User:Alessia/liminal

I am using Liminal Landscapes Travel, Experience and Spaces in-between as a starting point for my own notes about liminal spaces. Almost everything here will be in a way a summary of that book, poisoned by my own thoughts and some random stuff I found around

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Space vs Place

Each culture defines the concepts of space and place in a unique way. They take on almost fluid forms, taking the shape of the context in which they are applied like water in a container.
Space is multidimensional. It’s typically understood in terms of direction, volume, and distance, sp with a strong mathematical character, an abstract form.
Instead Place is much more relative, connected to a more personal perception and subjective experience of the world. A place holds significance, identity. Places are where people live and interact, making them rich with cultural and social meanings.
When thinking about space in a much more conceptual aspect, George Simmel is the first one popping up. Simmel worked on conceptualising space from a sociological point of view, being focused on its materiality and spatiality rather than treating it as a non material concept.
He explored how space shapes social relations and individual experiences around cities, markets, and how they function as hubs for social interactions connected to the negotiation of power between individuals.
A key point of Simmel’s theory is spatial differentiation. He argued that different social groups and individuals perceive and use space in different ways, always reflecting their own social status, cultural backgrounds, and personal identities. This differentiation can lead to spatial hierarchies and segregation.
Simmel emphasised that space is not static but constantly shaped by human activities.

Following these studies, Doreen Massey rethought the concept of space while calling attention to how spatial relations between people, cities, and actions are the main point of focus to understand power structures. She describes space as "unfixed, contested, and multiple," showing that places are dynamic, in a constant evolutionary state. Massey's perspective can be aligned with the ecological idea of the earth as a single breathing organism, which can be maybe understood as fractal in a sense, because of its interconnectedness.

Keith Basso introduces an interesting concept, interanimation, a process where people and places engage in an ecological relationship, creating a unique web of meaning. This dynamic that builds space make places seem alive even in the wildest stillness.

_ E un'immagine che descrive il processo di interanimation durante il quale il paesaggio geografico si sovrappone a quello mentale nel momento in cui un luogo viene sentito (sensed) in maniera attiva (107). "Un'oscura sete". Natura nella Milano di Milo De Angelis _

Transformation, Non-places, Deterritorialisation

Spaces become places when people use them and create a culture around that use, like a school or a bank. In modern societies the anthropologist Marc Augé called them "non-places", urban leftovers that sit between places. And so we all constantly transition from place to place, slipping through unseen non-places. Train stations, airports, and waiting rooms are great examples of non-places, places that are stripped of culture and interpersonal interactions.

J. Nicholas Entrikin, geographer, divides place into objective and subjective, fundamental aspects to be taken into account to understand liminality of spaces. He calls the betweenness of places the meeting point of subjective and objective space.

Henri Lefebvre, the marxist sociologist, challenged the classical binary interpretation of space, proposing the concept of "thirdspace," which connects spaces of living and spaces of leisure. To him a place is a physical and social landscape filled with meaning through everyday social practices, working across different spatial and temporal planes, it’s neither home nor workspace, nor space of sociality. That space we transit in, an hybrid, then what is the difference between a thirdspace and a non-place?

Deterritorialisation by Deleuze and Guattari.
When referring to culture, anthropologists use the term deterritorialized to refer to a weakening of ties between culture and place. This means the removal of cultural subjects and objects from a certain location in space and time.[9] It implies that certain cultural aspects tend to transcend specific territorial boundaries in a world that consists of things fundamentally in motion.

How to encounter a place, ecosystem

Massey describes places as constellations of trajectories, highlighting their porous, sponge nature. She argues against establishing severe boundaries or identities to places, as this can lead to nationalistic or attitudes. Instead, places should be seen for her as dynamic networks of events, constantly being reshaped.

To truly encounter a place, we must recognise that we are part of it. Throwntogetherness, actively participating and leaving traces that contribute to its ongoing form, narrative. Emmanuel Levinas' writings and the holistic, ecological, approach of deep ecology on humankind as an interlocking web of changing relations, offer a framework for the ethical engagement approach that some sociologists and geographers took inspiration from. This involves developing self reflection, awareness, getting almost to anthropomorphizing a place, to observing its behaviour thoughtfully, empathetically.

