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How liminalism became the defining aesthetic
101–110 of 117 posts
Re: How liminalism became the defining aesthetic
#102I know the trend from the LiminalSpace subreddit. It's nice to scroll through, peaceful yet slightly unsettling. But I think a lot of that effect comes less from the physical "in-between-ness" of the spaces and more from the fact that they are places you would expect to have people, but which don't. The article notes this but only in passing. You never see a photo of a busy corridor, for example. They are always empt…
I don't think "no people" should be seen as a hard rule. The Hopper paintings mentioned in the article, for instance, usually have a few people in them, and yet he's clearly aiming for the same thing as modern liminal spaces pictures and achieving it. Hopper paintings have only become more unsettling with time, because they feel so modern, like that was yesterday, when you know that objectively it was over 100 years ago.
Re: How liminalism became the defining aesthetic
#103I know the trend from the LiminalSpace subreddit. It's nice to scroll through, peaceful yet slightly unsettling. But I think a lot of that effect comes less from the physical "in-between-ness" of the spaces and more from the fact that they are places you would expect to have people, but which don't. The article notes this but only in passing. You never see a photo of a busy corridor, for example. They are always empt…
Maybe I'm slightly projecting my European sensitivities here, but I think there is more going on there than just the emptiness. There is a common theme that the spaces depicted are, on their own, quite unpleasant (barren, made from flimsy materials, probably emitting some amount of toxic fumes); it's just that this unpleasantness is normally masked by their human use and interpretation, which invariably some form of…
I think that's narrowing it too much. Edward Hopper's "Sunday Morning" evokes the same feeling with me - the feeling of something that just was there, that we passed through without paying much attention to it at the time, but which we now remember.
Maybe you wouldn't have that feeling about a beautiful old European town, but I bet some of the people living there would.
Re: How liminalism became the defining aesthetic
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
I get and agree with what youre saying. Its the combination of capitalism and lowest bidder architecture that is alienating to humans. And if humans are present, makes the space tolerable. Remove the humans, and the space is off-putting, eerie and has a sense of dread. And yeah, brutalism (usage of concrete as primary architecture) is also seen in the USA. And frankly, most of the buildings feel like prisons, and not…
It's unfashionable but I still love brutalist architecture. It feels stable, like it would still be there whether it had people in it or not. Like living in a cave.
Maybe it feels that way, but that's an illusion, then. The things are often haunted by poor decisions taken when they were built and take a ton of maintenance. Concrete isn't as maintenance-free as it seems!
Re: How liminalism became the defining aesthetic
#105The thing that introduced me to the aesthetics of liminal spaces was a video about the DOOM mod "MyHouse.WAD"[0], it's a technical fascination as much as it is an aesthetic one. There is no mention of it in the article, despite 18M views on YouTube. It was inspired by the novel House of Leaves [1], released in 2000, which "redefined modern horror". I think that aesthetic follows a natural progression from creepypasta…
MyHouse.WAD is a genuine work of art. Anybody who is even tangentially interested in video games as an artistic medium should look into it, because it really is astounding.
Re: How liminalism became the defining aesthetic
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
This sounds like the chip on your shoulder rather than anything about the article.
Not at all. Ive also purchased and commissioned a few pieces of art. And I find that with actual artists, they ARE very approachable and dont have the Art Critic vibe of 'better than you'. Its primarily the art literature and critics whom portray this haughty and 'holier than thou' types of one way conversations. My SO works for a art museum, and they constantly fight with those types as well. When their museum hosts…
It is always the middle men that ruin everything, even in art.
Re: How liminalism became the defining aesthetic
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not voovoo. Tested, works. Used by Lynch and Dali to inspire dreamlike works. Used by Edison to aid solving complex problems https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/thomas-edisons-na... Studies showed better math solving after hypnogagia state: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8654287/ https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abj5866
Did you even read beyond the my second paragraph?
No
Re: How liminalism became the defining aesthetic
#108Re: How liminalism became the defining aesthetic
#109> The image exemplifies the popular internet aesthetic of “liminality”: the exploration of spaces that appear “in between,” that are uncanny and uncomfortable despite being mundane or familiar. Liminal in the context of liminal dreaming has very different emotional connotations. Liminal dreaming is the state where you are beginning to fall asleep but are not quite there (hence liminal because you're on the border bet…
Liminal dreaming. Ain’t never heard that before, sounds like pseudoscience woo-woo to me. The proper term is hypnagogia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia
Liminal Dreaming feels a lot more evocative of the state even if the psychologists want to call it hypnagogia.
Re: How liminalism became the defining aesthetic
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is definitely that. But the art critics also use very loaded terms and such to also confuse any discussion. That language is also used to identify the 'in' crowd too. Examples: "Emptied of stores and absent of humans, Columbus’s photograph captures the melancholic discomfort of liminal aesthetics — the strange, simultaneous pull of disquiet and nostalgia that makes this bottom-up, crowd-curated digital movement am…
I studied art up to the first year of university, until discovering that academically, it wasn't for me. Family friends were also working artists (and one cartoonist!), so I'm not unfamiliar with the world. There's plenty of art criticism and analysis that I can get on board with. But the "liminal" craze seems like just that to me: a fad that appeals to some people because of its mysteriousness, and so on. It has no…
You do get the feeling that someone is trying to sell you an NFT, or something very similar but maybe classier or something.
The phenomenon isn't interesting for being a phenomenon. I agree with that. But I do like many of the pictures.