Context

 

A completely contextualized work is not strictly possible.
It should include the totality of the spectator's mind content, and, at the limit, his whol history and memory content if not behaviour.
Even if done for a given person in a given location at a given time, the work has to incorporate hypotheses about his/her personality and mood.

Even if designed for a given location, at a given (necessarily future) time, the work will include hypotheses about the weather, level, and the people around. There are two ways of dealing with that :
- show the work in a totally immersive environment, indifferent to weather, and generally used by one alone person,
- include in the work sensors which afford to include a maximum of environment parameters in the work (temperature and noise level).

Interaction with the spectator may also be taken has a context introduction in the work by the spectator, who takes the environment into account.

The case of the one person, one place, one time work suppose that the spectator has the means to retribute the artist in sufficient proportion with the time he spends (including the education time) and the material support. We can give two extreme such cases :
- the artist works for a rich customer (a king of prince in ancient times...),
- the artist works for somebody he loves ; for example he creates a tale for one of his/her kids ; love mating may also be considered as an art, where both partners are artists and are retributed by their reciprocal pleasure.

As soon as the work is done for an audience of several persons, these hypotheses become more general. And the wider the public, the more generic will be the hypotheses.

I'll conclude saying that the level of contextualization (customization, personalization) is a choice of the artist, a choice which may be limited by his/her retribution needs and way of living.

Generally, intermediary agents play their role (publishers, producers, TV chains...). Marketing defines an audience and its profile, hence the general features or the work to be produced and sold. These features will frame the contents as well as the containers. In printed press, for instance, the paper format, the number of pages, the pages structures, the different types of stories and the kinds of matters to be dealt with.