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'Backrooms' and the Rise of the Institutional Gothic

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Re: 'Backrooms' and the Rise of the Institutional Gothic

#21

Post by krapp »

breezeTrowel wrote: post #19
stackghost wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Backrooms" don't just come from videogames It's where the concept originated.

The concept did not originate in videogames. The whole thing started from a 4chan post where someone posted a photo of a yellow interior. Then, in 2022, Kane Parsons created a viral YouTube video based on that post. You can see it here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=H4dGpz6cnHo . The video game adaptations all came later. Wikipedia has a good writeup here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Backrooms

I've had dreams like this - I think a lot of people have - where you find yourself trapped in a space, an office or a mall or wherever, one common version seems to be a public bathroom - and you keep moving through an endless maze of doors that lead nowhere.

The article has it wrong, this was a archetype of the human collective unconscious well before 4chan turned it into a meme.

Re: 'Backrooms' and the Rise of the Institutional Gothic

#22

Post by thunderfork »

amiga386 wrote: post #17

The article has a screenshot of the Stanley Parable, but misses an opportunity to reference Control (2019) which is much more directly influenced by the "liminal space" concept, and imagines a non-euclidian space called The Oldest House at 34 Thomas Street (a reference to the brutalist, windowless AT&T Long Lines skyscraper at 33 Thomas Street, New York City). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F74LLDhAhhI It also very…

The Stanley Parable definitely plays with non-euclidean and liminal spaces - the room in the screenshot being one such example.

Re: 'Backrooms' and the Rise of the Institutional Gothic

#23

Post by c-hendricks »

While the Backrooms movie trailer does make it look interesting, "Backrooms" / liminal horror / Skinamarink all have the same effect on me: nothing. I figure the split of people who find it scary vs those that don't is people who can "unscare" themselves.

Like when I go into my basement at night, I can give myself the scare of "what if someone's watching ..." then go "nah" and I'm fine.

Re: 'Backrooms' and the Rise of the Institutional Gothic

#24

Post by busfahrer »

amiga386 wrote: post #17

The article has a screenshot of the Stanley Parable, but misses an opportunity to reference Control (2019) which is much more directly influenced by the "liminal space" concept, and imagines a non-euclidian space called The Oldest House at 34 Thomas Street (a reference to the brutalist, windowless AT&T Long Lines skyscraper at 33 Thomas Street, New York City). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F74LLDhAhhI It also very…

> which is like a typical IKEA, except its maze of twisty passages run to infinity.

For the 4 people on HN who don't know, "maze of twisty passages" is a reference to the this (the?) text adventure game:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave_Adventure

Re: 'Backrooms' and the Rise of the Institutional Gothic

#25

Post by bryanrasmussen »

c-hendricks wrote: post #23

While the Backrooms movie trailer does make it look interesting, "Backrooms" / liminal horror / Skinamarink all have the same effect on me: nothing. I figure the split of people who find it scary vs those that don't is people who can "unscare" themselves. Like when I go into my basement at night, I can give myself the scare of "what if someone's watching ..." then go "nah" and I'm fine.

that's definitely how they get you.

Re: 'Backrooms' and the Rise of the Institutional Gothic

#26

Post by albedoa »

stackghost wrote: post #18
WorldMaker wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Backrooms" don't just come from videogames. They are meant to represent liminal spaces like "endless" cubical farms and conference rooms and the back offices of movie studios or any other modern business. (Even the idea that on the backside of the cool theme park structure that seems so otherworldly is just a couple of boring janitor's closets and hallways for staff/crew to navigate between shifts.) The videogames b…

>"Backrooms" don't just come from videogames It's where the concept originated.

It is not where the concept originated.

Re: 'Backrooms' and the Rise of the Institutional Gothic

#28

Post by wincy »

c-hendricks wrote: post #23

While the Backrooms movie trailer does make it look interesting, "Backrooms" / liminal horror / Skinamarink all have the same effect on me: nothing. I figure the split of people who find it scary vs those that don't is people who can "unscare" themselves. Like when I go into my basement at night, I can give myself the scare of "what if someone's watching ..." then go "nah" and I'm fine.

I think it’s degrees, can you open a door halfway and stick your hand into a dark room without feeling creeped out? What if instead that liminal space is the temple in Indiana Jones and you’ve seen big spiders crawling around? It’s a fear of the unknown and we’re all tuned a little differently, I think we can all evoke this feeling it just takes more or less depending on the person and how much knowledge you have about the environment.

I worked at a Target in an old mall and there was a corporate office in the basement that had been abandoned years before due to black mold. I was responsible for doing a once a week check, just making sure nobody had been down there, that place majorly creeped me out even though I had the key and had a high degree of confidence nobody else was going to be down there. Also “black mold” evokes an image of a creeping horror even though rationally I know just going down there once a week isn’t going to give me some horrible respiratory illness.

Re: 'Backrooms' and the Rise of the Institutional Gothic

#29

Post by wishfish »

nkrisc wrote: post #8

I don’t really get the nostalgia angle as it seems as many of those who are into this kind of thing are too young to have ever been in such a space, let alone worked in one. I’ve worked in a place like this that was well past its prime and though uncanny, it’s certainly not creepy. The illusion of infinitely twisting, identical corridors simply doesn’t hold up when you’re actually in a space like this, but only works…

Day vs. Night are what makes the difference. The sprawling suburban office complex from the 70s was, like you said, just boring and a bit oppressive during the day. At night though, a sea of cubicles. Endless hallways. Nothing but blackness outside the windows. Lights are all on motion detectors so only your area is lit. And only lit for a time. Eventually you'd have to stand up to make the lights switch back on. And when you do, you look over the fields of cubes to see a shadowy figure slowly slump its way across the room. Headed vaguely in your direction but never quite reaching you. You think it's Mark from Accounting, but you'll never know for certain.

For me, I've always called it the "school at night" phenomenon. The horror, or unsettling feeling, one gets from seeing a place at night that's usually only seen in the day. Had that constantly as a kid when going to school at night for performances or teacher meetings. A place bright and loud that's now quiet and dark. You know where everything is, but it all seems like it's just an inch or two out of place.

Re: 'Backrooms' and the Rise of the Institutional Gothic

#30

Post by pavel_lishin »

c-hendricks wrote: post #23

While the Backrooms movie trailer does make it look interesting, "Backrooms" / liminal horror / Skinamarink all have the same effect on me: nothing. I figure the split of people who find it scary vs those that don't is people who can "unscare" themselves. Like when I go into my basement at night, I can give myself the scare of "what if someone's watching ..." then go "nah" and I'm fine.

I'm not sure if it's even meant to be scary. I think of the Backrooms as closer to the world of Piranesi, or the project that took a bunch of virtual-tours of apartments for rent, and aggregrated them all into a single mega-building.
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