More info: Facebook
In this list, you can see pictures taken from the Facebook page called “Liminal Spaces.” This page, which is put under the visual arts category, currently has 18k likes and 41k followers. As can be seen from the images here and as the page’s name suggests, their content focuses on liminal spaces.
If you’re not sure what it means, well, basically, it is a space or, better said, a time between the past and the future. Or it's a transitional or uncertain period. Being in a liminal space means being on the verge of something new but not being there quite yet.
This description can be applied to physical, emotional, and even metaphorical places. For instance, when you are on stairs between the floors, you are technically in a physical liminal space. Emotionally, a person ends up in such a place typically after life events such as a graduation, divorce, the death of a loved one, and so on.
Metaphorical liminal space might be a bit difficult to understand, as it is a space between two ideas, which sounds quite obscure, doesn’t it? Well, to say it simply: basically, it’s a time when a person has to make a decision, and until they do, they are in the said space.
Everyone has been in a liminal space in their lives, but some deal with it better than others. For some, uncertainty can be uncomfortable, overwhelming, paralyzing, lonely, and mentally exhausting. At the same time, it can be a valuable transformation that provides creativity and the strength to evolve.
Yet, this kind of doesn’t fully explain what a Facebook page is about, does it? Well, liminal space is not only a place or time between two things, but it is also an internet aesthetic. And that’s what this page is about.
Internet aesthetics of liminal spaces are based on pictures that give off vibes of transitional or devoid-of-life areas. Typically, these images depict late 20th and early 21st century exterior and interior architecture, where things like ceiling tiles, linoleum, and cool-toned fluorescent lighting create a cold and unwelcoming feeling. Of course, not all pictures that are assigned to this aesthetic need to have these things in them. Some can give off these vibes in a different way.
A great example of liminal space images would be pics of empty malls, parking lots, school hallways, or any other place that looks unsettling and evokes feelings of familiarity. Essentially, in this list, you can see plenty of examples.
But what exactly makes these pictures so eerie? Some explain that the eeriness of these pictures lies in the fact that some people find transitional periods uncomfortable. Others say that it comes from the fact that these images look familiar, yet they lack their usually observed context.
The research from the Journal of Environmental Psychology stated that liminal spaces fall into an uncanny valley of architecture and physical places. Typically, the uncanny valley term is used to describe the emotional response people have to the human-like appearance of a robotic object. Usually, this response is a feeling of unease or revulsion.
The reason why feelings like these are evoked is debatable – some think it’s a biological thing, while others think it’s cultural. Still, there are several factors that have been distinguished that can add to the uncanny valley’s emergence:
- Ambiguity: seeing things that are almost but not quite human;
- Inconsistencies: even the most perfect designs have some flaws that give away that it’s not a human;
- Survival response: something that is almost but not quite human might evoke similar feelings people feel when they encounter something that is dying or is already dead;
- Category Uncertainty: brains have a hard time deciding which category the object should be put into -- human or non-human.
Well, apparently, the aforementioned research suggests that not only objects but also places can evoke these kinds of feelings. This brings us back to the liminal space aesthetic.
The whole thing was started and popularized by the backrooms creepypasta posted online back in 2019, which has since become, as Vice describes it, the internet boogeyman. After the backroom's popularity, other kinds of liminal space images flooded the internet so often that they received their own subreddit.
Yet, while the backrooms were painted as a creepypasta, not all liminal spaces have to be scary. As the mentioned r/LiminalSpace states, liminal doesn’t mean creepy. As they explain, essentially, the liminality of these pictures isn’t based on any particular emotion, as these pictures aren’t about emotions – they are about a space that feels familiarly empty, hence the name. Still, it doesn’t mean that it cannot include the scariness factor.
Do these images make you feel anything? Share with us in the comments! And don’t forget to upvote the images that catch your eye the most!
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