liminal space (aesthetic)

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In Internet aesthetics, liminal spaces are empty or abandoned places that appear eerie, forlorn, and often surreal. Liminal spaces are commonly places of transition, pertaining to the concept of liminality.

Research from the Journal of Environmental Psychology has indicated that liminal spaces may appear eerie or strange because they fall into an uncanny valley of architecture and physical places. An article from Pulse: The Journal of Science and Culture has attributed this eeriness to familiar places lacking their usually observed context. A pillar of liminal spaces is the absence of living things, particularly other people, with the implication that the viewer is alone; this lack of presence is characteristic of spaces that are "liminal in a temporal way, that occupy a space between use and disuse, past and present, transitioning from one identity to another."{{cite web|url=https://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/architecture/liminal-spaces|date=7 March 2024|access-date=7 February 2025|website=HowStuffWorks|last=Hoyt|first=Alia|title=Why Do Liminal Spaces Feel So Unsettling, Yet So Familiar?|language=en}}

The aesthetic gained popularity in 2019 after a post on 4chan depicting a liminal space called the Backrooms went viral. Since then, liminal space images have been posted across the internet, including on Reddit, Twitter, and TikTok.

Characteristics

Broadly, the term liminal space is used to describe a place or state of change or transition; this may be physical (e.g. a doorway) or psychological (e.g. the period of adolescence).{{Cite web |last=Neumann |first=Kimberly Dawn |date=2022-09-06 |title=Liminal Space: What Is It And How Does It Affect Your Mental Health? |url=https://www.forbes.com/health/mind/what-is-liminal-space/ |access-date=2023-01-03 |website=Forbes Health |language=en-US |archive-date=January 3, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230103111952/https://www.forbes.com/health/mind/what-is-liminal-space/ |url-status=live }} Liminal space imagery often depicts this sense of "in-between", capturing transitional places (such as stairwells, roads, corridors, or hotels) unsettlingly devoid of people.{{Cite magazine |last=Xiao |first=Madelyne |date=2021-04-16 |title=The Pleasant Head Trip of Liminal Spaces |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/the-pleasant-head-trip-of-liminal-spaces |url-access=limited |access-date=2023-01-03 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US |archive-date=January 3, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230103111955/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/the-pleasant-head-trip-of-liminal-spaces |url-status=live }} The aesthetic may convey moods of eeriness, surrealness, nostalgia, or sadness, and elicit responses of both comfort and unease.{{Cite web |last=Pitre |first=Jake |date=2022-11-01 |title=The Eerie Comfort of Liminal Spaces |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/11/liminal-space-internet-aesthetic/671945/ |url-access=limited |access-date=2023-01-02 |website=The Atlantic |language=en |archive-date=December 12, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221212212725/https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/11/liminal-space-internet-aesthetic/671945/ |url-status=live }}

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Research by Alexander Diel and Michael Lewis of Cardiff University has attributed the unsettling nature of liminal spaces to the phenomenon of the uncanny valley. The term, which is usually applied to humanoids whose inexact resemblance to humans elicits feelings of unease, may explain similar responses to liminal imagery. In this case, physical places that appear familiar but subtly deviate from reality create the sense of eeriness typical of liminal spaces.{{cite journal |last1=Diel |first1=Alexander |last2=Lewis |first2=Michael |date=2022-08-01 |title=Structural deviations drive an uncanny valley of physical places |journal=Journal of Environmental Psychology |volume=82 |pages=101844 |doi=10.1016/j.jenvp.2022.101844 |s2cid=250404379|doi-access=free }}

Peter Heft of Pulse: the Journal of Science and Culture further explores this sense of eeriness. Drawing on the works of Mark Fisher, Heft explains such eeriness may be felt when an individual views a situation in a different context to what they expect. For example, a schoolhouse, expected to be a busy amalgamation of teachers and students, becomes unsettling when depicted as unnaturally empty. This "failure of presence" was considered by Fisher to be one of the hallmarks of the aesthetic experience of eeriness.{{Cite journal |last=Heft |first=Peter |date=2021 |title=Betwixt and Between: Zones as Liminal and Deterritorialized Spaces |url=https://www.pulse-journal.org/_files/ugd/b096b2_d32b5e138ccd477db53363a52e0838f7.pdf |journal=Pulse: The Journal of Science and Culture |publisher=Central European University |publication-place=Budapest |volume=8 |pages=1–20 |archive-date=January 17, 2023 |access-date=January 12, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230117184109/https://www.pulse-journal.org/_files/ugd/b096b2_d32b5e138ccd477db53363a52e0838f7.pdf |url-status=live }}

Part of the appeal of liminal spaces has been due to the coinciding of their boom in popularity with the COVID-19 pandemic and adjacent nostalgia for a time before the new normal, "which has made people more aware of transitional spaces and the emotions they evoke." The first spike in popularity for liminal space imagery was in March of 2020, when the lockdowns were initiated.{{cite web|title='Liminal space' photography captures the eerieness and isolation of pandemic life|last=Lazin-Ryder|first=Matthew|date=1 March 2022|access-date=7 February 2025|url=https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/liminal-space-popularity-1.6365390|website=Canadian Broadcasting Corporation}}

History

File:Backrooms model.jpg, digitally rendered|upright=1.2|alt=An image of the Backrooms. A large, open room with carpet, fluorescent lights and yellow wallpaper. A gap in the wall shows similar rooms extending without limits.]]