So, while being a complicated and unfixed set of networks, a place might also have the capacity to remember, to hold traces of past activities, in the loosest sense. While it remembers, it does not necessarily do this in a human way. The memory of place may then be thought of as fluid, transitory, and open-ended, activated only by those who pass through.

Place-specific art

Lucy Lippard, american writer and art critic, defines place-specific art as art governed by a place ethic, accentuating its location rather than just occupying, using it.
Examples of contemporary works that are place specific in Lippard’s sense:

• John Newling’s 2010 Root Zone and Local History. https://www.john-newling.com/street-works
• Lucy Harrison, how we experience place, memory, location, Remains project
• Roger Hiorns Seizure installation, he filled a council flat in elephant and castle with copper sulphate solution and then rained it
• Wrights and Sites’ Wonders of Weston 2010 Everything you need to build a town in here, 41 signs scattered across a variety of locations https://www.situations.org.uk/projects/wonders-of-weston/

http://www.mis-guide.com/
http://www.mis-guide.com/ws/people.html#phil
The metal plaques appear without explanation and offer instructions, observations or comments, which are designed to encourage the reader to somehow engage with their immediate vicinity by way of real or imagined actions. At the Old Town Quarry, which the artists describe as the keystore site for the series, there is a map and description of the project in its entirety. Not only does the work lead the visitor (tourist and resident alike) to unexpected places, but it also highlights the layering of historical and contemporary stories and associations that surround us everywhere

Counter-Tourism and site writing

Counter-tourism and site writing are great alternative perspectives on living with/in/against places, disrupting traditional tourist routes and attractions, encouraging deeper exploration of the experiential character of a location. Smith’s tours aim to reveal hidden layers of a place, inviting participants to engage with the urban landscape in unexpected ways.

Phil Smith, a member of the artistic collective Wrights & Sites, is an important figure in the world of counter-tourism and mythogeography (probably the main intellectual writing about these concepts).
His works, including "Counter-Tourism: The Handbook" and "Mythogeography," bibles for unconventional wandering into urban spaces.

Jane Rendell’s concept of "site writing" emphasises even more the role of narrative and personal engagement in encountering places. Her researches focus on everything concerning situatedness and site-specificity, exploring how writing can intersect with the experiential aspects of a space.

Landscape of the margin, haunted, rotting

Landscape refers to the visible features of an area of land, including its physical natural elements as well as all human made things such as houses, roads, and cultivated lands. Landscape unite both natural and human altered environments, it’s like space, but not abstract :).
Landscape as something that can be shaped, produced, influenced on human or natural actions and processes. As they are in a constant state of transition landscapes themself are intrinsically liminal.
Liminal landscape ad the one that are shabby, desolate, marginal, abandoned have been embraced in popular culture, mainly within subcultures thriving on the web, tied to urbex culture mania, thirsty for that sublime decay that permeate ruins, industrial abandoned sites, degraded lands, ‘dead zones’.

Da cool cinematic experience: Tarkovsky
Tarkovsky is the artist of spiritual and emotional decay on screen. Long takes, deep focus cinematography, and an evocative sound design that mixes natural sounds with snippets of music and dialogue. Tarkovsky's films are known for their immersive and deeply symbolic presentation of liminal spaces, which blur the lines between reality and the subconscious. The Stalker is one of the masterpiece of Tarkovsky and is probably one of the best example of employing liminality both visually and thematically. The Stalker, so the guide is itself a liminal figure, suspended between two worlds, being the spiritual, almost shamanic figure that helps the others fulfilling their transformation.
https://api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400.9781136134364_A23812945/preview-9781136134364_A23812945.pdf

Shield's discussion about places on the margin is quite interesting. He focuses on margin and peripheries of Britain, exposing the image and stigma connected to marginality, the central role of “spatialisation” to cultures and national states. He followed the intimate link of the concept of space and the categorisation of practises and modes of social interaction connected to the so called “Low culture”.
Drawing on Orientalism, by Said, Shield highlights the concept of symbolic exclusion elucidating how the West employed strategies of "positional superiority" to assert dominance over marginalised groups, inside itself and outside through colonisation. Shield also references Strallybrass and White to show the eroticisation, fantasization and still repulsion of the top society to the low Other. This could be translated in a lot of ways, through different contexts.

Liminal landscapes are tinged with death, connected to transformation and processes of becoming, and with entropy,with its liminal flux made up of organic forms flowing and propagating, as into a body the vascular system branches out. Lichenous, constantly rotting. Entropy as radical impermanence.

