Not really. Or maybe that's unfair- if you're impressed it's impressive. But when you're dealing with simple forms (like cylindrical columns in a parking garage, or flat walls) made of relatively smooth and/or regular materials, all it takes to look photorealistic is the emulation of camera flaws. Mainly that means film grain, vignette and maybe subtle bloom. What I'm saying is that it doesn't look real because of unusual technical skill on the part of the artist but because it depicts something that is remarkably easy to render realistically.
Personally, when looking at liminal spaces, I feeel like I'm immersed into the perspective with no context of how I got there. In a lot of cases this should result in fear and loneliness. Even with 1 character or figure, in some cases I wonder if I could even trust that 1 figure. Assuming something bad were to happen, I wouldn't be able to get much help. A feeling I get when I see these is that there is no trace of how I got there; therefore, I don't feel like I could be saved nor would I be able to find my way out. The creepy aspect I feel some people get is a result in feeling that if they were in 1st person perspective, they feel like they will never be able to get out due to the lack of context. The loneliness makes people feel like no one belongs there including them. For the nostalgic feel, it seems to depend on age. Ex. The 80's theme of certain liminal spaces. I wasn't born until the 2000's, so I only get the feeling of loneliness, distress, fear, etc. If it were to be something recent, I might get nostalgia. It varies with people, and there are many factors such as age, background, culture, etc. I personally enjoy them because of the minimum context behind them.
I feel the same way with the fake ones. The real photos give me a sense of nostalgia and a feeling like I cant go back to that time, which also eminates that feeling of loneliness and despair
This is why I call December 26th through 30th the "liminal zone" of every year. It feels like it almost shouldn't exist, as if the year had already ended but is still going on. Not including the 31st because that's when many new year's parties happen, and the actual transition where the new year starts essentially.
There are proposed calendar systems that put all of the extra days there. Need a leap day? Put it there, it won't hurt anything. Need an extra spot for some days that don't quite fit in your weeks / months scheme? Just stuff them there.
I think that the liminal spaces can sort of be like the uncanny valley, except instead of human features, its usually the archetecture of an area. Usually something that is familiar to most people due to its use of texture and lighting, but the shape suggests that there is something missing and its empty, or that something is about to happen in an otherwise calm and empty area, creating a sense of dread.
The “I Spy” books have always felt very liminal to me. They’re always empty, completely devoid of any people. It feels like you’re stepping through an abandoned place, where humans once lived but moved on to some other location. Even the books strictly depicting toys without the environment seem very nostalgic, as if you’re looking at the collection of a child who has since grown up. It’s strange that even at such a young age, I was experiencing liminal images without even knowing what they were
YES. Yes, thank you! The "I Spy" books have haunted my subconscious for decades now. Something about the way the scenes are constructed to look superficially natural always gave me a sense of uncanny dread because the moment you start _looking_ at the scene it becomes an onion of artificial, inhuman conceits. They're like some _other_, pretending to be a normal human space, while actually existing solely to hide something, to make you glance past without realizing what secrets they hold. Which, of course, they are.
Anyone here know about the existence of “I spy spooky mansion” It was devoid of any humans except you and your only friend was a talking skeleton.. and the narrator guy but you didn’t see him so it felt.. off. He talked in such a way that it felt off lol especially the skeleton. Her voice is just really.. like.. monotonous.. it’s hard to explain. I played that game a lot when I was lil but that didn’t mean I wasn’t lonely while playing it. I always had that feeling munching on me lol
I really like the distinction you made between emotional liminal spaces and physical liminal spaces. I remember a couple of years ago I had to go back to my old high school to pick up some paperwork to enter uni. I went early but for some reason I ended up having to wait until class was in session and just sitting in that atmosphere made me dissociate so hard. All the faces of the kids around me reminded me of when I was high school, except nobody was familiar. I never really paid attention to the fact that, when I was attending high school, I got used to the faces and voices around me. Even though I was never friends with those people and never talked to or acknowledged them, my brain got used to these familiar strangers. I had my little Group in high school and in my mind wherever I was in school, I would know that they were there too, just a wing or hallway away. I was familiar with and understood the context of all the student or staff-made signs and posters, knew faces of teachers even if I never had them for a class, knew all of my favorite nooks and crannies of the school where me and my friends would hang out, I knew our lunch table that we sat all 4 years at, and I always knew where to look for my friends' car in the parking lot. I even knew what the school looked like at night because I would sometimes work late there on art projects. But now, sitting there so many years later, all of that recognition was useless. All the faces were new, all the signs and posters were different, all the cars were different, some of the teachers were the same but older and either didn't recognize me or acknowledged me like an adult now. The atmosphere had changed so drastically. There was nothing physically different about the area I was sitting and waiting at, but everything felt completely different. I felt like I was sitting in a waking dream. I remember feeling such a heavy and strange feeling overwhelming me to the point that I almost started to cry. When I finally got to talk to the clerk, she recognized me and knew me by name. She knew who I was even though I only saw her a few times throughout the entirety of my high school experience. Up to that point everything felt dreamlike, but she tied me to that physical space, tied me to that building, that time, that place, those ghosts. In fact, that's what I felt like. I felt like I was a ghost that only she could see and I was stuck in the in-between because I couldn't recognize that I was dead yet and my brain was working hard to show me things that were familiar but the illusion was slightly off. After I got my paperwork, I really felt the urge to look around. Class was in session so the hallways were mostly empty and I visited some spots I used to know on my way out. It's so strange because I didn't feel like I was visiting my past and I wasn't lost in a specific memory. Instead, everything felt like it should be familiar but was alien or like an amalgamation of things I'd forgotten from some lifetime ago. Such a strange, eerie, nostalgic feeling that felt so poignant but non-specific. Anyway, that was a very long recounting to get across the fact that I really like the separate concept of emotional liminal spaces; liminal spaces in the definition where transition refers to a metaphysical one, like the concept of the transitional space between death and rebirth. I think the fact that I had grown out of being a child but was not quite an "adult" yet was what made it a very emotional liminal space for me. It wasn't a physical place of transition like a singular hallway, and not dark and empty like an abandoned mall, but instead bright and full of people. Yet somehow I felt like I was in a place that was in-between realities. I feel like if I go back to that high school in another 5 or 10 years, it wouldn't feel like that anymore because I'll be beyond this transition period, beyond this threshold, and well into adulthood. Rein Nomm's painting titled Becoming a Faceless Crowd really reminds me of how I felt at that time; with faces caught in a transitional stage of morphing from something familiar into something unrecognizable. A Gathering on 57th by The Paper Kites gives me a similar feeling to that time as well. It's a transitional track into the first "real" song on the album, it's short at a minute and half long, and has the sound of train tracks clacking, passing cars, pretty but haunting music, everything about it feels liminal to me. Asleep on a Train by Radical Face, too. First Watch by King Creosote and Jon Hopkins feels liminal to me as well for almost all the same reasons the other two do, although it is more soundscape-y. The first time I heard it, I felt it was so nostalgic I could almost call it home. I could describe it as midding if not for the fact that the voices are from strangers and everyone has an accent from a place i've never even been near. I feel since emotional liminal spaces are even more highly personal and subjective than physical liminal spaces, it can be difficult to express or pinpoint; but it's a feeling like moving out, arriving at a foreign country for the first time, or hearing that someone has just passed away. Your home is now just someone's house.There is communication but you cannot understand the language. Everything is recognizable, but no longer intimate. What was once your life no longer is, and you're not at the next part yet. That space and time where you lived and loved are now separate from you and viewing it removed from yourself can feel strange, eerie, nostalgic, and so lonely.
Wow, this is a pretty awesome description. I’ve never had an experience just like this, but sometimes I’ll get this feeling like I can’t remember if something is a memory or a dream I had forever ago. Especially with nostalgia, there’s this weird feeling that nothing will ever be the same again and it’s almost like it never happened in the first place. This is really nonsensical and rambling, but this whole concept opens up a lot of strange emotions.
Damn, this made me really emotional for some reason. Probably because this spring I'll be graduating from my current school and moving on to the next, and this made me realize that I'm currently in the school that will, in a few years, feel exactly like you described. Feels even more surreal that we're nearing the end of being here and soon we're gonna start filling in applications for what's next. Sorry if I'm rambling I just wanted to express my feelings, anyway great comment
This explains why I always get a particularly creepy, uncanny feeling whenever I had to open at my first job at a mall. I would walk into a completely empty mall, lights still on, music still playing, scent of floor cleaner in the air and it was so surreal. It oddly felt comforting, though, to be in an otherwise hectic and crowded area when it was calm and quiet.
To me what really kills a liminal space is natural light, a shot that isn’t wide enough, or a place lacking actual traits of abandonment. Like if I see a perfectly fine store, with some natural light coming in and it looks more akin to being temporarily closed rather than abandoned I won’t think of it as a liminal space.
Yes. I think the effect that happens in the brain might actually be caused by lack of windows and lighting with an unnatural color. I wonder how those things alone would make a place creepy, even with all the furniture still in it.
There might be a sense of ambiguity as to whether a place has been abandoned or not. Like, if there are personal belongings in them then I think it defeats the purpose, for example luggage or someone’s keys.
