Emergent & Residual Cultures

In Raymond William's article "Base and Superstructure" he introduces the ideas of emergent and residual cultures. His theory is that within a dominant culture there are emergent and residual cultures present. Emergent being new ideas and cultural values forming in tandem with the dominant culture. Residual being a relic of a past culture that continues to rear it's head in the current culture. After our class discussion on this topic, I began to wonder how I would define the current Opera scene in our dominant culture.

This type of musical entertainment has long since seen it's height of popularity and now functions as a sub-culture (mostly for the bourgeois class) that I imagine could be classified as a residual culture. Since the dominant culture is moving further toward electronically enhanced music and Opera is the quintessential acoustic experience I found it a prime example.

However; recently (and I believe it was briefly brought up in class as well) there has been a new opera composed by John Adams. This modern opera was a radical idea thrown into the nostalgic world of global opera, but much to everyone's surprise it has been accepted by the opera community and joined the ranks of Verdi and Mozart in the operatic cannon.

The question I pose is how can a non-dominant, residual culture, accept something with such clear influence from the dominant culture into it's own value system without being considered part of the dominant culture. Is this some example where an entity can function as both emergent and residual? Even if Opera were a residual culture, it is such a solid institution that there is no chance of it's residue being wiped up completely. It has almost been preserved like a museum exhibit- except for the fact that it is constantly being innovated. For example Julie Taymor (original director of THE LION KING and SPIDERMAN on broadway) recently helmed a production of Mozart's THE MAGIC FLUTE and created an entirely new puppet-driven production with cutting-edge production value, but "residual" music.

Where is the line (if there is one)?

Semiotics

         Today I was reminded of Bignell when the text of the "Cheers" logo appeared on my television screen. As I settled down to watch some vintage television I wondered if the experience would now be changed due to a current hyper-awareness of the constant bombardment of semiotics. This new found way of examining media also brought a new question to mind: How does time affect the intended coding of media?

It's obvious when something feels dated in media, whether through outdated semantics in language, varying audio/visual qualities, or blatant reference to cultures past. (Which made me think of how long it takes a culture to evolve... I submit that small pieces of the cultural mindset change and eventually a new cultural landscape is created rather than rapid whole shifts)

Bignell references how there are warmer colors (like red and yellow) and colder colors (darker colors like black and blue). These colors are said to contain particular information for an audience with regard to the mood of the media, however I am skeptical as to when it was decided that these colors have their said codings. Was it a scientific discovery? Is it culturally specific?