In 1996, British funk band Jamiroquai released the song Virtual Insanity in their 3rd album, Travelling Without Moving. The song came with a widely popular music video directed by Johnathan Glazer, who also directed music videos from Blur, Radiohead and even a second for Jamiroquai. At a first glance, the video seems to just be Jay Kay dancing, walking and rearranging his furniture, but if you look closer and consider the lyrics of the song, the video takes on a much darker tone...
The video starts off with a simple shot of Jay in a rather simplistic looking room consisting of only 3 grey walls, a grey floor and two black armchairs. Then, he moves towards us without walking at all, as if by magic before beginning the song. The video fits into the usual trope of a 'performative video', with the performer dancing around and singing at the camera, however, there is a sort of narrative here. The video is chock full of enigma codes, such as the moving furniture, which comes straight after Jay sings the verse "Who can tell what magic spells we'll be doin' for us?", perhaps implying that the moving furniture is magic, similar to the way he himself seems to glide across the solid floor as if it is ice. This could also, however, be a reference to the title of the album, Travelling Without Moving, as Jay is literally travelling across the room without moving.
This is the first of several "weird" aspects of the video. The next we see is a raven seemingly appearing out of thin air and flying above Jay's head. Ravens are extremely interesting when it comes to symbolism as they are usually representative of death or misfortune. The first sign of a more sinister element to this room. The video also features several shots of cockroaches, which while being symbols of tenacity, are also just generally viewed as rather disturbing imagery. Cockroaches are also frequently used in media to show something decayed, like an old house or in some cases, a corpse. This and the raven paint a darker picture of the mysterious grey room.
An interesting technical code to note is the usage of invisible cuts to make it seem like the room is changing almost instantly, such as between the shots of the grey room and the hallway, which is where the cockroach is seen for the first time. This could be related to the idea of the digital world, almost like when you spawn in a new location in a game.
The next shot we see are the other members of Jamiroquai being blown away as Jay walks forward. They are all dressed in white "futuristic" outfits, contrasting Jay's blue jacket and black top hat.
The cockroach also reappears in this scene, again linking to the potential darker nature of this environment. This scene could be representing the majority of society being dragged into the "virtual insanity" as Jay walks forwards towards us attempting to escape it but being dragged back in eventually before appearing back in the grey box in the next scene. This could relate to the wider message of the song, being that we are slowly being trapped what seems like a digital utopia, which brings the raven back into the equation. The raven could represent not a literal death but more of a metaphorical one in a sense of our normal lives are dead and we are trapped in a virtual dystopia.
This could all link together for the final shots of the video, where blood begins pooling on the ground from under the furniture and leaking out of the walls, with the raven reappearing once more.
This could all represent the death of a society without the digital world and even Jay's smile at the end of the video, alongside the lyric "Virtual Insanity is what we're living in. Well it's alright" could symbolise his acceptance of his fate of being absorbed by the false reality.
Overall, the surreal feel of the video could by trying to convey that the room Jay is in is not actually real and is a simulation, or a representation of the digital landscape that was exploding in popularity at the time, with the visual codes of the raven, the cockroach and the blood being warning signs that we aren't seeing, as they are in the background with the moving furniture and Jay Kay being our main point of focus. I think this is the main reading that can be taken away from the video. It's a background warning that no one is seeing but everyone is noticing. The symbolisms of death and the more disturbing visuals are pushed into the background as people would choose not to focus on those. People are choosing to move their attention away from the disturbing background elements to focus on the magic man moving his living room with his mind.
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