Abandoned TV show sets give me that feeling. Mostly children's TV show sets. The only one I can think of is the abandoned Tots TV house. It looks just like it was before but over grown and rotting away from the inside. And because the lighting direction at the time usually looks as realistic as what the human eye can see except more dull because its an old grainy TV, it feels more nostalgic, sad, creepy, and transitional or liminal. There is a video of that house so you should check it out.
As someone who loves Indiana for its trees, I can safely say that its forests (the ones I've been in at least) are definitely on their own plane of existence.
In the first liminal space video a commenter asserted that the entire American Midwest is liminal space. And they are absolutely right. Roads and fields seem procedurally generated. 2 different economies have come and gone. This leaves alot of dead vacant buildings. And the 90s was nostalgic for us. The architecture and color palettes are 90s feeling. They seem commercial in nature. So yeah, states like Indiana are liminal space in entirety.
@Luis Muñoz absolutely! Sometimes I glitch out because exits 100 miles apart can look so similar. But there's always that one town with that one gas station that you've seen at 3 major exits already. That McDonald's across from the star bucks. And a Walmart Down the service road. The only reason I might stop 100 miles later is for the people (or lack thereof)
When it comes to video games I always feel that unsettling/eerie feeling associated with liminal spaces whenever I get outside the boundaries of the map.
Your suggestion that artists approach backgrounds as characters themselves is some of my favorite art advice ever as an artist who finds backgrounds intimidating. Great video!
I’m the guy who made the “endless bathroom dream” image. It is amazing that a thing i created made it onto a video, thank you so much for featuring it! ^^
Yeah, I checked out the subreddit after watching your first vid, and I must confess I was disappointed with a lot of the submissions I saw. It seemed like there were many pictures of outdoor places full of buildings and/or just places vaguely associated with childhood. I can see how the nostalgia overlap happens because childhood *is* “transitional” in a way, and faded memories of those times have their own dreamlike quality (especially with retro games, which already look artificial and uncanny). I guess I’m just keener on those pics that hit the sweet spot between comfort and discomfort; I think mild claustrophobia is helpful, like in the Backrooms, because many natural and artificial transitional spaces-caves, hallways, etc-are more compact than the “to” and “fro” of that equation.
KAKAKAKAKAKAK this is wonderful! PRANK! It is terrible! I looked in the mirror and saw something UNPRETTY: my face. KAKAKAKAKAKA! But I am happy agayn because I have TWO HOT GIRLFRIENDS and I use them to get views on my videos! KAKAKAKAK!!! Good day, dear tre
As somebody with very poor visual memory and little public interaction as a child, this video hit a lot better for me. I never got a sense of nostalgia or dreamlikeness from the others because my dreams aren't nearly as accurate, colorful, or detailed as the edits were
That’s Reddit for you. Whenever some tween finds something that can vaguely be seen as belonging to a subreddit, he feels the call to action to post it for the sake of the five upvotes to be received. Doesn’t matter that the subreddit gets diluted, he just wants to get into the kool kids klub by posting something. I used to be like that once.
Whenever I am met with a liminal space, I feel like there is some sort of looming threat but at the same time you are not being threatened by anything but rather being observed but something. I look at it like this. It’s a space that was made obsolete because as far as our perspective is in the picture, there are no people (usually). So when I see it I think that an area that was used and then it suddenly hasn’t been used anymore and the space itself is feeling neglected... kinda hard to make sense of what I’m saying but it makes sense right??
It's like seeing an old friend after many many years And you try to tell yourself "We are the same, the same." But the place itself says right back to you "but different" And you try so hard to hold on to anything before it's forcefully ripped away from you... but that's not actually what happened, these places have been dying for years, you just didn't care until it was too late
1:28 I think my heart skipped a beat when I saw this- It’s a picture of a very popular waterpark in Finland around the capital area, that I, my family and friends have visited multiple times during my childhood. Great memories were made there I looked at this picture for a split second and realized instantly what it was, not expecting it at all, because why on earth would a picture of THE waterpark I went to in my childhood from the area I’m from in a tiny country, Finland, be in this specific video I found by digging and looking through channels and my youtube recommended I always get a bit freaked out and excited when I see someone on the internet mention Finland, but this was so different because I’ve been to that exact place so, so many times That kids pool with the elephant I often swam under, the small part of the wide waterslide’s end in the left bottom corner, the red and yellow waterslide that I was terrified of going to but that one time went 47 times in a row with my best friend and her two siblings on her birthday- ...what a weird feeling
This more clarified definition no is why I think deer qualify as a "liminal" animal. Not only is the presence of one on the side of a road a "transition" from urban to rural, but there's the uncertainty of whether it's gonna fuckin run in front of your moving vehicle and ruin your day. Liminal Animal.
True! Deers are like an intrusion of nature and peacefulness (most of the time) in your daily urban life. Seeing one is like seeing a vision, a reminder of the wilderness out there.
this and bunnies. I think bunnies fall on the more "nostalgic" side of liminal animals because they are such common imagery in children's media. particularly with me, I grew up with stories like "the velveteen rabbit" (which may or may not have made me have a subtle fear of rabbits) and had many bunny toys growing up so bunnies as a whole bring an unsettling comfort to me.
I think during world war 2, American shipyard workers sometimes drew a face with the words "Kilroy was here" on the inside of wall panels before welding them shut. The only people who might ever see them would be workers scrapping the ship decades later, or people doing repairs after the ship was hit by cannons. Unless they were sunk, in which case nobody would ever see it.
@@Yora21 yeah you are technically right but it was way more common for troops to carve the words into Nazi battlegrounds leading them to think that Kilroy was a spy.
thank you so much for this! as someone who gets frustrated with the newer trend of "kidcore/90s nostalgia is liminal spaces," this was a refreshing essay to detail what exactly spoke out from each image whether it was classically liminal or not.
As someone born in 2004, I’m the target demo for the majority of these liminal spaces. As I was growing up, decor from the late ‘80s and early ‘90s was just about to be replaced with modern, 2010s aesthetics. Kids born just five years after me will not be able to get the same feeling from these images, those from five years before will be even more nostalgic. I wonder what liminal spaces will be like a decade from now.
As someone born in 91, I'm not sure I buy it. I have a nostalgia for many of these images and settings that spans well over a decade of memory. I'd imagine someone actually growing up in the 80s would be even more affected by it.
@@elmithedragonlover3859 ok first of all- fetus. but second of all you were born in the 2000s so that makes sense for you to have that 90s nostalgia since it was the decade before your time. kids born post-2013 like my cousin might be a little different and im very fascinated to see what happens
Treating backgrounds as characters is one of the best pieces of advice my art school drawing professors ever gave me. You can push a tone or feeling much further if you give them as much attention and detail as your actual characters, and they become a whole lot more fun to draw too. Of course, it makes the work take a lot longer but I think the results are absolutely worth it
Yeah. Pretty much every great director does this. New York City is very often used in films as a character in itself. Like a lot of Woody Allen films. Not least of all his film Manhattan, obviously. But even then it doesn't have to be a real place. And it can just be a room that's a character or a building or a complex. Some take it to extremes like the film Cube, which is a bit of a cult classic. The building made up of thousands of almost identical cube-shaped rooms is as much of a character as any of the humans. The fact that they never explain why it's there, and who built it or who operates it, means you have to ascribe all the feelings you'd have about this hypothetical mastermind character to the building itself. It's like they're fighting the building, not fighting a person controlling it. And yeah every kind of art (except music, I suppose) can do this. Use the background as a character. I suppose music can still do it, there's enough songs that have added spaces to them, added rooms, like the use of reverb can make it sound like you're in the middle of a canyon playing guitar, same with the delay effect (echo, the sound repeats back and forth gradually getting more faint). And enough songs make me immediately think of a specific type of place, even though the lyrics mention nothing about it
8:27 The shading on the floor gives the impression of it being a bottomless chasm with narrow walkways on the edges, making my subconscious uncomfortable along with everything else in the image
I just looked up pictures inside of my old elementary school. That was... sad, disturbing, and nostalgic. I want to go back... but at the same time i feel the need to move on? Havnt seen my old teachers since ive gone to that school. All those pictures, liminal spaces... my memory of the places that weren’t photographed are fading. And having be theres no real reason for me to be allowed back into that building, im gonna lose all that i know of that school... just hope its not soon.
0:24 this liminal space hits different for some reason, it feels like windows xp's wallpaper "bliss" and it brings alot of weird nostalgia. if only it were real
Aaaaahhhh I didn’t know there was a name for this! I’m so excited to learn more about this concept. I’m glad I happened upon this video! Also I literally have had recurring dreams/nightmares for years about creepy, dirty, meandering bathrooms just like the one in the art in this video. So weird!
I have to say the regular liminal space photos make me feel more sad. The fake ones make me feel scared. Also didnt get the transitional thing the first time, but I think you explained it well now, also your insight onto "making your background a character itself" is such a good concept to keep in mind artistically.
i propose a new definition for liminal space: "A place seen, perhaps over and over, that is never considered and formally rememered. A place that is in between the places you really remember."
