There is a picture that almost everyone can call to mind: a glowing grid stretching to the horizon, with mountains on either side. It is the landscape of 1980s computer graphics, and it has become the emblem of a whole style. Cyber Wave Escape is that landscape, drawn with care and stripped of everything that isn't needed.
What is in the picture
The lower third of the frame is a floor made of light. A grid of thin teal lines runs away from you toward a vanishing point at the centre of the horizon, the squares getting smaller and closer together as they recede. The lines glow against a dark ground.
On either side of the grid, mountains rise. They are drawn the same way, as wireframe: a mesh of teal lines over jagged peaks, with no solid surface. Between them, in the middle distance, sits a darker range of hills, textured and greyish, with a pale light catching its ridges.
The upper two-thirds is sky, in deep blue. It is filled with pale streaks, hundreds of short dashes of light all curving the same way, like stars photographed with a long exposure, or like the view from something moving very fast.
Where the grid comes from
In the early days of computer graphics, machines were too slow to draw solid, shaded objects. What they could do was draw lines. So three-dimensional shapes were shown as wireframes: the edges only, with everything else left empty. A flat plane became a grid.
Arcade games, science-fiction films and television title sequences of the late 1970s and 1980s were full of it. A glowing grid receding into darkness came to mean computer, future and cyberspace all at once.
When musicians and artists in the 2000s began to look back fondly at that decade, the grid was the first thing they reached for. It is now the best-known image in synthwave. We explain the family in vaporwave vs synthwave vs outrun.
What is different here
The standard version has a huge striped sun on the horizon and a pink and purple sky. This piece has neither. It is entirely blue and teal, and where the sun would be there is only the vanishing point, and dark hills.
That makes it cooler and quieter than most of its relatives. It reads as night, and as depth, where the usual version reads as sunset. It is also easier to live with. Pink and orange neon is exciting and tiring. Teal on deep blue is calm.
Why it pulls you in
Every line on the floor points to the same spot. That is one-point perspective, the simplest way to make a flat surface look deep, and it works on the eye whether you want it to or not. You look at the centre.
The sky does the opposite. Its streaks arc across and outward. So the ground draws you forward and the sky rushes past overhead, and together they produce a feeling of travelling: of moving fast across a wide, empty plain toward something on the horizon.
That is the escape in the title. There is no car and no figure, so the one moving is you.
The colours
Teal, deep blue, and near-black, with a little pale grey in the hills. It is one colour family, with the bright teal carrying all the energy. On a wall it behaves like a dark piece with a single cool accent, which makes it easy to match. See synthwave colour palettes, where it anchors the teal and deep blue scheme.
Where it belongs
- A gaming or desk setup with cyan, teal or blue lighting. It is the natural match.
- Behind a monitor. The perspective gives your eyes a far point to rest on.
- A hallway. A picture of a path running to the horizon, at the end of a corridor, seems to extend it.
- A small room. Strong perspective makes a wall feel further away.
- A dark feature wall. The grid appears to glow.
- A bedroom. Cooler and calmer than most synthwave, so it can work where the pink and purple kind would not.
It is less suited to a warm, rustic room, where its cold, digital look will feel out of place.
What it goes with
- Wall colours: black, charcoal, navy, white.
- Frames: black.
- Lighting: teal, cyan or cool white. An LED strip behind the canvas in teal makes the grid seem to light the wall. See how to light wall art with LED strips.
- Other art: CRT Lion Retro Wave shares the retro-technology feel. Starlight City and Cosmic Frosted City Skyline share the deep blue.
Wall and desk together
This is one of the best designs in the catalogue for a matched setup. The grid on the wall is a floor running away from you. Put the same design on the desk as a mat and the grid continues toward you. The desk seems to carry on into the picture. See desk mat and wall art pairings.
Which format to choose
- Canvas: the best choice for a main wall, with no cover to reflect light across the dark areas.
- Poster: matte paper, with the thin lines of the grid at their sharpest.
- Framed poster: a finished look for a hallway or study.
- Tapestry: at wall scale the grid is big enough to walk into. A strong backdrop for streaming.
- Desk mat: the grid spreads across the whole surface, so it shows well around a keyboard.
- Pin and keychain: a small piece of the horizon.
Size
Perspective is more convincing the larger it is. At poster size it is a picture of a grid. At three or four feet tall it starts to feel like an opening in the wall. If you have the space, go big.
Every format is made to order, so allow 2 to 7 business days for production before it ships. See more in the canvas art and desk mats collections.