Liminal Spaces (Exploring an Altered Reality)
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- Опубліковано 9 лип 2020
- In hindsight I probably should've been more selective of the images I showed in this video. Some people seem to be confusing them for just creepy/nostalgic images when it's more about transitional spaces. I think I hinted at that but I should have made it more clear. For example the bunker house I mentioned would not really fit in this category but more in the uncanny/eerie category. Liminal spaces can definitely include most of the spaces shown in this video but I need to make clear that they are not exclusively those types of creepy, nostalgic, or out of their designed context spaces.
Regardless, there is an emphasis on “transitional” and that should really be the greatest factor in determining what is and isn’t a liminal space. This is just a short addendum for anyone confused.
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A vast majority of these images were taken from a subreddit called r/Liminal Spaces if ya want to check them out.
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does anyone remember when you got to school, and some of the lights weren't on yet?
Yeah like going to a before-school club or something that ish was freaky
Nope, was always late at some point 😂
That wasn’t discomforting, that was the best thing that could happen.
I remember once being the first kid at school on a super foggy morning. It was most of an hour before people really started showing up. It was so quiet.
I loved that. Favorite time at school.
I feel like they are like corpses. They used to be filled with life, movement, and potential. Now they are just a dead body left behind as the life moves on.
Now THIS is a poetic comment.
Like The Langoliers
the creepy and uncomfortable part about that is you'd expect dead things to decay and rot, and when they dont, a place like a school or hospital with bright lights, shiny clean floors, and no stains on the walls but looks like its been completely empty for a long time.. its reminiscent of looking at a person you once knew and talked to in a coma. Still alive but there isnt anything there.
Jass Lang I feel like this is fog. Just foggy. This makes me feel fog in the brain. It used to be a amazing cool fair! Now the fog has come in and the fun has gone.
At least it still alive.
Not so many art i know of.
Like dadaism.
I once got lost at laser tag when I was a kid. The buzzer went off, everyone left the game room and I heard the doors slam shut. For five minutes I walked around in the dimly lit, foggy, silent room and continued to search for an exit. What was once full of life and noice was now dead. It was the most "liminal space" feeling that I've ever gotten. Someone eventually realized I was missing and they came in for me
You experienced the literal version of exploring an empty multiplayer map from Halo or Gmod or something like that. That must have been something truly surreal.
I had that exact experience once.
We once got a tour of a laser tag maze before going in for real.
accidentally joined an empty server
This sounds like a nightmare I had as a kid about a library.
"I'm Thinking of Ending Things" is a film that uses liminal spaces like empty schools, convenience stores at night, and childhood homes to great unsettling atmospheric effect.
That movie made me so uncomfortable
That movie was unbearable boring but now that you comment it, you're right. The liminal settings are used there, indeed
The Spongebob episode where he misses the last bus is a liminal space
Yea i know it is so eerie
Or that one where squidward time travels, and he breaks the machine and is left in like a blank limbo. That gave me chills
i was literally thinking that bruh
Coward the dog its ALl liminal too
I'm obsessed with that episode and now I just figured out why since I love liminal spaces
I died when he said it was the background for a lego set.
I thought one was concept art for avatar the last Airbender
Same, I lost it
What happens after you die? We're all wondering.
I thought they were background for visual novels. I actually yelled WHAT when he said they were for lego lolll
@@redcenteno7150 Same
The abandoned malls always get to me. As a teen in the 90s malls were everything. We always went there and hung out. it was the place to be. But to see it empty and abandoned it feel so weird. Like you can hear and see what should be there and is not. It hits a nerve.
I feel the exact same way... ❤️
In my city there is a mall that no one visits and it's very unsettling. Some people are there
I think something else is to consider is that when you were younger, rooms felt a lot larger and open. So when we see them this way in liminal spaces it can remind us of that feeling
This is a good point, actually there's something intensely magical about those very, very faint memories we have of carpet stretching out to infinity or an impossibly faraway cliff with an outlet on it. This guy is too cynical about liminal spaces and personally I don't think he get's it at all, though that seems to be common. There's actually a Japanese word for the very specific feeling of wondering what's behind the crest of a hill that doesn't exist in any language, which is a powerful feeling I sometimes get looking at those treeless grassy horizons with blue sky.... it's not just remembering Windows 95.
Empty Multiplayer maps have this feeling too.
Fun fact theres a horror game about that
@@plutoniclol6589 what's it called?
@@yul12twelve i think he means "no players online"
@@enejfangirl364 yes
@@enejfangirl364 no players online sucks though
I think it's creepy because it looks lonely, but it doesn't feel lonely.
Yes, that is exactly how i feel about them.
Like you're lonely, but you're not alone
It’s designed to be inhabited by people, but there’s no one there
So it feels abandoned and creepy
its creepy because it just might not be lonely. like how we're not afraid of being alone in the dark, we're afraid that we might not be.
To me, it feels like there should be people there, but you can't see anyone, but that doesn't mean there isn't anyone. It's a space that feels like it was filled with people right before you walked in the room, like a surprise birthday party, but instead of them popping out and cheering they just stay hidden, leaving this unresolved tension behind. When will they pop out?
liminal spaces actually give me a rather librating and relaxed feeling. free from peoples jugments and the worries of the world. u got nothing to do but to look at the space, explore it and play in it
I see it the same way .a whole big place to just explore and walk around .no rush or judgment .just you and the place
Fellow creâtures
Now it makes perfect sense why the first tomb raider game was so freaking fascinating to me as a kid.
Wolfenstein 3D
i loved that game!
God damn the mansion especially the pool
You know when you have a dream and you're in your house, but it isn't your house, but it is?
Dude, yeah..it’s unsettling - i’ve had a couple of those dreams
Now that you mention it...
Those are the worst!