The new direction you’ve taken with your content is so cool! You seem to have made it more professional, and more video essay-ey but I really enjoy it. Keep it up!
9:13 - DAMN YOU SAID IT! I love this atmosphere you set up in this video and the respect you show to art and artists, not to mention a lot of us artists probably needed to hear that little bit of advice you give towards the end. So many of us struggle with backgrounds because it requires organizing a composition that fits with the subject. So... yeah, thanks!
I made a short, short animated film while still in art school called "liminal" that was about the transitory moment in your life when you last play with a toy. you dont realize it's significant, but it is...
With all my kids I carried them one last time, when really they were too big to be still getting picked up, and tried desperately to commit the experience into memory, I knew it would be the last time I picked them up.
I didn't feel that type of "Nostalgia" with American liminal space but when I found one of Indonsia (my mother's hometown that I haven't visited in 2 years) I felt so sad and nostalgic.
Most of the “liminal space” images on the internet are American architecture, so people who grew up in other countries won’t get as much of a nostalgic or vaguely familiar feeling as Americans because locations in their countries look different. Also, I realize it’s been almost a year, but whatever.
@@flamthrowr_ yes except for mall/department store liminal space... Everyone can feel the same Nostalgic vibes even if you're not American like me because all department store looks and feels the same
After I saw the original video I immediately loaded up the Counter-Strike Source Hammer map-making tool and made a Garry's Mod level called cs_liminal which attempted to recreate that sort of thing. I was gonna upload it somewhere but I thought no-one would be interested. Apparently I'm wrong lol
@@taylorbritt499 I'll do that if I think on. I've also been thinking of expanding the map to feature more of that kinda stuff, mainly to practice interior design. If I make enough stuff to be worth using, I'll post it on the Steam Workshop.
I just realized that the pedestrian tunnels that I am creating in Unity, mostly as a way of practicing with that engine, are exactly this type of thing...
4:50 I remember playing Gmod as a kid and always being creeped-out by the empty world so I would always spawn NPCs when I would spend a long time building things.
I think the reason liminal spaces are so effective for me is because these pictures bring back memories of things I never stopped to look at before. By definition, liminal spaces are meant to be *transitional*, you are meant to see them only for an instant when passing by; they never consume your mind. Photography is the art of transfixing a moment into a still, unmoving medium, which is meant to be contemplated by the viewer. Cognitive dissonance results from this strange juxtaposition of how I thought about it when I was remembering it, just as a fleeting, unimportant transition, and how I think about it in the photograph, as a memory of a time when I was different, a bringer of nostalgia.
1:14 It may seem contradictory, but not all liminal spaces (at least the ones seen on the internet) don't have to be a transitional place, they can be places that invoke a very strong sense of nostalgia, loneliness and some kind of déjà vu. The photos invoke a dreamlike feeling for apparently 4 factors 1. The place features very common architecture, that makes it look like you have been there, or at least have seen it before; 2. The photo is taken with an old camera or edited to look like it has very low quality which combined with the previous factor, adds to the nostalgic feeling; 3. The moment depicted in the image is a very rare one, when a place usually filled with people becomes empty; 4. Something feels off... combining all the previous 3 factors makes it feel surreal, a memory and a dream at the same time; I hope I explained it well and didn't make it confusing, you put some weirdcore images in the last video which do feature liminal spaces but as you've said, are highly edited. As someone who loves seeing anything about liminal spaces, it's fun to see people talking about them and their subgenres.
That art towards the end hit me different. It was absolutely insane. I cant believe how the makers have that inside of them. Fantastic and horrifying at the same time
"It's not about the destination, it's about the journey". I think Liminal spaces are so interesting, because liminal spaces is what our lives consist mostly of.
Never gonna give you up Never gonna let you down Never gonna run around and desert you Never gonna make you cry Never gonna say goodbye I think i got the lyrics right lol
"exploring a world of vast hostile transitional spaces and architecture that seems inhospitable to humans" bro that's just trying to walk to the corner store in los angeles
Same and there's also the nostalgia angle with courage the cowardly dog. I personally have many vague memories of random scenes from the show, and they terrify me as much as they did when I first saw them.
Jigsaw puzzles are sometimes like this. Idyllic scenes of a street in a European city by the sea, lots of tables with checkered cloths, food on plates, a steaming coffee cup, a bicycle up against a wall, but not a person in sight. Also ambiance videos on RUclips. I find these scenes comforting but slightly eerie.
Cry Of Fear is a game with some fantastically spooky liminal spaces. There's one level in park at nighttime that is SO unsettling. I mean, the whole game is unsettling, but yeah.
I instantly click on few youtube notifications without hesitation very rarely. But with Solar Sands, it is every time with no exception. Brilliant as always, and I'm glad you take what the community says in the comments to heart as you clarify a previous video while still making the concept interesting and fresh for the basis of a completely new video.
5:00 for those wondering, that is a room underneath a tower in the map gm_construct, except almost completely retextured. And yes Solar, it is a mirror.
Minecraft goes ever deeper in that direction than what you said. There are abandoned mineshafts that are mostly long tunnels, seemingly starding and ending nowhere, strongholds which are mossy, neglected undergroud ruins consisting of long corridors, staircases and rooms seemingly without purpose, nether fortresses which are also mostly long corridors and passages, in a desolate, hellish landscape, and the whole end dimension which looks surreal on its own but is also home to end cities, a mess of corridors and towers.
8:36 I think the most unsettling thing about that picture is that I cant tell if that is a giant hole at the end of the escalators and stairs or just a different part of the floor.
Holy shit. At 7:05 you started talking about paintings and dreams. And well, I think in 8th grade for my art final I actually made one. I have to find it. I remember i wanted to carry the vast and unending effect of my dreams into the painting. The project was to make a surrealist painting. I found that project to be one of my favorites because I didn’t have to paint anything, but I could also paint everything. I can’t draw people but I also like the effect so idk, I’m glad I found this genre(;
In that painting of the escalators, there looks to be a bald man on the right, perhaps looking down at something in one of the shops. Makes the whole painting that much more eerie.
Since I'm Brazillian, these images don't get exactly the same feeling as they probably do on people from countries like the USA. I kind of get it in some images, mostly the most generic ones that are usually from interiors. I already tried searching for "Liminal spaces Brazil" but I got very disappointed when I didn't get anything I was looking for. I think that might apply for many other people out there.
I'm not from Brazil, but this concerns me as well: almost all famous liminal spaces videos out there are most appealing for US audience, since the pictures taken or made mostly by the Americans or American creators. I'm not from USA, I'm not familiar with how it feels growing up in the states, so seeing them doesn't make me feel anything most of the time. That's why I decided to make my own liminal spaces video so that people from my country can also enjoy these things lol (sorry for bad English)
I have a huge recurring dreamscape of an infinite mall, an infinite train station / airport, and an infinite parking lot. I wonder why my sleeping brain is so obsessed with them
lol i get what you mean even tho its not the same but my brain is obsessed w making whole ass plot for my dreams and they often have a tragic ending situated in places similar to limilal spaces.
Legit, I like the scenes portrayed in the art you've shown here. Like, I actually find them pleasant, a place i'd like to go and exist in. I think it's the timeless feel each one has- a place without time, but perpetual existence.
Near where I live theres this mall thats nearly abandoned with empty stores with no people yet the lights end escalators are still up and running. People only go there to see movies so thats the only place with people but the rest of the mall looks so creepy.
Sadly, to me it feels like that EVERYWHERE right now, with COVID-19 & everything. ... Here in Los Angeles, our poor malls are just ghost towns, with empty, closed stores, I don't even think any of the anchor stores are currently open. It's sad. So many businesses & small businesses hurt or damaged in irreversible ways, so many great businesses/stores/etc. are closing permanently. ... Also sports being played with no audience. Great to have them back & be able to watch them again, but VERY strange to see basketball & so forth being played with NOBODY in the stands. Def gives a strange vibe & feeling to it. ... Or like when the Dodger game sold tickets for ppl to attend via proxy by literally placing life-sized cardboard cut-outs of the ppl in the seats. Can't recall if that was a special, one time thing or a regular thing. But SO strange to see. Real life mixed with 2-D.
i feel what adds the most to liminal spaces is a persons personal perspective of the image. I find myself often alone, as i find peace in loneliness and i definitely feel like from an artists perspective, the more accurately one can depict their view of a landscape from this lonely nostalgic space in their mind and recreate it, the more intense the response will be. These liminal spaces i think are viewed as simply "places that give you a indistinguishable feeling" rather than feeling them in the way that some others might. Again, the better a person can recreate the emotion they feel from the image/place/art through whatever means they choose, the more accurately received it will be. i love that you came back to this subject to touch up on it, i love your content and your mind, Solar Sands. keep thinking and creating the way you do
note to self: - use the artists mentioned as a refence/ inspiriation for the liminal space project - '"a sombre sunset in a empty room"" - came back to this when starting 3d software projects.
My understanding is that it’s like if society never discovered how to use electricity like we do, so instead things are often steam powered, but society continued advancing anyway. Because electricity in reality was invented during Victorian times, a lot of the fashion and general aesthetic is inspired by the styles of the Victorian era and the aesthetic of the steam powered machinery they used at the time.