The proliferation and celebration of liminal spatiality has become connected to the commercialization and intensifying social and political control of exactly such spaces, annulling their transformative potential while flattening our mental and physical landscapes. It is also this process that, far from deleting the playful and carnivalesque from the modern world, actually turns the world itself into a permanent carnival. This involves, as pointed out by Andrews (2009), a constant but often hopeless search for 'experience' (could it be connected to core??). In a world where an increasing number of people are in constant search for excitement and stimulation of the senses, boredom is always lurking around the corner. A carnival that never ends stops being fun; it turns into a mechanical role play. Liminality cannot and should not be considered an end point or a desirable state of being; when this happens, creativity and freedom lose their existential basis and turn into its opposites: boredom and a sense of imprisonment.

we need to turn to the concreteness of lived space

Mapping, navigating, regulations

How is then possible to navigate liminal spaces? Is there any different approach we could have on mapping liminal spaces? What are the mechanics and processes by which liminalities work or function in relation to landscape? What are the temporal geographies of liminal landscapes? What are the politics of liminal landscapes?

Liminal spaces, in military and territorial contexts, go against the traditional methods of control and mapping. Unlike conventional landscapes liminal spaces cannot be controlled or commanded in the same way. Instead, what they must be "invoked" (Moore, R.L. (1991) ‘Ritual, Sacred Space, and Healing: the Psychoanalyst as Ritual Elder’). This shows a more ritualistic approach to navigating liminal spaces, that indeed demands a different kind of knowledge, one derived not just from maps or commands but from direct engagement and ritualistic practices. Maps are a no no.
The liminal landscape of the border zone, for example, operates beyond laws and logic, challenging typical forms of knowledge. It creates conditions of urgency, emergency, necessitating the cultivation of a diy anarchic approach?
In such liminal spaces, where nothing moves while still changing, wanderers can lose sight of their path, even if that is a familiar terrain, highlighting the disorienting nature of these kind of spaces.
Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.

Van Gennep talks a bit about “territorial passage” in the past accompanied by various formalities that ranged from political, legal to those of a more magic religious type. Our contemporary neoliberal landscape is not even borderless as it sell itself. Mobility remains a privilege as it always was, accessible to some denied to many. Borders and restrictions continue to shape the movement of people, echoing the structured and ritualised passages of earlier times but within a modern framework of control and regulation.

Political, legal and economic formalities are now as likely to be used to prevent the free movement of a person from one place to another. Mediterranean sea, visas, migration policies.

Danger, unbelonging, the border

Never before in the history of the world have non-places occupied so much space. (Benko and Strohmayer 1997: 23)
Anything is now liminal?

the visa state of suspence, liminal state
Inhabiting the neutral zone between one territorialized state and another

To me this just feel as a privileged approach: Rogoff argues that "unbelonging" is not about feeling lost or lacking something, but rather about a deliberate, ongoing process of detachment to make way for new possibilities. She calls for an active form of "unbelonging," not as marginalization or rebellion, nor as a way of dropping out, but as a refusal to accept the terms and implications that become normalised in this kind of discourses.
I might have not fully understand her point.
To me unbelonging is most of the time an act that the individual is not fully conscious about, nor involved in, it’s something comes from the outside world, that digs into the consciousness of a person and sediment, in a way that just unbelonging becomes naturalised. To me that cannot be a choice, unbelonging as a choice is still belong to an idea, a movement at least.

The Border is a traditional landscape of transition, now it mirrors the global landscape shaped by global capital. The modern hyperconnected landscape is a constant flux of transition, embodying a state of perpetual liminality. The current era is characterised by an enduring of indeterminacy (still, why is that negative, as it is the most natural form of reality?), disorientation and limbo.
Bauman's concept of liquid modernity or liquid life encapsulates this condition where everything is disposable and perpetually in motion.