I had this dream where my house looked identical as it is irl but completely made of wood and had deer heads mounted on the walls. It was isolated in some grey Midwest winter setting, and I was completely alone. I would wander around everyday to find that there was nothing but plains and trees for miles and miles. Weeks went by and finally some dude came wearing a deer head and shot me in the face. Never had a dream so eerie before.
i thought you meant when its my house but it isnt, but now i see you meant when its my house buy it isnt
It makes you feel like you shouldn't be there. No one/nothing else is there, so why are you? It's empty for a reason
run
Yeah but from my experience that only works if you expect the place to be filled with people. For example I live in the spanish countryside in a town with less than 3000 inhabitants so in winter nights at 2 am there is no one in the streets, for me this is totally normal but for my cousin who is from Madrid it's pretty unsettling to the point that he finds scary to go out alone.
Get
*Out*
I know this is a hypothetical to drive your point but it feels like a threat.
Yes id define it as a transitional space isolated and contextless while obscuring sections
17:34 it's great to see a once unpopular unrecognized photo like this being used in your video. I was recently watching a Wendigoon stream in which him, Kane Pixels, and Alex Kister were watching different analog horrors. When Kane said "he got the image of the rolling giant from a Solar Sands video". I think it's cool that I was able to find this out and see how other creators can influence eachother.
I'd need to go back and check, but I think it was the other way around. He knew he and a lot of other had *seen* it in this video, but he found it somewhere else first.
i think he saw it already before seeing the solar sands vid
i remember freaking out when i saw the Kane Pixels video pop up in my recommended and seeing that thing again, considering it’s one of my favorite liminal space images, it made me really happy to see it used by Kane Pixels!
That image haunted me, so when I saw the Wendigoon video I had to try to find where I first saw it. Finally managed to find it!
17:34 i knew i have seen the rolling giant before holy shit
Yeah revisiting this video totally jump scared me lol
“The Last man on earth is sitting alone in his house. There’s a knock on the door”
Gives off similar vibes to these pictures for me
"the last man..."
so it's a woman?
oh yeah isnt that a radio play or something. I remember listening to something that started with that.
@Darksider .- same
knock knock, its the death angel
@@ArthurLima-lp8ue the last womam knocked in the door se they can "Repopulate"
These photos make me feel like I was left behind in an evacuation. Everyone is gone, only for me to still be here in places I shouldn’t. I was abandoned and while I may explore, I don’t want to.
It reminds me of a post-nuclear apocalypse story, you've survived in some bunker, and you come back out- everything is the same but not and also empty.
i mean
welcome to 2020
It’s like the scary short story; You’re the last human being on earth, you hear a knock at the door.
@@White_Recluse you feel like you are being chased by unknown creature, you try to hide as far as you can. Until then, you realize... There is nothing there, only you and your brain try to make you still conscious as a human being by telling you that there is enemy even though there is nothing, and no one to harm you...
Gone
SpongeBob SquarePants: Season 6, Episode 4
If you've ever had an eye test and have seen that red-roof house surrounded by the greenest green field and the most standard blue sky, you'd probably have had an early experience in Liminal spaces.
I've always gotten a weird ecstasy from visiting "liminal" places. I see pure, unbridled potential. It feels good, oddly freeing.
I think Courage the cowardly dog, displays this ‘liminal space’ pretty well.
getting some rule 34 vibes here
@@quasiBooter Honestly, any room in that show had a weird feeling. All the rooms seem to lack something, like the furniture was placed in such a manner that there was loads of empty space for no reason
All these comment are just stealing from Reddit posts.
@@DforDenmark true
@@quasiBooter Or the lone farmhouse in the middle of Nowhere that you see every episode.
This is basically psychological horror, there's no real threat or a monster attacking you, but you are scared by the atmosphere itself and the environments that surround you.
Whenever games try to replicate this feeling of being lost in another unpredictable dimension they never get it right because it only works in images, but there’s something else about it that isn’t right that I can’t describe
@@hotdogga the back rooms game does it really good though
there are entities that attack you in the background
The Uncanny Valley
@@hotdogga the stanley parable and superluminal do it
And any time in a game where the music stops completely
Also, minecraft cave noises
17:37 love seeing mr rolling giant here!!! When I first saw that picture i did not think it was real at all, haha!
The weirdest thing is that this video is 3 years old…this guy thought of the giant BEFORE it was cool.
As a kid during summers my grandpa would take me with him to work. He was a volunteer custodian, and the places he cleaned were often small local churches/ daycares. And let me tell you, the feeling of being in those places was intensely like that of liminal spaces.
Also as a side note I wanted to posit something about the “liminal architecture” images brought up around midway through the video. I think the reason these are unnerving specifically is because the spaces are clearly designed, but not for humans. It makes them feel alien,Ike something else is meant to be here and “i” am not
A liminal space that really creeps me out is when you stop at a stoplight in the middle of the night. Nobody is there except you, it's very quiet. However, the lights keep cycling as if they're pretending the intersection is still busy.
Yeah
Traffic lights in the UK have weight detectors, so if it’s just you at a red light, it’ll know and let you go straight away
I once came across a car accident site at night, with the accident have been happening hours before, so everything was abandoned except for the destroyed car. But of course, I did not know this in this moment. It was quite a creepy situation.
Reminds me of this lone light pole in the park by me that looks so creepy at night
ya I don't stop at those 😎
As long as I'm not in fullscreen, nothing can hurt me
Poor anon
😭😭😭💀
Oh man I truly understand u
*laughs in mini player*
Fullscreen protects me from outside murder
As a kid, my friends and I used to sneak into schools at night through open doors or windows and just run around and explore. AND IT WAS SCARY AF.
I worked at a major theme park, Universal Orlando, and I had the privilege of being able to see the park almost totally empty at times. Walking into the park in early morning or late at night was always fascinating to me, I loved the peacefulness. Quiet empty paths, rides moving in their cycles without riders to fill them, no one standing in the queue lines, clear music wafting through the air. Such a stark contrast to the impossibly busy times when guests would crowd up the lines, stampede down the walkways and fill up the air with voices.
That sounds incredible. 🌎
I think this concept is why The Shining is so creepy; it’s a hotel that should have lots of people living in it, but it’s completely empty.
