Liminal Spaces
I've always been fascinated with liminal spaces and the uneasy, familiar feeling they evoke. There's something so interesting about these spaces and the way we see/interpret them. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little frustrated by their current place in the cultural zeitgeist however. See, what I find the most fascinating about these images is their natural uncanny appearance. What I mean by this is that many of the images are actually of real places. Real places that have either been recently emptied or abandoned. The reality of these locations adds so much to their unsettling nature in my opinion due to the way it makes them authentically uncanny. These are real places at real times, yet something feels off, and I think that factor is what gives them their effect/appeal. These places are not works of fiction and so the unsettling nature of them feels more potent if that makes sense. That's why I kind of roll my eyes every time I see an obviously fake image that was solely created to look weird. I don't think that there is anything wrong with fake liminal images inherently, I just prefer seeing authentically captured ones. My problem comes from the tik-tokification of this aesthetic which has given rise to insane amounts of AI slop content. That stuff was going to happen regardless though so I guess there's no use complaining about it now, just felt like yapping.
Below I've attached some of my favorite liminal images. Hovering over them will reveal the physical location where the picture was taken (for the images I was able to track down at least).
Specific 'Genres' of Liminal Spaces
Aside from the general 'liminal' images I've shown, I wanted to highlight two interesting niches within the world of liminal spaces. While the other images are of random, unconnected places, these are kind of their own group of images so they will be separated and treated as such
1. Eye Tests
I was only able to find these three images but all three seem to be some of the earliest examples of liminal spaces, with countless people having mentioned how they found them off-putting before the backrooms and liminal spaces was a mainstream phenomenon.
2. Las Vegas during COVID-19
These images were taken of Las Vegas, Nevada during the height of the pandemic and ensuing lockdown. I feel like many places looked like this as a result of the lockdowns but something about how the Las Vegas Strip's infrastructure was built around being constantly crowded, its that much more jarring to see it completely deserted.
