Fake Liminal Spaces

in my previous video on liminal spaces i briefly mentioned this image it was only after the video was uploaded that the original creator contacted me on twitter and showed me that the image i thought was a real photo of some dilapidated storage complex was actually a 3d model with some filters it got me thinking about the quantity and power of fake liminal spaces in my last video i knowingly included some obviously fabricated liminal space images but i never really dove deep into them even though the intro at the beginning included a 3d model of a liminal space by my own design from video games to edits to paintings let's explore some of the many fake liminal spaces out there [Music] the first thing i want to get out of the way is a little addendum to my last video i may have gotten carried away with the types of images i included in some cases i didn't really consider if some images included a transitional space or not and just put them in there because i saw them on the subreddit and i thought they looked cool or nostalgic like would you call this a transitional space it might feel transitional in the grand tapestry of your life but it's not physically designed to be transitional what about this one maybe maybe not but i think this kind of confused people and it seemed after the video some people got the impression that liminal spaces just mean nostalgic and creepy places when it's much more about transitional spaces i could argue that some images i included feel transitional for example this house i showed when i described my feelings about it i specifically mentioned it reminded me of something on a road trip and not as a destination this transitional quality is also hinted at by the composition where the house is not framed as the destination but rather an object being passed by in pictures of empty houses as another example usually the context is that you're passing through them to either buy or move away and only until furniture is added does it become a place you regularly inhabit but i should have made clear this distinction between emotional and physical liminal spaces defining liminal space precisely has proven difficult because it's not supposed to be precise in my video i tried to give my own definition for the video saying it's a transitional space that is unsettling and while it kind of works for those specific images ultimately i think that definition is reductive and narrow the liminal space subreddit has a quote saying a liminal space is the time between the what was and what's next a place of transition waiting and not knowing in their post-flare system it describes classic liminal as places of transition where limited time is spent hallways airports etc this quality of transition also coincides with google's and wikipedia's definition of liminal and liminality so liminal spaces can definitely include most of the spaces shown in the previous video and this one but i need to make clear that they are not exclusively those types of creepy nostalgic or out of their design context transitional spaces although those do seem to be hallmarks that people associate with liminal spaces regardless in all these definitions there is an emphasis on transitional and that should really be the greatest factor in determining what is and isn't a liminal space there are many different categories of fake liminal spaces including video games digital collages paintings and plain 3d models fake liminal spaces have an advantage of greater potential over real life spaces they can be customized exaggerated or distorted in ways that are impossible in real life and so can have even more potential disorienting effects in the digital collages i mentioned people can take multiple familiar elements and combine them into a transitional image of even greater nostalgic power video games as a whole may have the most potential for liminal spaces out of any other medium 3d worlds can be endlessly edited and remixed for any desired effect and it's not too difficult to find areas or entire games without npcs or other players to really give focus to that transitional space games like minecraft have the potential for people to literally build liminal spaces and customize them in any way and with the benefit of added nostalgia for many people in this generation it's not too difficult to produce an emotional response in some cases like the one i mistook for a real location virtual liminal spaces can be rendered very realistically and passed off as a real place because of the lack of people sometimes it's hard to tell whether an image is supposedly of a real location minecraft with advanced shaders might be able to fool people the same way some have also pointed out how other sandbox games like gary's mod with its more realistic textures and uncanny modeling are ripe for eerie liminal spaces one of my favorite posts from the game is this huge room with repetitive ornate textures and what looks like an enormous mirror although it's hard to tell if it really is one as it seems to be reflecting the player but this right wall doesn't seem to continue on regardless the visual of an enormous vacant space with this illogical single step is produced in the video game ns the entire premise is exploring a world full of vast hostile transitional spaces and architecture that seems inhospitable for human travelers the manga blom has a very similar premise the 10 volume work follows the stoic character kili as he traverses these vast megastructures all the while searching for net terminal genes jacob geller's video on gaming's harshest architecture goes into more detail on both and i would highly recommend it that's all i'll say about them for now at some point in the future i want to do a video that goes into far more detail but if you enjoy the concept of liminal spaces you'll probably enjoy these although that additional effect of vague familiarity is nowhere to be seen in these harsh fictional environments many people mentioned after the last video how the stanley parable is basically a liminal space video game full of offices and hallways the player endlessly traverses i've likely only scratched the surface of video game liminal spaces but this video doesn't need to be an hour long and unfortunately i'm not much of a gamer so i'm just going to be moving on digital edits i touched on a bit in the last video already however while these might evoke some dreams you might have had because of their obvious distortions this photo was made to try and recreate a specific dream my favorite part of this photo is the dark smudge in the middle blocking the receding lines as if their brain is purposefully adding black fog to block something they aren't supposed to see when i asked for artists that produce images similar to those in the video i got many different answers jeffrey smart is a new favorite of mine their masterful combination of urban elements uncanny elements and unusual compositions really summarizes the essence of many strangely familiar liminal space images giorgio de kiriko the italian metaphysical painter is someone whose works profoundly influenced surrealism he painted many sparse spaces full of roman arcades extreme distorted perspective mannequins and strong dramatic shadows from the late afternoon considering the amount of ancient architecture left in europe i think it's plausible this kind of architecture was nostalgic for the painter in the same way leftover 80s architecture may be for younger modern americans many elements in his paintings were in fact influenced by the things he saw and experienced in childhood in 1909 he once wrote that metaphysical art combined everyday reality with mythology and evoked inexplicable moods of nostalgia tense expectation and estrangement one such early painting is even titled the anxious journey which is a great description of many liminal spaces and how could i forget about edward hopper and his paintings of urban and rural uniquely american buildings often populated with a single contemplative figure even with scenes that should feel comforting the lack of people and overall sense of desolation conveyed in the barren skies and stretching landscapes are kind of haunting rick amore also has made paintings in the same vein but there is one in particular that speaks to me this painting of escalators is also truly unsettling the low light in this area makes the whole space feel underground and claustrophobic the shopping windows don't display any recognizable products but are instead filled with a sickly yellow light the way the top of the escalator is hidden from view and the last thing you see before it's cut off is this inexplicable dark stain in the upper left corner fills me with dread for what's to come what i found amusing after my last liminal space video is that i was even tagged in some liminal space inspired art i quite like this drawing with its illogical doorways and floor covered in strange overlapping tubes as a subject matter liminal spaces can provide many opportunities for art their usually uncanny qualities are ripe to be represented and remixed there's this popular meme in the art community that many artists hate drawing backgrounds and much prefer to draw characters but what if artists approach backgrounds differently not as chores that have to be completed to give your character some context but as characters themselves i think i have proven many times over that empty backgrounds and liminal spaces can have significant emotional impacts and can tell a story in this way settings are personified they can be eerie or threatening comforting or nostalgic a setting doesn't have to be some grand cyberpunk city to be interesting or emotionally resonant it can be as simple as a decaying hallway as a room with regular architecture as an imaginative carefully constructed liminal space [Music] you

Channel: Solar Sands

Views: 723,186

Rating: 4.9760022 out of 5

Keywords: Solar Sands, Liminal Spaces, Strangely Familiar, Videogames, Minecraft, Naissancee, BLAME, Weird, Cerebral, Liminal, Photos that feel strangely familiar

Id: u_dRqMDgdp8

Length: 10min 15sec (615 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 01 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Draconiac3489]

the sequel we wanted, but didn't deserve

[u/hento-menti]

hm i wonder who made that image. w-wait-

[u/furry_b0i]

im glad he did this, because i felt like the sub got worse after he made his video. although i like solar sands, and the video he made overall, i felt like there were too many new people who didnt fully understand what an actual liminal space was