Speaking of Kubrik, these spaces also remind me of the ending to 2001. It's surprising that it's not mentioned as it's a direct depiction of what liminal spaces are.
Also, ya know, the racist murder ghosts
And the langoliers, also by stephen king, set entirely at an abandoned airport (in the past)
Holy shit, I’ve never put this together but this is extremely true
ua-cam.com/video/0sUIxXCCFWw/v-deo.html
The reason I find the backrooms so terrifying is that there's this endless sense of anticipation. SOMETHING is going to happen, SOMETHING is going to jump out at you, but it never does. It's just this infinite horror that you are about to be terrified, but you never are.
Well said
That kind of feeling of impending doom would drive me insane.
The kind of horror where you scare yourself.
Except in the game. Then something actually happens
And there's no real place to hide
"Have we all noclipped into a different dimension as children, and suppressed these memories deep inside of us?"
I used to have nightmares about these kinds of places as a child. I'd be stuck inside of some weird empty building trying to find my way out, only to end up deeper and deeper inside.
Edit: And I just got to the part of the video where he talks about this kind of stuff.
I vaguely remember a dream I had when I was like 8 or 9. I was running, trying to get out of this seemingly endless hospital. A less important detail, but one that helps me set it into the feeling I get from liminal spaces was that there was this sound, and whenever I heard it it was like time froze and I couldn't move. I was still aware, but it caused me to be unable to move like I was frozen in transparent concrete. That sound seemed to be a recurring thing from when I was a child, and I believe there were at least 3 instances, the latest one from when I was between the ages of 10 to 12. They all had the sound that left me unable to move. Liminal spaces being very dreamlike, I wonder now if I subconsciously made the connection that I'd be unable to move, or frozen in time, or forgotten. It's a strange feeling that I wish I didn't know.
I have made a similar comment about dreams at the beginning of the video to later understand that the nature of dreams (at least from my perspective) is liminal because you are going through spaces and places wandering around and you know it’s unfolding and a way that is non-euclidian… it’s just weird how I am feeling now… I feel like it’s such a personal experience that even with someone else saying that he has a similar feeling I am still convinced that it is something so intricate to one self that it makes feel like it’s not something that would be easy for me to explain…
All my trippiest most creative nightmares where in childhood.
I used to have a recurring nightmare where I would crawl through a trapdoor in my closet and wind up in a large circular bedroom with baby blue or lavender walls and an incredibly tall ceiling. There was nobody there, but I felt like I was being watched, and I couldn’t escape. It was awful
i once had a reoccurring dream where i was in some sort of movie theater of liminal spaces. it was before i know what they were and it was rlly scary lol
17:34 i remember going to that mall and seeing that statue thing fall on a trash can lol
What lmao
THAT HAPPENED?! Wait can you tell me more? Lol I’m actually in a discord server obsessed with documenting stuff about that very statue lol
The unsettling feeling you are experiencing is guilt for pushing all those people into the river in LEGO city.
You feel your sins crawling up your spine
@@aa-ir6si 😱😱😱
HEY!
Lmaoo
You’re making jokes about a guy who gets oppressed.
He speaks his mind, and then he gets tortured. This is serious, and you should be ashamed.
Join the Rebellion
Did anyone else get this feeling from Minecraft? Especially the time period when Villages were a thing, but Villagers weren't
going back to the alpha stages of Minecraft after I haven't been for like 9 years felt so weird pretty much like this
I downloaded a city map and there this feeling is even stronger.
Cave sounds, mineshafts, the weird bro with the white eyes. I played Minecraft as a kid and it definitely freaked me out sometimes.
definitely, especially early mc!! no wonder he used mc music in the vid lol
Dead Voxel from the nether tracks gives me this exact feeling.
I used to work the graveyard shift at a mall... It was one of the most uncanny feelings in the world... Empty back corridors, empty shops with mannequins that seemed like they wanted to move since no one was watching, food courts that were empty, and an encapsulating smell that lingered throughout the premise.. not to mention the echos of your boots was you walked throughout.. yeah.. it was uncanny
I was born in Scandinavia back in the 80's before we left. Back then it was a lot like the Soviet Union. Murals, very specific art and so on.
Today I have a nostalgic, but sickening feeling seeing pictures of my old schools etc. Left and forgotten, with murals that "promised" us a better future.
The Liminal spaces give me this feeling.
I think the most unsettling part of these photos is that there's someone behind the camera
I agree. When I look at most of them I feel slight fear and I'm like "I wouldn't want to be there". But then I realise somebody had to take that photo and I imagine how scared I'd be if I were them. Which is weird because they surely weren't afraid at the time.
yuh
@@Reventonn134 Yeah same and I feel bad for the person that had to take a picture at 17:34
@@joels_hauntz8169 ugh
@@joels_hauntz8169 yea nop nope nope 😂
it's like ruins if they were in perfect condition. Unsettling and lonely.
so abandoned ... lmao
and nostalgic apparently
that's a great way to describe it, like modern ruins in good condition
the photos of old houses with no furniture feel like if you went into an abandoned house that was last lived in during the 1940s and everything was in perfect condition with no signs thats its been empty for more than a few hours
The fact that they're in good condition is what makes them even more bizarre
If they were damaged and destroyed, it wouldn't be as big of a mystery why there aren't any people there
The new game "Stray" about a cat in a post catastrophe space that humans once dwelled in gives you this feeling a lot. You've probably touched on this before in another video but it's the empty city itself that gives me the creeps.
Liminal spaces are so eerie because they’re familiar which reminds me of an adventure time quote “something weird might just be something familiar viewed from a different angle, and that’s not scary, right?”
woooow thats so deep
The hotel from the movie “ the shining “ is a liminal space
It totally does! I think that is what Kubrick was going for too. The absolute isolation from pretty much anywhere else gives it that vibe of "oh, we arent supposed to be seeing this but here we are".
