The Play of Cultural Subcodes in Decoding the Visual Signs of Karnatik Music Videos

Abstract

The present study analyzes the influence of culturally charged visuals on the perception of music in Karnatik music videos. The study, using semiotic theories of Umberto Eco and Roland Barthes, argues that Karnatik music videos, through decades of media practice, have invested a considerable degree of mythico-cultural connotations on certain kinds of visuals—visuals of nature and Hindu iconography. The study asserts that these videos presuppose a “model reader” or the rasika, who has access to certain cultural subcodes that lets these visuals “signify” the quasi-religious identity of Karnatik music. Through a commutation test, the article analyzes the perceptional change brought about in the semiosis of these music videos by the mere substitution of “neutral” visuals with contrasting visuals.