Soft Vortex 2000

Curator: "Soft Vortex," created in 2000 by Ray Howlett, employs digital techniques to simulate installation art or even sculpture. What leaps out at you initially? Editor: It feels like peering into a shimmering abyss…a rave inside a washing machine! Seriously, though, the concentric circles are mesmerizing. There's an odd tension between the cold geometry and the inviting warmth of those peach and lime hues. Curator: Indeed, that tension is interesting. Digital art, especially in the early 2000s, often grappled with similar contradictions—seeking to emulate the tangible while pushing into new realms of simulated space. Pieces like this asked what "sculpture" could become in the digital age. Did it democratize art, or cheapen it? Editor: It kind of makes you wonder if the artist misses actual materials. Does digital ever feel…I don't know, sterile? I find myself craving some fingerprints, maybe a drip or two. Yet, there’s this hypnotic depth achieved digitally that's impossible any other way. Like gazing into another dimension crafted on a computer, pretty wild when you consider the historical point it was made! Curator: And the context, really, for pieces like this—art being displayed on personal computers and very early smartphones. Early digital art asked audiences to contend with where “art” was, versus where we'd previously assumed it was displayed in institutional spaces, a museum or gallery. How did art shift in our public lives once its scale moved to the screens of our personal technology? Editor: It feels like art going undercover, a revolution in disguise! Curator: Certainly! Perhaps “Soft Vortex” isn't just an abstraction, but a quiet commentary on abstraction's democratization through the accessibility of new digital tools and methods. Editor: Well, whether it's high art or a sophisticated screensaver, I am kind of captivated. I might just stare into that rave-machine a bit longer! Curator: It definitely draws you in! For me, seeing the work brings me back to questions around who could *make* art and *where* that was heading in the new millenium, questions that very much linger still!