In fact, Turner notes how the turbulence and ‘topsy- turvy-dom’ of liminality was often used to reinforce stability in the post- liminal phase, where ‘reversal underlines to the members of a community that chaos is the alternative to cosmos, so they’d better stick to cosmos’ (Turner 1982: 41)
Modernity itself is a kind of permanent liminality: a continuous testing, a constant search for self-overcoming, an incessant breaking down of traditional boundaries, and an existential sense of alienation and loss of being-at-home that in the modern episteme establishes itself as normality (Szakolczai)

Liminality

Between-ness is the core concept of liminality.
Liminality, "limen”, threshold, the concept of being in-between, partially belonging to two worlds while not wholly fitting into either. A transitional metaphor.
Liminal spaces are related to the uses and practices of space in constructions of identity, particularly in the context of contemporary approaches to the study of space, place and mobility. Experiential landscapes associated with mobilities, such as border zones and transitional spaces, serve as fertile ground for exploring the ritual, performative, and embodied geographies that shape individual and communities’ identities. The emotional response to such spaces is where liminality truly manifests. It feels both otherworldly and familiar simultaneously. They possess an unsettling familiarity, feeling both open yet enclosed, safe yet unsettling, and artificial yet natural.
It is not one or the other but both at the same time and can be hard to describe because we want to describe it as only one of those things because the other contradicts it.

Liminal spaces are usually associated with a sense of discomfort. They feel frozen in time, mere husks that spell whispers of their own past. They are impersonal, surreal, part of an altered reality, ambiguous, they are perceived as deviations from the norm.

Humanity leaves behind places that are no longer relevant.
Places get their energy just by life being in them, they get alive by you being there. A space that is empty will collapse into a frozen condition and begin to deteriorate.

Liminal spaces evoke nostalgia because they lack specific details, allowing people to connect with them personally. You don't remember the specifics of every place you've been, but when you encounter an image of such a space, you try to associate it with your own experiences. This lack of detail is a key characteristic of liminal spaces, making them universally relatable and familiar in our hyperconnected world.
Liminal spaces, such as supermarkets, have similar structures across different countries, reinforcing this sense of universal familiarity.
Liminal spaces' features often include hyper-artificial elements, like plastic, old carpets, and the buzz of neon lights. These spaces can trigger repressed memories, often bringing childhood to mind. Searching for liminal spaces online frequently reveals images of places from childhood, blending nostalgia for the past with the realization that these moments will never be reclaimed.

In rethinking ideas of the liminal, even in an anthropological and sociological sense, it’s possible to uncover contemporary issues surrounding technology, surveillance and power structures, as well as postcolonialism overlooked dynamics.

'if these wall could talk they would say nothing'

Uncanny Valley

One of the concept that most of the time is associated with liminality is the "uncanny valley"
it's a fascinating concept often discussed in relation to human interaction with humanoid robots or computer generated characters, it concern the emotional response that this interaction evokes. Usually this emotional response appears as of an unsettling effect.
Masahiro Mori, a japanese roboticist proposed this concept in the '70. He proposed that as robots become more human like, there's a point where they appear almost, but not quite, human, which causes a negative emotional reaction in humans. This is because the slight imperfections or deviations from human appearance and behavior become more noticeable and unsettling as the resemblance increases.
The phenomenon has important implications for robotics, animation, and virtual reality, where artists and designers that want to create human like experiences must navigate through a delicate balance to avoid triggering discomfort in users.

When something is too different from what we're accustomed to, it can be easily dismissed as unrealistic or fantastical. However, when something comes very close to reality but has slight imperfections or deviations, it disrupts our expectations and can evoke a strong negative reaction. This is because our brains are constantly comparing incoming sensory information with stored patterns of what we consider normal or familiar.

• A parrot in an uncanney valley situation
• Cats, the live action💥, wasn't really appreciated
• The Sonic Movie, less "terrifying" CGI Hedgehog after internet meltdown

The concept of "uncanny valley" can easily be applied to spaces as well. One of the most common example of uncanney valley liminal spaces are abandoned buildings, places with a sense of mystery that can definitely evoke feelings of dread and creepiness. This happens because of various factors, like an increased informational entropy (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361850311_Structural_deviations_drive_an_uncanny_valley_of_physical_places, elaborate!) or lack of enviromental information?
When we enter an unfamiliar or abandoned space, our brains may struggle to make sense of the surroundings because they lack the contextual information we typically rely on to assess safety and predict outcomes.
Our perception of creepiness in environments is a complex web of sensory inputs, cognitive processing, and emotional responses. It's fascinating how our minds react to environmental cues in ways that shape our experiences of space and place.