This was in my recommended and I feel like I just stumbled onto a mad scientist/philosphist's video exploring the depths of the surreal nature of the dreams of the human mind TL;DR: I feel dominated by a big brain dude
*Mirror's Edge* is the liminal space wonderland for me. You are meant to transition through the levels as fast as possible. But when you stop and look around...the empty hallways and rooftops, crawl spaces, construction zones - they seem so serene, and uncanny, and strangely beautiful.
The final thought its an interesting one as an artist I totally will take at heart, parapharasing you: "Treat the background not as a chore, but as if it was a character on its own" it changes the way you see it altogether.
One of the most empty and somehow disturbing games is called MechWarrior 3. It's a game that was too advanced for its time and was in a grossly barren and blank world. I still love it.
To me a liminal space is any space where something is missing, like a library with no books or a playroom with no kids. Add some strong saturation and some nostalgia and we're done
@@nahometesfay1112 Some liminal spaces do match that description, but having those attributes does not automatically make those spaces "liminal." This mindset distracts from the meaning of the word. A library is nowhere near as liminal as the temporary Scholastic book fair that's set up and gone in a flash. Really, it should be something you experience in passing (transition)-not a place to which you make dedicated trips throughout your life.
@@chrisg1499 I never said that attribute makes a space liminal just that there was a lot of overlap between the two. I don't think this observation distracts from the meaning of liminal, but bridges the gap between what people think of as liminal spaces and the actual meaning of liminal spaces. While a Scholastic book fair is liminal, a library with no books is IMO more liminal because that implies either that it's a new library that's about to be stocked and opened or an old one that is about to be closed or even destroyed. There may be other explanations, but all of them would represent a major transition for the library. A liminal place doesn't have to always be liminal. In fact, I think the most impactful form of liminal spaces is a place you're very familiar with in the process of irreversible change.
@@chrisg1499 But both scenarios occur in a place you make numerous trips to throughout life. ... The temporary nature of Scholastic book fair & the temporary nature of an empty library both convey transition.
I think that "The Path" a low-key forgotten psychological horror uses passing liminal space in a unique way. You come from chaotic weird foresty chaos to a weirdly empty and familiar house... Which starts to have more and more weird elements with it as you play forward. I really recommend it
9:18 that captures EXACTLY how I deal with my backgrounds :] I don't really even like drawing characters that much, i enjoy adding them just to give any space more character. the same way I'd add furniture or trees, I add people. and when I want to make a place look lively, I fill it up with them- when I want it to look dead, I take it all out. I absolutely love the analysis done in this video and the one before it
![Twenty One Pilots - “The Line” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/E2Rj2gQAyPA/mqdefault.jpg)
The rendering is actually pretty impressive
@@rainbownekokitty7022 what even
@@rainbownekokitty7022 why do you keep replying with that song everywhere?
I think he thinks it’s funny somehow?
Not really. Or maybe that's unfair- if you're impressed it's impressive. But when you're dealing with simple forms (like cylindrical columns in a parking garage, or flat walls) made of relatively smooth and/or regular materials, all it takes to look photorealistic is the emulation of camera flaws. Mainly that means film grain, vignette and maybe subtle bloom.
What I'm saying is that it doesn't look real because of unusual technical skill on the part of the artist but because it depicts something that is remarkably easy to render realistically.
@Ipinu Yusuf llllllllllllllll)llllllllllll
"I'm not really a Gamer"
Good, I'll be the gamer in the relationship.
_S I M P_
Always can? , never should?
Subscribe to Onlysans
gamers for solar sands, rise up
SIMP
Personally, when looking at liminal spaces, I feeel like I'm immersed into the perspective with no context of how I got there. In a lot of cases this should result in fear and loneliness. Even with 1 character or figure, in some cases I wonder if I could even trust that 1 figure. Assuming something bad were to happen, I wouldn't be able to get much help. A feeling I get when I see these is that there is no trace of how I got there; therefore, I don't feel like I could be saved nor would I be able to find my way out. The creepy aspect I feel some people get is a result in feeling that if they were in 1st person perspective, they feel like they will never be able to get out due to the lack of context. The loneliness makes people feel like no one belongs there including them. For the nostalgic feel, it seems to depend on age. Ex. The 80's theme of certain liminal spaces. I wasn't born until the 2000's, so I only get the feeling of loneliness, distress, fear, etc. If it were to be something recent, I might get nostalgia. It varies with people, and there are many factors such as age, background, culture, etc. I personally enjoy them because of the minimum context behind them.
I feel almost the same way about them as you. Nice explaining it!
I feel the same way! It is such a creepy feeling
I feel the same way with the fake ones. The real photos give me a sense of nostalgia and a feeling like I cant go back to that time, which also eminates that feeling of loneliness and despair
One time one of these made me so anxious I actually derealized-
@@jamieisnotokay3298 as someone with DPDR I am truly sorry
stanley parable is literally "liminal space: the game"
He entered the door on his left.
baldaro?
Did you get the broom closet ending? That was my favourite
there's also this game called superliminal
Ahem. ANEMOIAPOLIS.
This is why I call December 26th through 30th the "liminal zone" of every year. It feels like it almost shouldn't exist, as if the year had already ended but is still going on. Not including the 31st because that's when many new year's parties happen, and the actual transition where the new year starts essentially.
So that explains why my birthday always feels like it shouldn’t exist (born on the 26th)
In Germany we call that time "Zwischen den Jahren" ("Between the years")
I'll have the crack you've got.
@@DrumEagle How the hell do Germans have every suitable, specific words to describe all kind of situations on Earth?
There are proposed calendar systems that put all of the extra days there. Need a leap day? Put it there, it won't hurt anything. Need an extra spot for some days that don't quite fit in your weeks / months scheme? Just stuff them there.
I think that the liminal spaces can sort of be like the uncanny valley, except instead of human features, its usually the archetecture of an area. Usually something that is familiar to most people due to its use of texture and lighting, but the shape suggests that there is something missing and its empty, or that something is about to happen in an otherwise calm and empty area, creating a sense of dread.
Yes. Most of the spaces have no windows, and are lit by fluorescent light, which looks completely different from any natural daylight.
Yes. People are just finding out pictures can make u feel eerie. wooow
This made me think of the hotel from The Shining.
Exactly the word. Dread.
😘
The moment he mentioned naissance my mind went straight to your video. Love your video essays man
wow hi
Oh dang I must have missed your comment when you first posted it. Cool beans.
@@SolarSands that reminded me of Wonder (its a book, i think)
when 2 legends meet each other
The “I Spy” books have always felt very liminal to me. They’re always empty, completely devoid of any people. It feels like you’re stepping through an abandoned place, where humans once lived but moved on to some other location. Even the books strictly depicting toys without the environment seem very nostalgic, as if you’re looking at the collection of a child who has since grown up. It’s strange that even at such a young age, I was experiencing liminal images without even knowing what they were
YES. Yes, thank you! The "I Spy" books have haunted my subconscious for decades now. Something about the way the scenes are constructed to look superficially natural always gave me a sense of uncanny dread because the moment you start _looking_ at the scene it becomes an onion of artificial, inhuman conceits. They're like some _other_, pretending to be a normal human space, while actually existing solely to hide something, to make you glance past without realizing what secrets they hold.
Which, of course, they are.
YESS EXACTLY!!! ive thought this too
Anyone here know about the existence of “I spy spooky mansion”
It was devoid of any humans except you and your only friend was a talking skeleton.. and the narrator guy but you didn’t see him so it felt.. off. He talked in such a way that it felt off lol especially the skeleton. Her voice is just really.. like.. monotonous.. it’s hard to explain. I played that game a lot when I was lil but that didn’t mean I wasn’t lonely while playing it. I always had that feeling munching on me lol
"I Spy Spooky Night" is so damn creepy even as an adult, every picture in there feels like you've woken up in a strange place.
God that is the fucking nostalgia I almost forgot, thanks.
I really like the distinction you made between emotional liminal spaces and physical liminal spaces.
I remember a couple of years ago I had to go back to my old high school to pick up some paperwork to enter uni. I went early but for some reason I ended up having to wait until class was in session and just sitting in that atmosphere made me dissociate so hard. All the faces of the kids around me reminded me of when I was high school, except nobody was familiar. I never really paid attention to the fact that, when I was attending high school, I got used to the faces and voices around me. Even though I was never friends with those people and never talked to or acknowledged them, my brain got used to these familiar strangers. I had my little Group in high school and in my mind wherever I was in school, I would know that they were there too, just a wing or hallway away. I was familiar with and understood the context of all the student or staff-made signs and posters, knew faces of teachers even if I never had them for a class, knew all of my favorite nooks and crannies of the school where me and my friends would hang out, I knew our lunch table that we sat all 4 years at, and I always knew where to look for my friends' car in the parking lot. I even knew what the school looked like at night because I would sometimes work late there on art projects.
But now, sitting there so many years later, all of that recognition was useless. All the faces were new, all the signs and posters were different, all the cars were different, some of the teachers were the same but older and either didn't recognize me or acknowledged me like an adult now. The atmosphere had changed so drastically. There was nothing physically different about the area I was sitting and waiting at, but everything felt completely different. I felt like I was sitting in a waking dream. I remember feeling such a heavy and strange feeling overwhelming me to the point that I almost started to cry.