For sure. AHS Hotel too
R
E
D
U
M
All these comment are just stealing from Reddit posts.
maybe thats why its so terrifying 🤔
When I was a kid, my dad and I went to see a movie, but everyone's tickets were printed with the wrong theatre number, and it turned out the theatre number was in a part of the building that was being renovated. So me, my dad, and about 20 people sat in this small half-finished theatre with insulation and wires hanging out of the ceiling, torn up carpet, and nasty seats. It looked like a cold war bomb shelter. We were early for the showing, so we expected to sit for a good 20 minutes, but it was a total of 40 minutes that we sat there before we figured out something was wrong, feeling weirdly out of place like we're the last people in existence. I half expected to walk out and the whole city would be abandoned.
A couple of years ago I went to a movie theater with my mom at like 8 pm or something, the parking lot was empty, the lobby was mostly empty, and since we arrived earlier the theater was empty except for just me and my mom, the ads weren't even playing yet. And then ofc my mom has to go to the bathroom so I was left there alone for a bit (I think I remember). I felt like anyone could walk in at any moment and murder me.
About like, 9 months ago, a movie theater in my city was closed.
2 New movie theaters were opened and so the old one went out of business, and I felt nostalgic because it has been there ever since I was a kid, I mean, the memory of my first ever horror movie happened in that theater, I was a toddler and we went to see coraline, ya know, with the botton eyes, and out of everything I got freaked out by the arm that was chasing coraline at the end of the movie while she was alone at a forest, not knowing something was crawling towards her, so my dad took me out of the room and into the hallway full of people so that I could breathe some fresh air. Some time after its closing, I went up to the movie theater with my friends, and although the place itself was unaccessible, we could see the inside through the glass, and everything was standing still, like its about to die, or like it has always been that way, meant to close.
That same movie theater company still operates in other cities, but not in mine anymore.
I kinda visually sat through your experience right now lol
until they renovated it, there was a cinema in one of the town centres near me that literally had stuffing coming out of the seats... it was as if people were actually using an abandoned cinema...
Can imagine this as the premise for a Tom Stoppard play...
I think the real meaning of liminal spaces is actually people missing the consumerism and economic prosperity of the 1980s and 90s, the shopping malls, the kids play places, all of it. Most of the places showcased in liminal spaces are either in a late 20th century styling, or take place in a place that's part of an industry that has considerably declined over the last few decades, with the rise in online shopping diminishing the need for many of these things.
Take the backrooms, for instance. The mono-yellow walls and the fluorescent lights were most common in this time period, and the emptiness of all of these photos indicates how this era and the architecture from it is slowly fading away.
This also explains why many of these images are seemingly in random indoor locations, as when we are young, our minds are fascinated by everything around us, including walls or buildings. These memories might also not always be very clear, which can also sometimes be seen in liminal spaces.
During such a turbulent time like this one, sometimes we wish that we could be back during a time when we were safe, when were comfortable, when we were a kid. And that's what I think liminal spaces represent.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Yeah, I tend to agree more with this interpretation. I don't think it's just nostalgia. It's more a sense of loneliness and decline. These were once places that were very active socially and economically - in fact, for much of the 80s, 90s, and early 00s, some of these malls and other public spaces were really the center of social life in a lot of these communities. Now they're just forgotten and empty, and serve no discernible social or cultural purpose. I think you would definitely get the same kind of feeling, for example, in a recently built suburban housing development from the 2010s that had been abandoned before completion. It's less about nostalgia and more about the lack of social activity and economic prosperity.
perhaps the 80s/90s nostalgia is specifically targeting teens from that generation who’d be in their forties, experiencing midlife crises and yearning for the nostalgia of a time that was relatively carefree and fun
I totally agree with you
To build on this (although I kinda disagree - I think the pics hit different because being alone in an empty space inherently feels kinda funny), there is another layer to it nowadays when there aren’t public places where people just hang out anymore. If you don’t go to bars, clubs, or some kind of church then the liminal space imagery is often pictures of places you USED to go in order to hang out - but those places would be empty if you visited now.
The arcades are closed. The malls are emptying out. Nobody’s stopping to eat inside the fast food place. The diners are closing down. The strip mall chains are disappearing, except the really big names.
If you wanted to go back to someplace from your childhood, how many of those places even exist anymore?
I think a lot of this "strange familiarity" comes from how many things in our lives are generic and mass-produced. School hallways all look alike because they're built with the exact same linoleum floors, painted cinderblock walls, and drop ceilings with flourescent lights. Fast food places have standardized architecture to make them instantly recognizable. And many houses (particularly those built in the last century) are cookie-cutter copies of a standard plan used by the neighborhood's developers to streamline construction. These places have no identity of their own, but we've all seen something exactly like them at some point in the past, so they look familiar yet unfamiliar at the same time.
I thought exactly this too
But they're also places we don't pay much close attention to, because we're not there to admire the architecture or decor, but we take it in via osmosis, which is why so many of them seem so vaguely familiar, but we can't pinpoint where.
The uglification of America, converting every town into bustling cities with the exact same shopping centers, stores, houses, the erasure of any previous unique identity will continue as we enter the end stages of capitalism.
GHANI ZIYAD SAGIANSYAH
This is just where it’s happening the fastest.
Damn
The fact that nobody really knows where the original Backrooms image came from just adds a whole other layer of ominousness
Yeah
It was taken in some old russian building that was gonna be demolished
@cl.napoli look up david crypt
@@johngill8125 thats not the original one
@@johngill8125 thats not the original one
17:34 KANE PIXELS NEW VIDEO EVERYONE ROLLING GIANT I AM SO AFRAID
17:34 I had the phone very close to my face throughout the image’s permanence. For the first time in my life I experienced heavy and persistent shivers of fear and discomfort by just looking at a picture, definitely something I wouldn’t desire to try again but still so interestingly intense
It was about a decade ago when I had a really strong experience like this for the first time (that I remember of course). I was a young teenager and up late at night, watching a video about creepypasta images with next to zero knowledge of any of that now almost ubiquitous internet lore. Slenderman and indie horror games were rising to internet stardom at the time so it was all brand new to me. And man, when smile.jpg came up on my ipod screen, I was shocked to the core with a cold fear and revulsion. I threw the my ipod away from me into the couch and refused to look at the screen while I fumbled to exit out of youtube. It kickstarted a long and in-depth interest in all types of internet horror that has never left me, but I've never been as sick-to-the-bone scared as seeing that image for the first time, even if I don't think it's all that scary anymore.
