Electric Water is a strange, quiet picture. An old computer monitor floats alone in a calm sea at night. Above it, an aurora burns green. Stars are scattered across the sky and across the water too. Nothing else is there. It is one of the most dreamlike pieces we make. This post looks at what is in it.
What is in the picture
The lower two-thirds of the picture is water: dark, still and teal, with a soft haze over it. The upper third is night sky. Where they meet there is a pale, misty horizon.
In the middle of the water, a little right of centre, floats a monitor. It is the deep, boxy kind with a curved glass screen, a cathode ray tube set of the 1990s, in beige-grey plastic. It sits tilted in the water, half sunk, with its screen turned towards us. Rings of ripples spread out round it, as if it had just come to rest or just surfaced.
The screen isn't dark. It shows a picture of its own, in bright blue: something like a curve of sky or a wave. It is the lightest and clearest thing in the lower part of the scene.
In the sky, a green aurora flares up from the horizon, bright emerald at its heart and turning to teal at the edges. Round it, and over the water, are hundreds of small white stars and soft patches of blue cloud, like nebulae. The stars lie over the sea as well as the sky, so that the water seems to be part of space.
The title
Electricity and water don't mix. Everyone knows not to put an appliance in the bath. A monitor sitting in the sea with its screen still lit is a small impossibility. That is the joke of the title, and the source of the picture's oddness. The machine should be dead, and it is glowing.
What kind of picture is it?
Surrealism
The surrealist painters of the 1920s and 1930s made pictures by putting an ordinary object somewhere it doesn't belong, and painting it with complete calm. René Magritte put a train in a fireplace and a rock in the sky. The method produces a feeling of a dream: everything is clear and nothing is explained. Electric Water works in the same way. A familiar object, an impossible place, and a perfectly still scene.
Vaporwave
Old computers, calm water and glowing horizons are the stock of vaporwave, the online style that grew up in the early 2010s out of nostalgia for the technology of the 1980s and 1990s. A beige CRT monitor is one of its favourite objects. See vaporwave vs synthwave vs outrun and CRT and glitch art explained.
Liminal space
The picture also has the quality people call liminal: an empty, in-between place that is calm and faintly unsettling at once. See liminal spaces explained.
What it might mean
The picture doesn't say. Here are some ways to read it.
- Technology outlived. A machine that was once new and important, now adrift. Every device ends up obsolete.
- Technology and nature. The glow of the screen and the glow of the aurora are both electric. The aurora is caused by charged particles from the Sun. The picture sets the man-made light beside the natural one, and the natural one is far larger.
- A window. A screen is a window onto somewhere else. Here it floats in a place that is already another world, still showing its own small view. See portals and doorways in art.
- Memory. For anyone who grew up with a monitor like this, it is an object from childhood, seen in a dream.
- Being switched off. A computer taken out of the room and set down in silence. The picture can be restful for that reason.
How the composition works
- One object in a wide space. The monitor is small against the sea and sky. That gives the scene its loneliness and its scale. See negative space.
- Off-centre. The monitor sits to the right and is tilted. A centred, upright one would look posed. This looks as though it drifted there.
- Two lights. The aurora above and the screen below. The eye moves between them.
- The ripples. They are the only sign of movement, and they tell you the water is real.
- The horizon. A straight, calm line across the upper part. Horizontal lines are restful.
- Green and teal on near-black. A narrow, cool palette. The beige of the monitor is the only warm tone, and it marks the object as foreign.
The mood
Silent, dreamlike and a little melancholy. It is a picture to look at late at night. It is calm, and it has a question in it.
Where it works
- Above or beside a desk. A picture of a computer at rest, next to a computer at work. It suits a programmer or anyone who works in technology. See desk setups for developers.
- A retro gaming or old-computer corner.
- A bedroom. Dark, still and quiet.
- A music room. It suits ambient and electronic music.
- A dark or teal wall. See wall art for dark walls and wall art for blue and green walls.
- A room lit in green or teal.
It is a dark picture. Give it a lamp, or the stars and the haze on the water will be lost.
What to pair it with
- Star Valley. A blue valley under a green aurora. The two share a sky.
- Cyber Wave Escape. A teal wireframe grid. The inside of the computer, beside the computer.
- Scanline Spaceman. An astronaut breaking up like a bad signal.
- Earth Glitched.
- In the room: black and dark grey, a teal or green accent, and, if you have one, an old piece of hardware on a shelf.
The formats
- Matte poster. From 8 × 10 to 24 × 36 inches. Matte paper suits a dark picture. Frame it in black.
- Tapestry. In four sizes. At 68 × 80 inches the sea fills the wall. Good behind a desk or a bed. See the tapestry size guide.
- Acrylic keychain. A small present for anyone who remembers these monitors.
Hanging and lighting
- Centre it about 57 inches from the floor. See the 57-inch rule.
- Keep the horizon level. A crooked horizon is noticed at once.
- Use neutral white light. Warm bulbs turn the teal muddy.
- A green or teal LED strip nearby picks up the aurora. See how to light wall art with LED strips.
As a gift
It suits a programmer, a collector of old computers, a vaporwave listener, or anyone who likes art with a puzzle in it. See gifts for a programmer. Each piece is made to order, so allow 2 to 7 business days for production and 3 to 7 for US delivery.
Browse the poster prints and tapestries collections for more.