger Copeland on Merce Cunningham:

"...you don't have to be a semiotician to realize that a body minus clothing is still a product of its cultural conditioning. (Even naked, we continue to move in ways that are dictated by the clothes we've just discarded"

"In 1968, The Living Theater toured the United States with its most utopian work, Paradise Now, featuring 'the rite of universal intercourse,' in which the audience was invited to join the performers in an extended group-grope." (39)

Thinking about this relative to the Oulipo conference in LA last fall. Perhaps this is obvious, but Oulipo vs. body-centered performance art is similar to Cunningham vs. Graham. Or Rauschenberg vs. Pollock. Objects vs. subjects? Not quite. Frustration with representation. Sure. Object versus abstract? Form vs. (psychological/emotional) content.

Ah, stupid binaries.