So fluid and changeable are the con

So fluid and changeable are the contexts of contemporary life that new kinds of units, context-plus-text, are emerging. M ax Head-room, for example, lived permanently within the context of the TV screen. Because they were inseparably fused, the framing screen and image provided the illusion of a stabilized context. But this new unit could in turn be embedded in other contexts, usually other TV sets, setting up a self-reflexive play between M ax’s TV screen and the TV screen framing it. The visual reflection of M ax’s screen in the surrounding screen is equivalent to the TV talk show’s ploy of simultaneously creating and violating context. The stability that one screen bestows the other takes away. What better way to depict what it means to live within the context of no context?