Blue (I Cast A Spell On You) is a text-based video work using found footage of an old instructional video for seaman and sailors on how to tie knots, bends and hitches. Fragments of the original recording is slowed down and overlaid with a series of text. Rather than illustrating the images, the text interjects and disrupts our reading, hinting at slippages and tensions that mirror the physical gestures depicted. In the absence of a soundtrack, the work’s title brings to mind two references in which the voice plays centre stage — first, Derek Jarman’s experimental film ‘Blue’ and the other, the 1956 classic written by Jay Hawkins, later performed by Nina Simone. Charged by these references, the work creates a third space beyond language and representation to chart the territories of desire in the open sea.