The lovely part is that in reality, it's just a goofy looking sculpture of some bearded man too. Funny how a completely harmless sculpture trigger such intense response within someone the moment it's represented in a dark, low resolution picture. I had the same reaction myself, lol.
@@amaruqlonewolf3350 Another detail about that photo that makes the "Julien Reverchon" sculpture more unsettling than it actually is: You can't really make out its arms or hands at first glance, which makes its form less immediately recognizable as "human." In the picture, it looks less like a human figure and more like an indecipherable looming black mass that happens to have a deformed human head with an indeterminable facial expression.
In that sense, the way the picture plays with your mind upon seeing it for the first time is even more stress-inducing than it would be if you could clearly make out the statue's arms and hands, as it forces you to consider far more possibilities as to what the horrible figure is about to do, or what it even is to begin with. The form appears so non-human that you can't simply jump to the classic assumption of, "it's going to reach out and grab me." Rather, you have no idea what it could possibly be capable of, which makes it that much worse.
That was my experience with the photo three years ago, at least.
@@amaruqlonewolf3350 @valerioFiorillo i felt the same way when i saw this months ago but i came back to say kane pixels just made a short series inspired by that image and its nuts that he picked this specific one
@@LucillePalmerI believe this is the video kane saw it from
"These rooms are future ruins."
-Anne Lamott
"The malls are the soon-to-be ghost towns.
Well, so long. Farewell. Goodbye."
-Isaac Brock, Modest Mouse - Teeth Like God's Shoeshine
Tale foundry! love your work, I would love if you did a video on Liminal space maybe one day. I've always wondered ways to spark the same feel in writing.
6:13 Patchy the Pirates House
they already are
Wasn’t expecting to see you here!
I feel like The Shining perfectly captures the eeriness of liminal spaces: an abandoned hotel that, even before the danger shows itself, feels very creepy because the lack of people.
Especially the ending and its music
@@luiseduardofontes33 You should check out the video 'Can you name one object in this photo' by Solar Sands if you are intrigued by the music of The Shining. He talks about a music project by an artist called 'The Caretaker' (notice the obvious reference) which takes this feeling to a further level in a very.. effective way
@@Jeanne0805 i know about the caretaker his songs are awesome and sad at the same time!
And the tacky late seventies decoration of the Kubrick film actually helps with that effect.
The Victorian gothic style of the Stanley, as seen in the Stephen King version, is too "traditional." It's what haunted houses are "supposed" to look like.
Kubrick was an avid student of psychology, and he was probably well acquainted with this idea.
While we're on the subject of horror movies that make good use of this idea, the original Japanese versions of _The Ring, The Grudge,_ and _The Depths of Dark Water_ all do a fair job of it, as well as the experimental short _My House Walk-Through._ That last one is actually available for free right here on UA-cam, and it's by far the purest application of the "liminality" concept.
I think hotels are often scary per se
I don't feel anything about liminal spaces, but it makes a lot of sense to me intuitively that it can make people feel uneased
it's because they have been ruined by children
the mysterious thing is that, born, raised and currently living in Japan, i have never been nor seen those places, yet i still have the sense of familiarity.
I feel like this is what made the The Shining so disturbing. All the spaces in that film felt like liminal spaces.....
That's a real thing. There's videos on UA-cam describing various shots in the movie that display impossible geometry within the hotel.
It’s so interesting, I’m glad I now have the vocabulary to describe how that movie made me feel. All the same feelings that liminal spaces evoke as described in this video! I just didn’t know what exactly it was that I was feeling at the time. I’m so glad I stumbled across this video and channel!
Exactly, when I stumbled upon these images one of the first things that crossed my mind was the scene from The Shining where a massive amount of blood was pouring out of the elevator in front.
That was kind of the point of the film. They're in a usually bustling hotel during the off season. Something that should be full of guests, staff, and various hotel items, but is missing everything that makes it alive. It's missing the context. It's supposed to be so uncomfortable that people kill their families.
That's what I was thinking when I watched this video. Like Solar Sands described, these liminal space photos give attention to things that are mundane. There's several scenes in the movie that are like this. When Wendy checks on Jack while he's writing, when her and Danny were walking around the hedge maze, and when Jack was talking to Danny on his lap. All of these are seemingly normal, uneventful scenes, yet the music swells and causes us to think that something more is at play. It's that sort of juxtaposition that makes us uncomfortable
Whenever i see a photo of an empty room, i always assume there is a hidden scary face in it. Thanks internet
I feel like there is something to my right or left and i will turn to look at it or it will jumpscare me
@@turo3131 same lol im in a darkroom and the only light is my phone screen
wHeN yOu SeE it...
Liquid Bismuth you’ll shit bricks
I’ve learned to lean back when viewing photos like that because of the potential for it to be a gif
I think that the sadness that comes with nostalgia is just mourning over childhood.
the weirdest part for me personally is that I feel nostalgic for a lot of these images although I don't live in the US. As u said, a lot of these places are taco bells, targets, those weird fast food places with puppets and American neighbourhoods with detached houses and square gardens. all of which we don't have in the UK or our versions look very different. I've tried searching UK liminal spaces but they never have the same nostalgic feeling even though they're definitely more accurate to my childhood lol
I was like “hmm yes I see I see” trying to analyze the art and what it could mean...