The pillars of liminal space:

• Disgust
• Ambiguity
• Lighting and occlusion
• Social presence or absence

Places that seem to be designed without purpose or function are often referred to as liminal. My stance is that this interpretation of liminal spaces is connected with the productivity mania instilled by capitalism. We are conditioned to be concerned with the usefulness of spaces, and when a place is not used in the "right way," it appears "messy" and its unclear purpose becomes problematic. We then start perceiving it as something to be eradicated or as a creepy space we don't want to be associated with. Additionally, we may believe that such spaces are affiliated with unproductive individuals, reinforcing the (un)conscious discomfort.

Liminal spaces and media

Liminal horror
The Backrooms is a video creepypasta derived from a simple 4chan post (here the original thread), depicting a trap-like, maze-like, yellow prison.
Horror typically places a monster in an unexpected location, but liminal spaces build tension through ambiguity. Being in a liminal space, where you feel you shouldn't be, makes you anticipate the possibility of encountering someone or something, causing you to doubt yourself and the reality of the space. This creates a slow-burn terror, with no relief because you can't identify a clear threat. The uncertainty makes your brain start to hallucinate potential dangers.
From Kane Pixels' videos, the concept of liminality outgrew its original context, becoming a mainstream aesthetic phenomenon. The backrooms evolved from a simple concept into a rich source of internet creativity. Thousands were the interpretations of backrooms and countless were the entities and monsters that were created to live in them. A lore was born. The connection between the Backrooms and the stucture of "levels", take inspiration from video games.
The popularity of backrooms and liminal spaces spread during the covid pandemic, which is probably not a coincidence. People felt as though they were living in a liminal spaces, zone, without a clear sense of the future, floating in uncertainty.

Liminal spaces and the state of constant change are two sides of the same coin, reminding us to seek comfort in transition. Life can be seen as a liminal space between birth and death.

• Kane Pixel's, the backroom, video frame
• typical tier list of "levels"
• surviving becomes the main aspect of backroom exploration, losing the liminal character

Cinema
In "American Psycho," the liminality of light plays a significant role. Patrick Bateman struggles to escape the liminal nature of life itself. He seeks recognition from others to affirm his identity. Despite being a murderer, without others believing it, he cannot fully embody that identity. It's akin to a Schrödinger's cat situation—his status as a murderer is both confirmed and denied simultaneously. Without a validation from outside he doesn't know who he is. This lack of recognition plunges Bateman deeper into despair, even after he admits to his crimes. The uncertainty surrounding his identity and actions contributes to his existential crisis, highlighting the liminal nature of his world.

Photography
When we think of liminality, it's easy to find online images of hallways, bridges, mazes, and artificial environments like indoor playgrounds, malls, and various types of stations. Even abandoned places fit neatly into the digital depiction of liminality. The feeling of alteration often experienced when viewing a photo of a liminal space stems from the fact that it has been taken out of its original context.
Some popular photos of liminal spaces:

• Holiday Inn at terminal 4 of Heathrow Airport, London
• Asep Stroberi Kadungora, Jawa Barat, Indonesia
• Lantern of Madison, Assisted Living Facility, Ohio, US
• Sanatorium Ingul, Mykolaiv, Ukraine, even their website is liminal https://sanatoriy-ingull.wixsite.com/nikolaev
• Hamamatsu station, Japan
• Krusty Krab in Ramallah
• Google Data Center, Changhua, Taiwan

Digital art

• Pool rooms, made by Jared Pike
• Garielle Traversat collages

Videogames
2.22 am game the lack of purpose is the creepy aspect. It's a stretch to call it a game, what even is a game?

Poetry
“When I take you to the Valley, you’ll see the blue hills on the left and the blue hills on the right, the rainbow and the vineyards under the rainbow late in the rainy season, and maybe you’ll say, “There it is, that’s it!” But I’ll say. “A little farther.” We’ll go on, I hope, and you’ll see the roofs of the little towns and the hillsides yellow with wild oats, a buzzard soaring and a woman singing by the shadows of a creek in the dry season, and maybe you’ll say, “Let’s stop here, this is it!” But I’ll say, “A little farther yet.” We’ll go on, and you’ll hear the quail calling on the mountain by the springs of the river, and looking back you’ll see the river running downward through the wild hills behind, below, and you’ll say, “Isn’t that the Valley?” And all I will be able to say is “Drink this water of the spring, rest here awhile, we have a long way yet to go and I can’t go without you.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin, Always Coming Home