Virtual Insanity

Jamiroquai's video, "Virtual Insanity", is shot nearly entirely in one room, where the singer, Jay Kay dances, Michael Jackson style around the room. So this is not boring, the video employs a unique feature - moving walls (likely inspired by the name of the album containing the song, "Travelling Without Moving"), giving the illusion of frictionless movement, aided by how only the desired objects in the room move. However, it is the deeper meanings the video gives to the song that are truly interesting. After being asked to write down three words which describe the representation of Jay Kay in the video, I listed happy, super-human and mentally disturbed. The first two aspects make the singer seem like the main character in nearly all dancing music videos, and yet, on a deeper level, there are small aspects which grow on the viewer with every time the video is watched, including the unusual attire worn by Jay Kay - a fleece is rarely the pop-star norm, and there is something slightly disconcerting about how casually he wears the hat, which reminds me very much of the mad hatter. The room, in my opinion, represents a place inside the character's head, where the white walls and clinical lighting represent a mental asylum (the room is clearly imitating a padded cell). This changes the "happy, super-human" ideas from before and adds a darker element, which is the key issue when the deeper meanings to the video are uncovered - mental illness of the character. This view of the lead singer affects how we view the band themselves. It would be too rash to call the band 'mentally ill', based on this, but it is easy to assume that the band is quirky and slightly twisted. This all fits in with the word "Insanity" used in the title, proving that my hypothesis cannot be far off. This opinion starts to crawl in with the first viewing of the cockroach, first seen in at the 50 second point as a transition between the main room and the corridor at the end of it. (at this point, it is worth noting that the walls clearly wobble, although this is likely to be a fault with the props, instead of a notable, if pretentious point about 'the walls of reality caving in around him') However, the cockroach is shown to be not just a transition, but a part of the room, and in this case, represents mental illness (cockroaches and other insects commonly being an item of fear for the mentally insane), when it is next seen a few seconds later, easy to miss, when it crawls silently down the right hand wall. Another separating shot, this time showing two cockroaches, hinting at his madness being greater than we thought. However, the singer appears not to notice this in his otherwise perfect 'house', even after one crawls under the wall in the main room. Jay Kay continues a while longer, until the camera tilts upwards to follow a crow which has entered the room and flies out above the camera. This again suggests that the enclosed space Kay has created is not so detached from the outside world. Kay continues dancing, until the room's objects all advance on the camera, where he takes a pose and holds it until pressed up against the camera, where it becomes clear that a slight wide angle lens is being used, slightly distorting his face, the skewed picture reminding us that this reality is only a virtual one, á la title. One last time, the camera rolls downwards, showing us blood leaking down from somewhere out of the frame. The camera rolls up again, and the floor is covered in blood, apparently leaking from the sofas, which is the definitive part of evidence showing the viewer that this virtual insanity is not all it seems. The seemingly oblivious Jay Kay sings to the camera desperately as the walls start leaking blood and the crow once again rises and flies above the camera, as the artist drops the volume, and sings:

"It's all alright".