i don’t understand what happened to the term “liminal space”. it started out as photos of transitory spaces (“liminal” as in the “limit” between two things) like empty parking lots, or highways at night, or closed bus terminals. places that give you the feeling that you need to move on. then it expanded into “places that should be busy but aren’t”, which i can sort of understand, but now it’s literally any picture with no people in it.
well yeah, there is a certain feeling you get when you dwell too long in a place not meant for it, like if you’re waiting for a train for hours or your night walk takes you through an industrial park. so there’s definitely a psychological aspect.
hallways definitely should qualify but i feel like the backrooms did them to death. it worked in the stanley parable because it was novel.
The examples of a parking lot, highway at night, and closed bus terminals are examples of things that should be busy that are not. So that doesn’t exactly clarify what a liminal space was versus what it is now. At least, it doesn’t for me.
![Look at this liminal space! [Rae The Doe]](https://lemmus.org/pictrs/image/df8608c1-8b38-46e4-b731-b919e89a7df6.webp){kind=link}
i don’t understand what happened to the term “liminal space”. it started out as photos of transitory spaces (“liminal” as in the “limit” between two things) like empty parking lots, or highways at night, or closed bus terminals. places that give you the feeling that you need to move on. then it expanded into “places that should be busy but aren’t”, which i can sort of understand, but now it’s literally any picture with no people in it.
I thought it started off as some abstract anthropology/psychology thing.
Liminal hallway is semantically overloaded in that all hallways are liminal.
well yeah, there is a certain feeling you get when you dwell too long in a place not meant for it, like if you’re waiting for a train for hours or your night walk takes you through an industrial park. so there’s definitely a psychological aspect.
hallways definitely should qualify but i feel like the backrooms did them to death. it worked in the stanley parable because it was novel.
We’re coming from different places, but I’m the one out of the loop here.
Where I’m coming from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liminality?wprov=sfla1
Where you’re coming from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liminal_space_(aesthetic)?wprov=sfla1
The examples of a parking lot, highway at night, and closed bus terminals are examples of things that should be busy that are not. So that doesn’t exactly clarify what a liminal space was versus what it is now. At least, it doesn’t for me.
specifically it used to be places you pass through on your way to other things.
But a full parking lot or highway during the day are also places you pass through. The eerie emptiness is part of it