“They’re all backgrounds for Lego sets”
....oh
The whole point of these backgrounds is to allow the product to pop and to not call attention to themselves, while still providing a mood, so when we hone in on them, they can be strange. For something I made with the idea of it "not being noticed" it's definitely getting a bit of attention now.
ikr
I worked night shifts at a gas station for years. There were times when I felt like the only person awake within miles. I used to just stand outside and look at the empty world. I lived in liminal spaces... It was a weird feeling but eventually it kind of became comforting. Safe.
This is beautiful in a way :)
Creepy...
That's how I feel in the middle of a roadtrip at 3 AM stopping for gas.
I used to work the graveyard shift at a mall... It was one of the most uncanny feelings in the world... Empty back corridors, empty shops with mannequins that seemed like they wanted to move since no one was watching, food courts that were empty, and an encapsulating smell that lingered throughout the premise.. not to mention the echos of your boots was you walked throughout.. yeah.. it was uncanny
@@hadriangonzalez607 you’re lucky don’t call it creepy. It’s an honor to be alone
I love this video! Your's and The Librarian's content on liminal spaces are my go-to videos when I want to get into that altered reality mood. I remember the first time I came across this video, almost 3/4 through 2020, suffering from both an abscessed tooth and COVID at the same time, out of work for three weeks, isolated in my room, exploring YT in the early morning hours. Watching this again, and thinking back to that time, just floating along, not really doing anything (not that I could at that time anyway), just "existing", elicits some strong nostalgia right about now.
Recently I was in a back section of a very large mall, a place I could always remember but never put a finger on where I had seen it, since I had been there when I was much younger. I had believed it was in another country or something. As the mall began to close, I was walking through it with all of the lights on and the calming mall music but no people on any of the balconies or floors. It covered many of the points you mentioned, the strange lighting for an empty place, the lack of people, the nostalgic music and setting
I recognized the “You’ve definitely seen this before” photo of the house immediately. It’s Patchy the Pirate’s house from Spongebob.
Okay wait my brain was just like, that doesnt create confused weird feeling thing that's just patchy's house and I literally thought my brain was just relating a childhood thing to the photo but I fkn could never have forgotten it cause I have a phobia related to him and his house is engraved in my brain I THOUGHT MY BRAIN WAS LYING THANK YOU FOR THIS COMMENT
"That's it?"
@@shortbr3eaf THAT WAS JUST A BUNCH OF CHEAP DEVIANTART OCS
i thought that immediately as well
Where in the video is it? @
My belief as to why they are so familiar is for three main reasons:
1: The pictures are low quality. The graininess allows you to connect with it more comfortably due to certain details being lost to the grain of the image, therefore making it more generic.
2: The images have no people, or at the very most, an incredibly obscured person. This makes them more easy to relate to subconsciously, because your brain has an easier time placing yourself there when there is no one present.
3: The images are very, very generic places. Notice how you can't pinpoint a single brand, location, or otherwise memorable objects anywhere. Their generic qualities makes them much easier to find yourself in, due to it being more easy for your brain to believe you were there at one point. (Hell, half of them don't have furniture or obvious plant life [trees]. This makes them even more generic, for the very basic shapes of buildings or interiors can trigger memory.)
TL;DR: The pictures are so dang generic and non-detailed that your brain can't help but try to remember where they're from, despite not being there.
They're mostly office buildings, warehouses, or back rooms for stores all of which are owned by international companies that tend to use the same basic layouts and use the same things like paint, carpet, linoleum, etc across their stores, and they're all designed to be as generic and inoffensive as possible and as cheaply as possible. I've built plenty of them and you'd be surpised to learn that a store in France will use the exact same carpet, ceiling tiles, light fixtures, and nearly everything else as one in America if they're owned by the same company.
Strangely enough this is also what makes them slightly creepy
Interesting that it's a natural result of our modern day mass production as well as interconnectedness. We definitely build our own mazes.
Besides clinics (generic) and a few other common buildings, they don't feel familiar at all to me. It's probably region based too, since buildings in different states/countries would probably trigger different feelings.
Also adding to this. Architecture, wallpapers, furniture etc. go by that time's fashion. So many places and houses can look similar, even if they aren't the exact same place. Which can create a sense of familiarity and uncanniness.
And if you didn't live through those trends, you probably have seen them in older movies or pictures.
17:31 this one looks so familiar, I can recall 3 different times I’ve been in a room like this
Just today, while at work I was browsing UA-cam when I found this video about liminal spaces. It describes my feelings so incredible well! I have very vivid dreams of visiting my primary school as it is empty and thinking of all the memories I have with my friends back then. I do have these dreams as well of my dormitory when I was a student. The building has now been stripped and the fact that I will never visit those places again, while having the most precious memories there gives me a strong melancholic feeling. The photos you show in this video have the same vibe: they used to be happy places, but are now abandoned.
I never knew that this subject was so wide spread. I really think none of my friends experience this the same level as I do, so I'm really glad I found these videos. It makes me feel less alone and more understood. Thank you!
When you work as a janitor, these things don't phase you anymore.
Same. I feel like a combination of late night travels, going to empty houses with my real estate agent father, working as a custodian, and Covid leaving nearly every building empty, none of these are uncanny because my brain automatically places them in at least one of those contexts
One of the Pros of being a Janitor lol
Chad janitor mindset
that sigma grindset
I think that really supports the idea of context, Janitors are used to that context
I feel like "The Shining" also uses this creepy feel of liminal spaces for its atmosphere. The almost entirely empty hotel lobby or the long hallways could also be described as liminal spaces.
That's a super good point! A big emphasis Kubrick tried to put on the film was how vast the hotel is and how alone the family is in that space and how that increased their paranoia throughout the film.