When I finally got to talk to the clerk, she recognized me and knew me by name. She knew who I was even though I only saw her a few times throughout the entirety of my high school experience. Up to that point everything felt dreamlike, but she tied me to that physical space, tied me to that building, that time, that place, those ghosts. In fact, that's what I felt like. I felt like I was a ghost that only she could see and I was stuck in the in-between because I couldn't recognize that I was dead yet and my brain was working hard to show me things that were familiar but the illusion was slightly off.
After I got my paperwork, I really felt the urge to look around. Class was in session so the hallways were mostly empty and I visited some spots I used to know on my way out. It's so strange because I didn't feel like I was visiting my past and I wasn't lost in a specific memory. Instead, everything felt like it should be familiar but was alien or like an amalgamation of things I'd forgotten from some lifetime ago. Such a strange, eerie, nostalgic feeling that felt so poignant but non-specific.
Anyway, that was a very long recounting to get across the fact that I really like the separate concept of emotional liminal spaces; liminal spaces in the definition where transition refers to a metaphysical one, like the concept of the transitional space between death and rebirth. I think the fact that I had grown out of being a child but was not quite an "adult" yet was what made it a very emotional liminal space for me. It wasn't a physical place of transition like a singular hallway, and not dark and empty like an abandoned mall, but instead bright and full of people. Yet somehow I felt like I was in a place that was in-between realities. I feel like if I go back to that high school in another 5 or 10 years, it wouldn't feel like that anymore because I'll be beyond this transition period, beyond this threshold, and well into adulthood.
Rein Nomm's painting titled Becoming a Faceless Crowd really reminds me of how I felt at that time; with faces caught in a transitional stage of morphing from something familiar into something unrecognizable. A Gathering on 57th by The Paper Kites gives me a similar feeling to that time as well. It's a transitional track into the first "real" song on the album, it's short at a minute and half long, and has the sound of train tracks clacking, passing cars, pretty but haunting music, everything about it feels liminal to me. Asleep on a Train by Radical Face, too. First Watch by King Creosote and Jon Hopkins feels liminal to me as well for almost all the same reasons the other two do, although it is more soundscape-y. The first time I heard it, I felt it was so nostalgic I could almost call it home. I could describe it as midding if not for the fact that the voices are from strangers and everyone has an accent from a place i've never even been near.
I feel since emotional liminal spaces are even more highly personal and subjective than physical liminal spaces, it can be difficult to express or pinpoint; but it's a feeling like moving out, arriving at a foreign country for the first time, or hearing that someone has just passed away. Your home is now just someone's house.There is communication but you cannot understand the language. Everything is recognizable, but no longer intimate. What was once your life no longer is, and you're not at the next part yet. That space and time where you lived and loved are now separate from you and viewing it removed from yourself can feel strange, eerie, nostalgic, and so lonely.
This is the best fucking thing I’ve read in a while holy shit dude
Wow, this is a pretty awesome description. I’ve never had an experience just like this, but sometimes I’ll get this feeling like I can’t remember if something is a memory or a dream I had forever ago. Especially with nostalgia, there’s this weird feeling that nothing will ever be the same again and it’s almost like it never happened in the first place. This is really nonsensical and rambling, but this whole concept opens up a lot of strange emotions.
I felt so immersed in this comment. Thank you for sharing
Damn, this made me really emotional for some reason. Probably because this spring I'll be graduating from my current school and moving on to the next, and this made me realize that I'm currently in the school that will, in a few years, feel exactly like you described. Feels even more surreal that we're nearing the end of being here and soon we're gonna start filling in applications for what's next. Sorry if I'm rambling I just wanted to express my feelings, anyway great comment
That took very long to scroll thru
This explains why I always get a particularly creepy, uncanny feeling whenever I had to open at my first job at a mall. I would walk into a completely empty mall, lights still on, music still playing, scent of floor cleaner in the air and it was so surreal. It oddly felt comforting, though, to be in an otherwise hectic and crowded area when it was calm and quiet.
Hope you're okay solar
@@rainbownekokitty7022 thank god it isnt a rickroll
Why did this get alot of likes 😳
@@rainbownekokitty7022 listen here Matilda pfp. Its a clown you ruined the joke.
Arya Koddingson i hope this is the clown certificate thing
@@trashrat3204 no you ruined the joke for me.
To me what really kills a liminal space is natural light, a shot that isn’t wide enough, or a place lacking actual traits of abandonment. Like if I see a perfectly fine store, with some natural light coming in and it looks more akin to being temporarily closed rather than abandoned I won’t think of it as a liminal space.
Yes. I think the effect that happens in the brain might actually be caused by lack of windows and lighting with an unnatural color. I wonder how those things alone would make a place creepy, even with all the furniture still in it.
Especially if there are people involved. Like, that completely defeats the purpose of liminal space-
There might be a sense of ambiguity as to whether a place has been abandoned or not.
Like, if there are personal belongings in them then I think it defeats the purpose, for example luggage or someone’s keys.
Oh boy I love liminal spaces
@@rainbownekokitty7022 i though id be rickrolled lol
they scare me so much
don't say oh boy
@@Abznth
you triggered?
@@Shyuthrosnaevin no
Sometimes when I walk through all my "empty of all life" houses in minecraft I feel like I'm in a liminal space.
I booted my PS3 up and played some of my old Minecraft worlds up and it felt similar, especially since i used to only play with a group of friends.
Abandoned TV show sets give me that feeling. Mostly children's TV show sets. The only one I can think of is the abandoned Tots TV house. It looks just like it was before but over grown and rotting away from the inside. And because the lighting direction at the time usually looks as realistic as what the human eye can see except more dull because its an old grainy TV, it feels more nostalgic, sad, creepy, and transitional or liminal. There is a video of that house so you should check it out.
LSD Dream Emulator is really just one giant liminal space in the form of a game.
Came here to say this too. That game is made of subconscious material
@R M Vinesauce Vinny
Indiana is a liminal space. It’s the “backrooms” of the US
I can confirm
As someone who loves Indiana for its trees, I can safely say that its forests (the ones I've been in at least) are definitely on their own plane of existence.
In the first liminal space video a commenter asserted that the entire American Midwest is liminal space. And they are absolutely right. Roads and fields seem procedurally generated. 2 different economies have come and gone. This leaves alot of dead vacant buildings. And the 90s was nostalgic for us. The architecture and color palettes are 90s feeling. They seem commercial in nature. So yeah, states like Indiana are liminal space in entirety.
@Luis Muñoz absolutely! Sometimes I glitch out because exits 100 miles apart can look so similar. But there's always that one town with that one gas station that you've seen at 3 major exits already. That McDonald's across from the star bucks. And a Walmart Down the service road. The only reason I might stop 100 miles later is for the people (or lack thereof)
Can confirm. I've been going to college in Indiana for two months now
I feel like you sound a lot less dead inside now that you stopped the deviant art videos
@@moqa6638 I feel like I've seen this exact joke multiple times in this channel
baby astolfo
baby astolfo...
@@shabonsong Bean plushie, actually.
And I personally like the channel better for it!
And that is not an good thing
When it comes to video games I always feel that unsettling/eerie feeling associated with liminal spaces whenever I get outside the boundaries of the map.
Your suggestion that artists approach backgrounds as characters themselves is some of my favorite art advice ever as an artist who finds backgrounds intimidating. Great video!
I’m the guy who made the “endless bathroom dream” image. It is amazing that a thing i created made it onto a video, thank you so much for featuring it! ^^
Dude heccing good job!
I'm extremely curious as to what actually happened in that dream. The idea of remaking a dream like that is very cool to me
@@spice7620 I kinda remember noclipping to the right through the wall and finding a similar bathroom hallway, except a lot darker
@Noah Gentry maybe i was there idk
I had the idea of modeling something out of my dreams too. Good to know I'm not alone in that.
Yeah, I checked out the subreddit after watching your first vid, and I must confess I was disappointed with a lot of the submissions I saw. It seemed like there were many pictures of outdoor places full of buildings and/or just places vaguely associated with childhood. I can see how the nostalgia overlap happens because childhood *is* “transitional” in a way, and faded memories of those times have their own dreamlike quality (especially with retro games, which already look artificial and uncanny). I guess I’m just keener on those pics that hit the sweet spot between comfort and discomfort; I think mild claustrophobia is helpful, like in the Backrooms, because many natural and artificial transitional spaces-caves, hallways, etc-are more compact than the “to” and “fro” of that equation.
KAKAKAKAKAKAK this is wonderful! PRANK! It is terrible! I looked in the mirror and saw something UNPRETTY: my face. KAKAKAKAKAKA! But I am happy agayn because I have TWO HOT GIRLFRIENDS and I use them to get views on my videos! KAKAKAKAK!!! Good day, dear tre
@@AxxLAfriku Aaaand YOU STILL EXIST!
great...