Images depicting liminal spaces gained popularity in 2019 when a short creepypasta of unknown origin was posted on 4chan and went viral.{{Cite web |last=Koch |first=Karl |date=2020-11-02 |title=Architecture: The Cult Following Of Liminal Space |url=https://museemagazine.com/features/2020/11/1/the-cult-following-of-liminal-space |access-date=2023-01-02 |website=Musée Magazine |language=en-US |archive-date=December 17, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211217150255/https://museemagazine.com/features/2020/11/1/the-cult-following-of-liminal-space |url-status=live }} The creepypasta showed an image exemplifying a liminal space—a hallway with yellow carpets and wallpaper—with a caption purporting that by "noclipping out of bounds in real life", one may enter the Backrooms, an empty wasteland of corridors with nothing but "the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in".{{Cite web |last=Sandal |first=Michael L. |date=2020-04-30 |title='The Backrooms Game' Brings a Modern Creepypasta to Life [What We Play in the Shadows] |url=https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3614536/play-shadows-backrooms-game-brings-modern-creepypasta-life/ |access-date=2023-01-02 |website=Bloody Disgusting |language=en-US |archive-date=February 26, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220226134645/https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3614536/play-shadows-backrooms-game-brings-modern-creepypasta-life/ |url-status=live }} The Backrooms have also been portrayed as inhabited by supernatural entities.{{Cite web |last=Patston |first=Manning |date=3 August 2021 |title=The Backrooms: an eerie phenomenon lies behind these familiar hallways |url=https://happymag.tv/what-are-the-backrooms/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220201130114/https://happymag.tv/the-backrooms/ |archive-date=1 February 2022 |access-date=2023-12-26 |website=Happy Mag |language=en-US}}

Liminal space images soon gained popularity across the Internet, and by November 2022, a subreddit called r/LiminalSpace had over 500,000 members, the liminal space photo-posting @SpaceLiminalBot on Twitter had accrued over 1.2 million followers, and the TikTok #liminalspaces hashtag had over two billion views.

Following the expansion of the genre, other forms of media have also drawn on liminal imagery. A found footage short film series set in the Backrooms accrued over sixty million views on its first episode, and several film and video game projects have been released or announced advertising their use of the aesthetic. A feature film set in the Backrooms from A24 is in development,{{cite web|url=https://deadline.com/2023/02/the-backrooms-a24-developing-feature-based-on-viral-horror-shorts-1235249413/|last=Grobar|first=Matt|date=6 February 2023|access-date=7 February 2025|website=Deadline|title=‘The Backrooms’ Horror Film Based On Viral Shorts By 17-Year-Old Kane Parsons In Works At A24, Atomic Monster, Chernin & 21 Laps|archive-date=February 6, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230206160550/https://deadline.com/2023/02/the-backrooms-a24-developing-feature-based-on-viral-horror-shorts-1235249413/|url-status=live}} while another film based on the 2023 video game The Exit 8 is due from Toho and Japanese director Genki Kawamura.{{cite web|url=https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3853600/exit-8-live-action-adaptation-of-liminal-infinite-looping-horror-game/|title=‘Exit 8’ Live-Action Adaptation of Liminal, Infinite Looping Horror Game on the Way from Toho|last=Navarro|first=Meagan|date=6 February 2025|access-date=7 February 2025|website=Bloody Disgusting|archive-date=February 12, 2025|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250212002030/https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3853600/exit-8-live-action-adaptation-of-liminal-infinite-looping-horror-game/|url-status=live}}

The 2013 videogame The Stanley Parable has also been retroactively noted to utilize liminal imagery, particularly the recurring visual motif of "mono-yellow" also present in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.{{cite web|url=https://www.pastemagazine.com/games/the-stanley-parable/the-stanley-parable-and-the-backrooms-honor-horrors-yellow-history|title=The Stanley Parable and The Backrooms Honor Horror’s Yellow History|last=Simms|first=Phoenix|date=30 October 2023|access-date=7 February 2025|website=Paste Magazine|archive-date=March 31, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240331144314/https://www.pastemagazine.com/games/the-stanley-parable/the-stanley-parable-and-the-backrooms-honor-horrors-yellow-history|url-status=live}} David Lynch's Twin Peaks and the Apple TV+ series Severance also draw from liminal imagery, with the creator of the latter, Dan Erickson, specifically citing the Backrooms as a visual influence.{{cite web|url=https://www.thedigitalfix.com/severance/urban-legend|title=Severance was influenced by this terrifying online urban legend|last=Percival|first=Tom|date=7 May 2024|access-date=7 February 2025|website=The Digital Fix}}

References

External links

[https://reddit.com/r/LiminalSpace Liminal Space] on Reddit

Category:Visual arts genres

Category:Creepypasta

Category:Internet aesthetics

Category:Nostalgia

Category:Internet memes introduced in 2019

liminal space (aesthetic)

Characteristics

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links