this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2024
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LiminalSpace
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Liminal spaces are the subject of an Internet aesthetic portraying empty or abandoned places that appear eerie, forlorn, and often surreal. Liminal spaces are commonly places of transition (pertaining to the concept of liminality) or of nostalgic appeal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liminal_space_(aesthetic)
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It actually is liminal.
The original, and still current, definition of 'liminal' is an intermediate between two states, conditions or regions.
It is the concept of transiting, moving through from one place or belief system or state of mind or form, to another.
Liminal Space is an architectural term that applies to areas that are designed to simply be moved through, not to stay or dwell in for long periods of time.
An entryway, an airport concourse, the sort of walking avenues of an indoor mall, a hallway... all of these are liminal spaces. A bedroom, or dining hall or office, or study, are not.
...
The internet phenomenon of liminal spaces being creepy originally derived from some youtube videos explaining how a large amount of particularly American lives are experienced in areas that are designed to just... be moved through, as opposed to inhabited, and how this in itself is creepy and dissociating, as there are fewer and fewer and fewer physical areas that are designed to allow just... public gatherings... and how this literally is now a world that is designed to just shuttle you through, that you can't stay anywhere ... that this itself is creepy and dissociates us from ourselves and others.
...
Purgatory, as a concept, is liminal.
The Matrix's depiction of purgatory, as a literal subway station that just pops you out on the other side of the track if you start moving through it, this is liminal.
The place is physically designed for you to move through quickly, it has no comforts or privacy, encourages you to leave... but in the Matrix, you can't actually leave, you always return to where you start.
... Analogous to how, if you take a subway to work in real life, everyday... you're always going there, every day. It is familiar, but it isn't welcoming, you cannot inhabit it and make it your own, but its a major part of your life.
So it is more of an inescapable place than it is a livable, customizable, comforting place.
It evokes the feeling of a hamster running on a treadmill but not actually progressing anywhere.
...
... But anyway, then 'the backrooms' happened, and soon after that, most of the internet lost the plot to the point that you believe what you just said.
You could have a dilapidated, post apocalyptic bedroom, with a few scattered childrens toys, but overgrown with mold and vines, noticably less advanced in the places the bed and dresser were but no longer are, with a strange iridescent oil seeping up from the ground...
And that would be
But it would not be a liminal space.
I appreciate you taking the time to write all this but it hasn't changed my opinion. The concept has evolved over time. This community is for the internet aesthetic that is currently described as liminal, according to the description.
The current description of the community basically uses the actual definition, that a liminal space is somewhere that evokes or pertains to transition, as well as the descriptors of feelings that are evoked by recognition and contemplation of liminal spaces, which have since been emphasized to the point that their root, their cause, has been largely forgotten.
So... even with your definition of a liminal space, my long winded explanation still proves my point.
By my definition, by the community's definition...
This airport concourse actually is a liminal space, as the community definition is more broad than yours.
Even if you'd argue against that, that it isn't abandoned and rundown, that there are people in it, I can equally validly argue that a functional airport concourse with just a few people in it evokes nostalgia for a time I was at an airport, that it reminds me of a physical and emotional transition, that this experience was surreal and unsettling, and that I find airport concourses to be unwelcoming, uncomfortable, ominous.
Perhaps you can see now why I prefer the more concrete meaning over the meaning based on a set of evoked feelings and qualities of a space.
I can very honestly tell you that if I were to return to a great number and variety of places where pivotal, transitional, fork in the road of my lifepath, events occured, I would genuinely feel surreal and nostalgic, even though the physical attributes of those places vary wildly. Some of those places are now abandoned, erie and desolate, others are not.
... Glancing at a bunch of the more recent posts here, I will grant you that basically none of them have people in them.
But they are not all abandoned to the point of decay. Some are, but others are well kept and well maintained. Almost none are dilapidated, just older. I find very few of them surreal or eerie... but perhaps that is because I have spent a great deal of time homeless, on foot.
Seeing places of all kinds, at all times of day, that most people only see when they normally have people in them, but don't when I am there, is quite normal for me.
If I had to describe the current definition of liminal spaces by the last month or so of posts here, I'd say the actual main theme is just emphasizing isolation, an ominous, foreboding sense of being the last person on earth after an apocalypse has removed all the people from places they'd normally be in, like that old Twilight Zone episode where one man wakes up and everyone in his town is just... gone.
But maybe that's just me.
Ok, that's fair enough. You've changed my mind :) Cheers
=D
While I posted the photo here, I feel like some might think this is less liminal because, while the overall space is liminal, there are parts of it trying not to be liminal.
The center of the hallway has a bar, which is traditionally a third place for people rather than a place to transit through. It is an interesting dichotomy where a place to be is against a place to go to other places without a clear divide between the two places.
You also have the person on the far left lying down while charging his phone. He is taking an action of turning a liminal space to a home. Due to how I shot the photo, he is separated from the rest of the space by wall, further enforcing that he has claimed what should be a liminal space as his personal space.
But then, as you noted, most photos posted here have been empty of humans and therefore can't claim the space they are in. Here, there are people using the liminal space in a non-liminal way, like how a lot of people use liminal spaces.
That is no more an act of turning a place into a home than a homeless person finding an outlet in, or outside of a strip mall, lying down and charging their phone from it, where he would likely also be given a wide berth by passersby.
Neither my homeless man nor your subject has any reasonable expectation of unfettered ability to return whenever they please, stay as long as they want, to customize the area, to prevent others from entering into 'his' space, nor to the any of the private activities commonly associated with a specifically private residence.
They'd be escorted out by security if they attempted that, arrested if he makes a habit of returning, seeking shelter there during all the freezing winter nights.
It is just another temporary resting stop on the highway of life, another falling platform in a game with platforms that fall apart if you don't keep jumping to new ones.
His claim to this space is transient, temporary, and this is enforced by implied, and then actual violence should he linger or attempt to actually inhabit the space.
Any other notion is illusory, not well thought out, delusional.
EDIT: i realize that was all rather harsh.
Other than my above, lengthy disagreement, I agree with everything else you've said, and I do think it is a very good photograph that does portray liminality well!
EDIT 2: Well, the bar is an interesting case.
Its liminal in that... its an airport bar, not usually somewhere most people, other than absurdly frequent flyers and I guess flight staff are likely to return to regularly.
Its more liminal than a more conventional bar that say you and your buddies go every weekend.
....But all bars still have closing times, haha.