As somebody with very poor visual memory and little public interaction as a child, this video hit a lot better for me. I never got a sense of nostalgia or dreamlikeness from the others because my dreams aren't nearly as accurate, colorful, or detailed as the edits were
That’s Reddit for you. Whenever some tween finds something that can vaguely be seen as belonging to a subreddit, he feels the call to action to post it for the sake of the five upvotes to be received. Doesn’t matter that the subreddit gets diluted, he just wants to get into the kool kids klub by posting something. I used to be like that once.
@@AxxLAfriku why do you talk like an npc in a poorly localized Japanese video game
Whenever I am met with a liminal space, I feel like there is some sort of looming threat but at the same time you are not being threatened by anything but rather being observed but something. I look at it like this. It’s a space that was made obsolete because as far as our perspective is in the picture, there are no people (usually). So when I see it I think that an area that was used and then it suddenly hasn’t been used anymore and the space itself is feeling neglected... kinda hard to make sense of what I’m saying but it makes sense right??
This is the greatest text!
This reminds me of Jacob Geller’s interpretation on Haunted houses
water fossil haha thanks!! You know it!
It's like seeing an old friend after many many years
And you try to tell yourself "We are the same, the same."
But the place itself says right back to you "but different"
And you try so hard to hold on to anything before it's forcefully ripped away from you... but that's not actually what happened, these places have been dying for years, you just didn't care until it was too late
TopHatCat999 Damn, yeah
My personal definition of Liminal space:
You know it when you see it.
Underrated comment
Old games
@@nuchar Port Carverton University 😔
My house can be consider a liminal space since I move so recently. It has nothing in it yet, but it's not as big to be consider one.
i made the 800 likes :)
1:28 I think my heart skipped a beat when I saw this-
It’s a picture of a very popular waterpark in Finland around the capital area, that I, my family and friends have visited multiple times during my childhood. Great memories were made there
I looked at this picture for a split second and realized instantly what it was, not expecting it at all, because why on earth would a picture of THE waterpark I went to in my childhood from the area I’m from in a tiny country, Finland, be in this specific video I found by digging and looking through channels and my youtube recommended
I always get a bit freaked out and excited when I see someone on the internet mention Finland, but this was so different because I’ve been to that exact place so, so many times
That kids pool with the elephant I often swam under, the small part of the wide waterslide’s end in the left bottom corner, the red and yellow waterslide that I was terrified of going to but that one time went 47 times in a row with my best friend and her two siblings on her
birthday-
...what a weird feeling
I was looking for this comment
This more clarified definition no is why I think deer qualify as a "liminal" animal. Not only is the presence of one on the side of a road a "transition" from urban to rural, but there's the uncertainty of whether it's gonna fuckin run in front of your moving vehicle and ruin your day. Liminal Animal.
Squirrels too. They're always on the move.
True! Deers are like an intrusion of nature and peacefulness (most of the time) in your daily urban life. Seeing one is like seeing a vision, a reminder of the wilderness out there.
this and bunnies. I think bunnies fall on the more "nostalgic" side of liminal animals because they are such common imagery in children's media. particularly with me, I grew up with stories like "the velveteen rabbit" (which may or may not have made me have a subtle fear of rabbits) and had many bunny toys growing up so bunnies as a whole bring an unsettling comfort to me.
@Madison_Spirits As someone who lives in Inland California, so mostly desert, I second the bunnies. All there is out here is coyotes and bunnies.
Bunnicula if y’all remember that children’s book series is def liminal for me
Imo, liminal spaces have the same feeling as finding the words "Someone was here" scrawled on something at a obscure place, while you're alone
amphathyst makes me wanna write “hello!” on the wall lol
There is a story to this isn't there
I wanna write “don’t look into the darkness for too long behind you” on a wall at midnight
I think during world war 2, American shipyard workers sometimes drew a face with the words "Kilroy was here" on the inside of wall panels before welding them shut.
The only people who might ever see them would be workers scrapping the ship decades later, or people doing repairs after the ship was hit by cannons. Unless they were sunk, in which case nobody would ever see it.
@@Yora21 yeah you are technically right but it was way more common for troops to carve the words into Nazi battlegrounds leading them to think that Kilroy was a spy.
9:30 I can't believe you included my artwork in your video! I was actually inspired by your original liminal spaces vid so that means a lot to me
you probably thought i wouldn't find you
but i did
fuk u bimtch
@@PLonexXx calm the fuck down jesus
@@YurieSnowie Any idea what their problem is? Seems unnecessarily aggressive...
@@pixiniarts i honestly have no clue, maybe he's just having a bad day when he typed that
@@YurieSnowie Must have been one hell of a bad day to come over all creepy, threatening, sinister, cyberbully asshat though...
thank you so much for this! as someone who gets frustrated with the newer trend of "kidcore/90s nostalgia is liminal spaces," this was a refreshing essay to detail what exactly spoke out from each image whether it was classically liminal or not.
As someone born in 2004, I’m the target demo for the majority of these liminal spaces. As I was growing up, decor from the late ‘80s and early ‘90s was just about to be replaced with modern, 2010s aesthetics. Kids born just five years after me will not be able to get the same feeling from these images, those from five years before will be even more nostalgic. I wonder what liminal spaces will be like a decade from now.
As someone born in 91, I'm not sure I buy it. I have a nostalgia for many of these images and settings that spans well over a decade of memory. I'd imagine someone actually growing up in the 80s would be even more affected by it.
Im born 20 years before you and just want to say congrats u experienced the liminal spaces. Its something special
the fact that the look of liminal spaces is going to change over time is a perfect representation of its transitional qualities!!
I was born in 2008, and I still have some nostalgic feelings from these images-
@@elmithedragonlover3859 ok first of all- fetus. but second of all you were born in the 2000s so that makes sense for you to have that 90s nostalgia since it was the decade before your time. kids born post-2013 like my cousin might be a little different and im very fascinated to see what happens
8:32 isn't there someone on the very right of the painting?! That is just extremely unsettling
It cost you 0 dollars to not point that out-
I'll never be able to look at that image again
@@AngstyRat +
I thought it was one of these mannequins (idk how to write it) without heads
The figure looks super pale and like they’re wearing a suit, and the lack of a visible face in the fainting slightly reminds me of Slenderman
@@GoroAkechi_Real
Isnt that just a mannequin?
Treating backgrounds as characters is one of the best pieces of advice my art school drawing professors ever gave me. You can push a tone or feeling much further if you give them as much attention and detail as your actual characters, and they become a whole lot more fun to draw too. Of course, it makes the work take a lot longer but I think the results are absolutely worth it
This is spectacular advice for aspiring film makers.
The maker of dorarara be readin this surprised
Yeah. Pretty much every great director does this. New York City is very often used in films as a character in itself. Like a lot of Woody Allen films. Not least of all his film Manhattan, obviously.
But even then it doesn't have to be a real place. And it can just be a room that's a character or a building or a complex. Some take it to extremes like the film Cube, which is a bit of a cult classic. The building made up of thousands of almost identical cube-shaped rooms is as much of a character as any of the humans. The fact that they never explain why it's there, and who built it or who operates it, means you have to ascribe all the feelings you'd have about this hypothetical mastermind character to the building itself. It's like they're fighting the building, not fighting a person controlling it.
And yeah every kind of art (except music, I suppose) can do this. Use the background as a character. I suppose music can still do it, there's enough songs that have added spaces to them, added rooms, like the use of reverb can make it sound like you're in the middle of a canyon playing guitar, same with the delay effect (echo, the sound repeats back and forth gradually getting more faint). And enough songs make me immediately think of a specific type of place, even though the lyrics mention nothing about it
I don’t even put a lot of effort into characters, but I guess I’m also not really an artist
8:27 The shading on the floor gives the impression of it being a bottomless chasm with narrow walkways on the edges, making my subconscious uncomfortable along with everything else in the image
There’s a guy on the right side to
A liminal space is the place you go when entering another dimension and it acts as a loading screen kinda, so it could be anything really
I just looked up pictures inside of my old elementary school. That was... sad, disturbing, and nostalgic. I want to go back... but at the same time i feel the need to move on? Havnt seen my old teachers since ive gone to that school. All those pictures, liminal spaces... my memory of the places that weren’t photographed are fading. And having be theres no real reason for me to be allowed back into that building, im gonna lose all that i know of that school... just hope its not soon.
Think about them every day for a while and you won’t forget it
hahaha pines
go to college and get a bachelors degree, then become a teacher.
@@RagingInsomniac haha no thanks buddy 😂
Loving the new direction, keep the vids coming!
@@rainbownekokitty7022 bruh
You've made me love liminal spaces. And everything else you talk about makes me feel interested in something new. I really appreciate that :)
Now thats epic
I agree! It's really nice and intellectual.
I've really seen quite the improvement in editing quality recently. Good job! Keep it up!
@@moqa6638 get outta here
Thanks furry god
np
0:24 this liminal space hits different for some reason, it feels like windows xp's wallpaper "bliss" and it brings alot of weird nostalgia. if only it were real
@Lord Inquisitor Shadowlord Im talking about that liminal space that i timestamped. lol
Aaaaahhhh I didn’t know there was a name for this! I’m so excited to learn more about this concept. I’m glad I happened upon this video! Also I literally have had recurring dreams/nightmares for years about creepy, dirty, meandering bathrooms just like the one in the art in this video. So weird!
