Jude Walton
Upside-Down Boat
00:01:34 2004
Video projection as part of the performance No Hope No Reason at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) for the Melbourne International Arts Festival, 2004.
I am walking down St Kilda pier before the fire destroyed it, looking for the black and white dinghy I saw a few days ago. I frame it in the viewfinder of my super 8 camera, and for no reason I turn the camera upside-down. The image of the boat appears inverted on the screen, it hangs suspended, bobbing on the waves. It has made people nauseous as they struggle to upend it, set it right. But it refuses all offers maintaining its sense of being an empty vessel in a grey nowhere, while all about it is cast adrift.
This song arises off the water:
Stranded
Stuck fast transfixed stuck fast aground high and dry
In difficulty hold the wolf by the ears
Failure come to nothing end in smoke
Pain unfortunate to be pitied
Doomed devoted undone lost stranded
The iron entered into our soul.
DVD available.