Not just the size of it, the decor is hideous in just the right way. Look at room 237, those God awful carpets, the curtains pattern clashing with the walls pattern, the feeling that the room goes on for a bit too long... it's such a well designed set
@@MCDreng Not only that, but the layout doesn't make any sense. Some hallways aren't supposed to lead anywhere, but somehow they do, etc. There are a lot of videos covering this topic.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE DONT REMIND ME OF THE BEAR SCENE
O yes
I feel like any building that Spirit Halloween sets up shop is a liminal space. Or old KMart /Zellers stores if you’re from Ontario. I rewatch this video every few months. The images unlock nostalgia (and what feel like hard wired memories, but probably aren’t). I’ve continue to use windows XP Bliss background to this day. Love your channel, consistently thought provoking; videos I come back to regularly
Finally someone who can explain what I always feel. The emptiness but yet the familiarity is something I tried asking my friends about. Noone except for you has really explained this phenomenon.
Thank you for explaining this as best as you can. Finally I can understand why I always have the sense of familiarity with these images.
Something in common to all these "spaces" in my mind is silence. All of the photos are silent. I hear maybe the Air conditioning humming and thats it. Other than that is only crushing silence.
I can even hear a distinct buzzing sound coming from the ceiling lights in the office images
To be honest, silence, in my opinion, is the most horrifying thing in existance. Just... the abscense of such an important sense, one that is so connected to our survival instinct. Not being able to hear anything at these spaces gives you the feeling that there MIGHT be something dangerous that can be sneaking right behind you without your knowledge.
@@smokingsnake8276 that’s really what deaf people go through, right?
@@scpguard6677
Lol
I didn't mean to deminish anyone, but I still think that silence is quite disturbing
I think silence is terrifying when you’re not used to it.
When I see the solar sands logo on a couch all I can imagine is a tiny hourglass with legs and arms shouting
That exists in cuphead, in the bottom right corner of a loading screen theres a mini hour glass with limbs
*Solar sands in cuphead confirmed*
@@guy7408 *Well, he exists but he doesn't serve his purpose of talking about art, he just is a loading screen element.*
@@juango500 you dont know his secret life
@@mobmilkk you neither.
This video so so nice and I don’t know why
12:56 That photo is actually from a mall I frequent often, it Southroads in Bellevue, Ne and it is actually a pretty mall, the upstairs follows the same color palette as the photo, and is just super 80s feeling
They're like something you'd see in a nightmare, not jumpscare scary, but very unnerving and fake feeling
I have these dreams, nightmares as you call them, often. I can remember dreaming examples such as, “the inaccessible waiting room-turned into two bedrooms with a wall that you wouldn’t want to fall off of,” and, “The vacant inside malls-turned swimming pools and diving platforms while still accommodating shoppers,” etc. Could be because I moved constantly while growing up and had lived in some of these places/spaces. It can be unnerving and/or adaptable what, “uprooting and transplanting,” can do to the psyche.
I’d never thought I’d ever read something that describes my dreams so accurate.
I be having sleepless nights because of that exact thing
17:35
The most common and early example of this feeling I can think of is when you were in school, and you had to leave the classroom for whatever reason in the middle of class. (bathroom, nurse, etc.) And everything was too empty and your footsteps were too loud.
Definitely. I remember I'd try to be as quiet as I possibly could. But because I was the only one in the hallway, my footsteps would still sound too loud to me.
Lol I used to take a bathroom break just to play hopscotch on the hallway tiles 😂
Yeah I usually ended up sprinting down the halls (I was a paranoid child)
{UwU}Lord{ wow I thought I was the only one who did this except I would usually sprint full speed out of bathrooms because it was just too quiet and I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be there
I used to "get the door" in kindergarten and close it behind me and look around outside for like 3 seconds
Solar Sands, this was the first video of yours that I ever saw. I have been a fan of your channel ever since.
You did an amazing job with this video- and I love how sentimental you got. So much about art is based in psychology. The power to evoke memories, thoughts, or emotions is what separates art from good art.
It's weird to think that, while these places are "taken out of context", they will inevitably become those places. An office will get shutdown, and you get places like the backrooms. Arcades will shut down and you get these images. Leaves me overwhelmed personally.
I definitely agree that it's overwhelming to think about. Everything is in a constant state of transition, even our own places of comfort and joy. It's a bit scary to think that these places become a sort of liminal space once the human aspect dissolves.
In Track and Field, I would always see my school empty. It's not so weird when you walk so fast to get it over with quickly. Post Soviet era buildings have the best sense of abandonment that I've seen. Most buildings were left alone since the 1980's. Nothing has changed. As a young kid, I went to a camp, there was multiple versions of cabins. Old and new. The oldest cabin was a wooden, unpainted with moss all around. 5 crooked steps to go inside. The light bulb still worked. Metal-rusted frames for bunkbeds with 3 inch bedsheets. It was so freaky to me when I was a kid, I wish I had the balls to actually explore inside it. The old bathrooms were the scariest. The plumbing didn't work. 😆 How did that scare me?
"People might be manufacturing false memories with these images"
Is a thought that scares the shit out of me
Oh my. Is this what happened to me? I have perfectly clear memories of all of these images. I can see things, remember people talking, subjects, smells, sights, even feelings.ican remember it when seeing g these images. What happened?
Memory error is a really common thing especially when people are susceptible to suggestion that there is more importance to the images.
Wait till you hear about
Lucid
Dreams
@@randominternetbro6562 It’s advanced technology messing with you because you can’t connect to source.
@@icantthinkofaname8139 ohh yeaah my room looked really minimal there when i think about it
You've just helped me acknowledge and deal with about half of the nameless anxieties of life. The context discrepancies, the transitions between, the loss of balance. This will require some thought before I can even adequately thank you. This is actually a really big deal. You have a very good brain, sir.
bruh germany past 3 am in any city feels like a liminal space. no animals no chirps no crikets. no distant traffic.. just the sound of your own footsteps on the sidewalk
Courage the Cowardly Dog is literally embedded with liminal spaces.
omg it totally is! Like half the rooms courage busts in on are like that
So thats why it was so scary
Great call, my daughters and I love courage for that extremely odd sense of reality
ikr, but i strangely wanted to live where they lived. It seems like a peaceful place idk
Not literally, I hope.
An artist who I love and you might consider the “originator” this is style is Edward hopper. Although his paintings do occasionally contain humans, they maintain the haunting, uneasy, lonely, aesthetic that is trademark of luminal spaces. I recommend his 1942 painting “nighthawks”.