Me: "2020 couldn't get worse."
Solar: "I'm not really a Gamer."
:'o
;o;
{°ö°}
👁👄👁
I wanted to see him talk about Stanley parable more
I don't why, liminal spaces give me a claustrophobic feeling and really uneasy. Feels like something bad will happen at there.
Me too :( some people enjoy them but i can't see why
@@miss_53 I think it must be about nostalgia. It triggers nostalgic scene for them
@@KookieDanish yeah but it's like bad nostalgia
@@miss_53 yeah same
Yes, I kind of regret clicking this stuff.
Solar: that dark stain in the top left creeps me out
dude chilling on the right: 8:22
Yea I saw that too
No
My stomach dropped when I saw it
Also the fact that the central chamber floor just looks like a big hole...
thought it was a manequin for suits
I have to say the regular liminal space photos make me feel more sad. The fake ones make me feel scared. Also didnt get the transitional thing the first time, but I think you explained it well now, also your insight onto "making your background a character itself" is such a good concept to keep in mind artistically.
i propose a new definition for liminal space: "A place seen, perhaps over and over, that is never considered and formally rememered. A place that is in between the places you really remember."
Airport is full of them.
The new direction you’ve taken with your content is so cool! You seem to have made it more professional, and more video essay-ey but I really enjoy it. Keep it up!
The only true liminal space is the space where Rick Astley gave you up and let you down.
Top 10 anime quotes
True true
Lmao you're right
2:33
Rick Astley - Giving Up On Love
“As an imaginative, carefully instructed liminal spa-“
“BRAND NEW PAW PATROL ON NICK JR!”
9:13 - DAMN YOU SAID IT!
I love this atmosphere you set up in this video and the respect you show to art and artists, not to mention a lot of us artists probably needed to hear that little bit of advice you give towards the end.
So many of us struggle with backgrounds because it requires organizing a composition that fits with the subject. So... yeah, thanks!
I made a short, short animated film while still in art school called "liminal" that was about the transitory moment in your life when you last play with a toy. you dont realize it's significant, but it is...
Link plez
It reminded me how I sometimes contemplate about things that I did for the last time, without realizing then that I'm doing it for the last time
With all my kids I carried them one last time, when really they were too big to be still getting picked up, and tried desperately to commit the experience into memory, I knew it would be the last time I picked them up.
I didn't feel that type of "Nostalgia" with American liminal space but when I found one of Indonsia (my mother's hometown that I haven't visited in 2 years) I felt so sad and nostalgic.
Most of the “liminal space” images on the internet are American architecture, so people who grew up in other countries won’t get as much of a nostalgic or vaguely familiar feeling as Americans because locations in their countries look different.
Also, I realize it’s been almost a year, but whatever.
@@flamthrowr_ anybody can still feel the feeling tho no matter where they are from
@@Julia-sy8be I know, but it's less likely since there won't be feelings of nostalgia associated with those types of buildings.
I would like to find Belgian liminal spaces
@@flamthrowr_ yes except for mall/department store liminal space...
Everyone can feel the same Nostalgic vibes even if you're not American like me because all department store looks and feels the same
The book House of Leaves is essentially an entire horror/suspense novel about a house that produces never ending liminal spaces. Highly recommend it
by who?
@@trashcatt9442 Mark Danielewski is the actual author. But in the context of the story, it's written by Zampano, edited by Johnny Truant.
@@VoidPhantom0917 thank youu!, it will be very interesting to read a book recommended by a stranger in a comment section :3
@@trashcatt9442 it's really good, just finished it myself. If this stuff interests you you'll love it
They are "" "liminal spaces""" in any horror movie.
After I saw the original video I immediately loaded up the Counter-Strike Source Hammer map-making tool and made a Garry's Mod level called cs_liminal which attempted to recreate that sort of thing. I was gonna upload it somewhere but I thought no-one would be interested. Apparently I'm wrong lol
You should put it in on the liminal spaces subreddit!
Put it on gamebanana
@@taylorbritt499 I'll do that if I think on. I've also been thinking of expanding the map to feature more of that kinda stuff, mainly to practice interior design. If I make enough stuff to be worth using, I'll post it on the Steam Workshop.
@Taffi MH any dev texture map
I just realized that the pedestrian tunnels that I am creating in Unity, mostly as a way of practicing with that engine, are exactly this type of thing...
The fact that you sound so uninterested AND still can make all your videos so interesting just AMAZES me.
burger king foot lettuce...
The escalators and entire space where the tethered lived in "Us" terrified me.
"I'm not much of a gamer."
*has Silent Hill music playing in the background*
He put that so beautifully,
"Backgrounds are characters of their own."
I felt that
4:50
I remember playing Gmod as a kid and always being creeped-out by the empty world so I would always spawn NPCs when I would spend a long time building things.
I think the reason liminal spaces are so effective for me is because these pictures bring back memories of things I never stopped to look at before. By definition, liminal spaces are meant to be *transitional*, you are meant to see them only for an instant when passing by; they never consume your mind. Photography is the art of transfixing a moment into a still, unmoving medium, which is meant to be contemplated by the viewer. Cognitive dissonance results from this strange juxtaposition of how I thought about it when I was remembering it, just as a fleeting, unimportant transition, and how I think about it in the photograph, as a memory of a time when I was different, a bringer of nostalgia.
what a beautifully expressed explanation! it totally makes sense
@@thesleepydot i think i was probably on drugs when i wrote that
@@thesleepydot normally im dumb as shit
@@whatno5090 hahahahha
1:14 It may seem contradictory, but not all liminal spaces (at least the ones seen on the internet) don't have to be a transitional place, they can be places that invoke a very strong sense of nostalgia, loneliness and some kind of déjà vu. The photos invoke a dreamlike feeling for apparently 4 factors
1. The place features very common architecture, that makes it look like you have been there, or at least have seen it before;
2. The photo is taken with an old camera or edited to look like it has very low quality which combined with the previous factor, adds to the nostalgic feeling;
3. The moment depicted in the image is a very rare one, when a place usually filled with people becomes empty;
4. Something feels off... combining all the previous 3 factors makes it feel surreal, a memory and a dream at the same time;
I hope I explained it well and didn't make it confusing, you put some weirdcore images in the last video which do feature liminal spaces but as you've said, are highly edited. As someone who loves seeing anything about liminal spaces, it's fun to see people talking about them and their subgenres.
I'm really glad you brought up Edward Hopper because many of the liminal spaces and creations reminded me a lot of his work.
9:05 I've been a fan for a while, and it's nice to see that one of my images happen to end up here
Thats a good liminal space my friend. Definitely get that weird nostalgic vibe
Congratulations!
Nice image; I love the harsh lighting and it really makes me feel much like a photograph of a liminal space.
Me too! I made the image at 4:40
@@digi2542 yo, plug your art accounts if any :0
1:09 That chair again, I find it... intimidating, when I look at that image it instantly triggers my fight or flight for some reason
Exactly! Same for me and I don't know why
the chair is just standing there menacingly
ゴゴゴゴ
I think because of the feeling that you’re about to fall. If you sit in that chair, that’s just in the air, you might fall.
CHAIR IN THE AIR
CHAIR IN THE AIR
CHAIR IN THE AIR
CHAIR IN THE AIR
That art towards the end hit me different. It was absolutely insane. I cant believe how the makers have that inside of them. Fantastic and horrifying at the same time
"It's not about the destination, it's about the journey".
I think Liminal spaces are so interesting, because liminal spaces is what our lives consist mostly of.
True
2:32
Did we just get Rick Rolled by liminal space
Yes
"never gonna give you up at 0.5x speed
Imagine clicking on a link from the metamorphosis girl that leads you to a liminal rickroll
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
I think i got the lyrics right lol
You just got liminal space'd
"exploring a world of vast hostile transitional spaces and architecture that seems inhospitable to humans" bro that's just trying to walk to the corner store in los angeles
Or in Detroit. It sucks your sanity. Can't have shit in Detroit.
😂😂😂😂
Sounds like the movie stalker
The only thing I can remember when I’m looking at fabricated liminal spaces is Courage the Cowardly Dog
VikkiTG SAMEEE
Same and there's also the nostalgia angle with courage the cowardly dog. I personally have many vague memories of random scenes from the show, and they terrify me as much as they did when I first saw them.
Jigsaw puzzles are sometimes like this. Idyllic scenes of a street in a European city by the sea, lots of tables with checkered cloths, food on plates, a steaming coffee cup, a bicycle up against a wall, but not a person in sight. Also ambiance videos on RUclips. I find these scenes comforting but slightly eerie.
Same I enjoy the solitude they invoke. It's soothing.
Cry Of Fear is a game with some fantastically spooky liminal spaces. There's one level in park at nighttime that is SO unsettling. I mean, the whole game is unsettling, but yeah.
Started out with terrible internet art and moved to discussing actual art or small video analyses? I'm here for it and I love it.
I instantly click on few youtube notifications without hesitation very rarely. But with Solar Sands, it is every time with no exception. Brilliant as always, and I'm glad you take what the community says in the comments to heart as you clarify a previous video while still making the concept interesting and fresh for the basis of a completely new video.
@@moqa6638 I feel backstabbed and quite possibly bamboozled
Same here, the only other youtubers who I do that with are probably Brandon Rodgers and GTLive tbh
Solar Sands seems to be teaching me more than my art class
5:00 for those wondering, that is a room underneath a tower in the map gm_construct, except almost completely retextured. And yes Solar, it is a mirror.
Minecraft goes ever deeper in that direction than what you said. There are abandoned mineshafts that are mostly long tunnels, seemingly starding and ending nowhere, strongholds which are mossy, neglected undergroud ruins consisting of long corridors, staircases and rooms seemingly without purpose, nether fortresses which are also mostly long corridors and passages, in a desolate, hellish landscape, and the whole end dimension which looks surreal on its own but is also home to end cities, a mess of corridors and towers.
8:36 I think the most unsettling thing about that picture is that I cant tell if that is a giant hole at the end of the escalators and stairs or just a different part of the floor.
Holy shit. At 7:05 you started talking about paintings and dreams. And well, I think in 8th grade for my art final I actually made one. I have to find it. I remember i wanted to carry the vast and unending effect of my dreams into the painting. The project was to make a surrealist painting.
I found that project to be one of my favorites because I didn’t have to paint anything, but I could also paint everything. I can’t draw people but I also like the effect so idk, I’m glad I found this genre(;
In that painting of the escalators, there looks to be a bald man on the right, perhaps looking down at something in one of the shops. Makes the whole painting that much more eerie.
I was thinking perhaps a mannequin?
To me the stain on the escalator to the right looks like the shadow of a hobo who has slumped down on the metal steps.
The artists names:
Rick Amor (Escalators)
Edward Hopper (the cool ones)
It’s actually really fun to go on a scavenger hunt for liminal spaces. Try it sometime, it’s not actually too hard
You're right. It isn't really. In fact, I have this photo that looks like a liminal space.
Half of my neighborhood are like liminal spaces, especially during the early hours of the day
I've always been unnerved by that large mirror in gmconstruct
The whole thing looks like it could be out of Silent Hill 2 or 3.
The song @ 0:37 is “Six Forty Seven” by Instupendo.
Since I'm Brazillian, these images don't get exactly the same feeling as they probably do on people from countries like the USA. I kind of get it in some images, mostly the most generic ones that are usually from interiors. I already tried searching for "Liminal spaces Brazil" but I got very disappointed when I didn't get anything I was looking for. I think that might apply for many other people out there.
Eu também, e meio que sinto todos os ambientes, oq explica isso?
Happens
I'm not from Brazil, but this concerns me as well: almost all famous liminal spaces videos out there are most appealing for US audience, since the pictures taken or made mostly by the Americans or American creators. I'm not from USA, I'm not familiar with how it feels growing up in the states, so seeing them doesn't make me feel anything most of the time. That's why I decided to make my own liminal spaces video so that people from my country can also enjoy these things lol (sorry for bad English)
@@forgor4410 that's a relief :)
I’m from Germany and I never was in the USA but I still get that feeling. I’ve seen many similar places like that were I live.
I have a huge recurring dreamscape of an infinite mall, an infinite train station / airport, and an infinite parking lot. I wonder why my sleeping brain is so obsessed with them
lol i get what you mean even tho its not the same but my brain is obsessed w making whole ass plot for my dreams and they often have a tragic ending situated in places similar to limilal spaces.
Legit, I like the scenes portrayed in the art you've shown here. Like, I actually find them pleasant, a place i'd like to go and exist in. I think it's the timeless feel each one has- a place without time, but perpetual existence.
yo this is is the best video ever!!!!
Near where I live theres this mall thats nearly abandoned with empty stores with no people yet the lights end escalators are still up and running. People only go there to see movies so thats the only place with people but the rest of the mall looks so creepy.
Sunny Simmons what mall is that? i geniunely wanna go there
@@vinyl6138 its the music city mall in Lewisville TX
Sunny Simmons oh nice! i can go there with like a 1-2 hour drive lol
Sadly, to me it feels like that EVERYWHERE right now, with COVID-19 & everything. ... Here in Los Angeles, our poor malls are just ghost towns, with empty, closed stores, I don't even think any of the anchor stores are currently open. It's sad. So many businesses & small businesses hurt or damaged in irreversible ways, so many great businesses/stores/etc. are closing permanently. ...
Also sports being played with no audience. Great to have them back & be able to watch them again, but VERY strange to see basketball & so forth being played with NOBODY in the stands. Def gives a strange vibe & feeling to it. ... Or like when the Dodger game sold tickets for ppl to attend via proxy by literally placing life-sized cardboard cut-outs of the ppl in the seats. Can't recall if that was a special, one time thing or a regular thing. But SO strange to see. Real life mixed with 2-D.
I have thoroughly enjoyed both videos you have made on this subject.
i feel what adds the most to liminal spaces is a persons personal perspective of the image. I find myself often alone, as i find peace in loneliness and i definitely feel like from an artists perspective, the more accurately one can depict their view of a landscape from this lonely nostalgic space in their mind and recreate it, the more intense the response will be. These liminal spaces i think are viewed as simply "places that give you a indistinguishable feeling" rather than feeling them in the way that some others might. Again, the better a person can recreate the emotion they feel from the image/place/art through whatever means they choose, the more accurately received it will be.
i love that you came back to this subject to touch up on it, i love your content and your mind, Solar Sands. keep thinking and creating the way you do
note to self:
- use the artists mentioned as a refence/ inspiriation for the liminal space project - '"a sombre sunset in a empty room""
- came back to this when starting 3d software projects.
espically the escaltor piece by rick amor
It’s like steam punk! Everyone defines it differently and nobody agrees. 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯
I define it as cool thing with gears
nameless name with a brown gold color palette and lots of top hats
victorian + brass.... there
@@snowykaze robo top hats with steam engines
My understanding is that it’s like if society never discovered how to use electricity like we do, so instead things are often steam powered, but society continued advancing anyway. Because electricity in reality was invented during Victorian times, a lot of the fashion and general aesthetic is inspired by the styles of the Victorian era and the aesthetic of the steam powered machinery they used at the time.
This was in my recommended and I feel like I just stumbled onto a mad scientist/philosphist's video exploring the depths of the surreal nature of the dreams of the human mind
TL;DR: I feel dominated by a big brain dude
If you want even heavier brain domination watch Exurb1a :)
Exurb1a for your daily dose of anxiety
*Mirror's Edge* is the liminal space wonderland for me.
You are meant to transition through the levels as fast as possible. But when you stop and look around...the empty hallways and rooftops, crawl spaces, construction zones - they seem so serene, and uncanny, and strangely beautiful.
The final thought its an interesting one as an artist I totally will take at heart, parapharasing you: "Treat the background not as a chore, but as if it was a character on its own" it changes the way you see it altogether.
One of the most empty and somehow disturbing games is called MechWarrior 3. It's a game that was too advanced for its time and was in a grossly barren and blank world. I still love it.
To me a liminal space is any space where something is missing, like a library with no books or a playroom with no kids. Add some strong saturation and some nostalgia and we're done
Not what the term "liminal" means but go off
@@chrisg1499 It's pretty common for liminal spaces to match that description though since things are usually missing during a transition
@@nahometesfay1112 Some liminal spaces do match that description, but having those attributes does not automatically make those spaces "liminal." This mindset distracts from the meaning of the word. A library is nowhere near as liminal as the temporary Scholastic book fair that's set up and gone in a flash. Really, it should be something you experience in passing (transition)-not a place to which you make dedicated trips throughout your life.
@@chrisg1499 I never said that attribute makes a space liminal just that there was a lot of overlap between the two. I don't think this observation distracts from the meaning of liminal, but bridges the gap between what people think of as liminal spaces and the actual meaning of liminal spaces. While a Scholastic book fair is liminal, a library with no books is IMO more liminal because that implies either that it's a new library that's about to be stocked and opened or an old one that is about to be closed or even destroyed. There may be other explanations, but all of them would represent a major transition for the library. A liminal place doesn't have to always be liminal. In fact, I think the most impactful form of liminal spaces is a place you're very familiar with in the process of irreversible change.
@@chrisg1499
But both scenarios occur in a place you make numerous trips to throughout life. ... The temporary nature of Scholastic book fair & the temporary nature of an empty library both convey transition.
I think that "The Path" a low-key forgotten psychological horror uses passing liminal space in a unique way. You come from chaotic weird foresty chaos to a weirdly empty and familiar house... Which starts to have more and more weird elements with it as you play forward. I really recommend it
I can make almost any space feel liminal to myself by imagining trying to sleep there.
9:18 that captures EXACTLY how I deal with my backgrounds :] I don't really even like drawing characters that much, i enjoy adding them just to give any space more character. the same way I'd add furniture or trees, I add people. and when I want to make a place look lively, I fill it up with them- when I want it to look dead, I take it all out. I absolutely love the analysis done in this video and the one before it
7:02
I have actually been there... I remember driving someplace almost exactly like that that’s creepy
"Liminal Space" sounds like an abstract New Wave horror novel.