I was just thinking about him
YES when Solar started describing these images I first thought of the backrooms and that painting
I think the lowlit background contrasting from the lit front of the image is what gives it the effect of liminal space
Oh wow! I saw his 1942 painting in my art class.
Well no looking threw google images most of them have a vocal point
i think the person says “any target” gives them a liminal space vibe because more often then not, Targets seem weirdly empty, as opposed to a Walmart which seems packed full with people all the time. so Targets tend to feel oddly vast, and you can be in the main hallway feeling like you are by yourself. just my guess. i think Target works in the vague sense more than you give it credit
Target literally has less consumer goods and more modern furnishings. Targets have empty aisles.
It may just be because our brains think "It's quiet, There's no people, Something must have happened. Maybe I shouldn't be here."
this is the whole reason why the shining is a terrifying movie
Duuuuude you’re so right the overlook is empty as fuck and that’s why even when nothing bad happens it feels haunted
The shots in the shining really make me want to go towards them. It's like a moth to a flame. I revel in discomfort. There's something nice knowing that you are in a place that others turn away from, a safety from being discovered.
If I suddenly ran across two twins at the end of a dark hallway I'd shit my pants though, fasho.
also, the layout of the hotel doesn't make any sense. if you were to map it out, rooms would overlap, windows would exist that shouldn't show the outside, and staircases would lead nowhere.
I think our brains pick up on that kind of stuff subconsciously and that's another reason why the movie was scary.
@@1gnore_me. i agree. it has to do with control, and subconsciously knowing where you are, which would normally bring you comfort and security in a movie, but you lose that in the shining. which is why setting is so important. it becomes an additional character
The right carpet can set the mood for terror, while the right rug can really bring a room together
"this is all background art for lego sets" i actually didn't expect that lol.
It surprised me like a slap to the neck
Spoiled it
i cannot tell how spot-on the choice of YMO's Absolute Ego Dance as the intro song was. It feels so counterintuitive yet works perfectly for the unsettling topic. Well done sir.
This video is perfection. Basically everything I’ve been thinking for the past few years about liminal spaces. Never quite realized that other people may not feel the same about these photos or that they may have their own set of photos that have no effect on me. When you showed the photo that you said really gets you I was shocked because it didn’t do much for me but I totally understand what you meant because I’ve seen certain liminal photographs that stop me in my tracks.
Ever walk into an unfamiliar room and get hit by a huge wave of nostalgia and sensory overload?
No.
And run out terrified? Yes
@@dreamlandnightmare thx for input
yep
Yes
17:35 if you are coming from Kane Pixel's video
"These bits of weirdness produce anxiety." 17:35 The fuck they do.
I’m so glad someone said something like wtf is that
i got really overwhelmed by this video and this photo was the last straw
i literally screamed it's like midnight here lol. i need to watch another video before i go to bed so that doesn't haunt me all night
YEAH WTH WHAT IS THATTT
i saw this comment 14 minutes in and when i checked the timestamp and realized i wasn't there yet i had a good 3 minutes for my anticipation to build up and the spike in my heart when i saw it was so noticeable
You did a great job putting this together! Thank you
The best definition I can come up with is that they embody the sadness of trying to remember something from your childhood but you cant remember the full picture, which is why it's so empty. It's because the memory is literally fuzzy, that's why people adding grain makes the photo better. You just cant remember if it was a coke or Pepsi machine, or if it was June or July, so your brain just gets rid of the vending machine and now there is less to the memory. Maybe that's why people feel this sense of abandonment. I cant really describe it better than that. I'm guessing though you people reading this get what I'm saying
My first ever liminal space was that one house picture at the eye exam
ugh yes i wanna live there
Yuup.
Yeah me too, bro
when ever i saw it,id like get unnerved
and that balloon one
Probably the creepiest liminal space I’ve been in was a hospital lobby in the dead of night. No one around not even someone at the front desk just a massive open room
don't forget school at night too!
Honestly wish our hospitals were more empty like that but no, people keep choosing violence and hospitals are always busy
@@Thedutchjelle sounds like a labyrinth!
Highways at night when you're the only one on the road, watching as signs go into unnatural focus from the headlights while the rest of the world remains dim, hearing nothing but the gentle drone of the car engine. Now there's a good liminal space
But hospitals are cozy and comfy. What’s wrong with them?
If you’ve ever had a night job or just walked around at night much you start to develop a taste for the silence and stillness of it of empty places that are bustling with people during the day. But I think it also represents to people something of the melancholy and alienation of modern society. Reminds me a lot of Edward Hopper.
Fluorescent lights are just a bit eerie in general.
A lot of the liminal space images remind me of the layout in the 007 game on the Nintendo 64. It’s such a specific feeling of nostalgia that I can’t describe
I would really love to see him cover something like Junji Ito's art
god you're big brained, that's a fantastic idea
YESs
YES that'd be great
Preach this!!!
u should check Super Eyepatch Wolf, he talked about Ito on his channel
When I was attending university, I'd go to hallways late at night sometimes, and even though I didn't know the term "liminal spaces" at the time, I understood the profound feeling it would give me. The feeling of empty yet, brightly lit hallways normally filled with people now empty without any sounds. It was truly some of the most dreadful yet fascinating feelings I've ever had.
Be strong buddy.
I had that feeling with the airport of my city, is not a big one so when i went at night some places there were like that and at this time I'm only realizing about this concept and yet I feel amazed by those sensations
Or working night shifts in a huge office
Is this why I don’t like highways at night
I'm UK born in 1976. Still I get liminal spaces totally; there is a certain kitsch to it too.
For some reason the image at 24:40 resonates so deeply with me and I have no idea why. It's like it reminds me of some memory or headspace I had when I was like less than a year old. This unlocked some DEEP mental shit for me and I don't know what it is.
Damn, that gave me the chills
Thank you for the oblivion sound track, very nostalgic.