Calling liminalism the "defining" aesthetic of our time is a bit much (though I get the article is trying to hitch its wagon to the Backrooms, aka the "current popular thing"). It's an aesthetic microniche, about as popular as vaporwave, or cyberpunk, grunge, or Y2K (think flip phones, bulky plastic cameras, etc.). There's a ton of these, and some are surprising: for example, there's even been a relatively recent revival of the "old-money" aesthetic, especially motivated by fashion brands like Rowing Blazers, etc.
I thought similarly, but the article actually was published prior to Backrooms movie release and popularity, though there is a nod they were aware the concept was being optioned to A24. Though I agree, “defining” might be a bit strong.
The same art world (or more specifically the "Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute") also named "Frutiger Aero" the defining aesthetic of 2000s, even though it was really only seen in a few places (Aqua aesthetic is very different from Aero). All of this should probably be taken with grains of salt.
In fact, when you see someone in the art world claiming that X is a "defining" anything, it usually means that they have a big collection of X for sale.
In this case, I imagine it's submarine marketing for the movie that's out.
I never got why Frutiger Aero got so popular as a ‘nostalgic’ aesthetic, when it’s basically the Windows Vista, GNOME 3 (the awful rewrite of GNOME 2), KDE 4.0 (the buggy, emo black rewrite of KDE 3) look?
It was the lowest point of computer graphics. Who the hell is nostalgic for that? Probably just kids that had their formative years in those ~2-3 years. Not sure you can even call it a niche.
I’m a fan on the vaporwave/Windows 2000/XP aesthetic, the Vista era is when everything started going to shit.
The 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[2], mixed with some nostalgia for the eeriness playing Resident Evil-type of games as a kid, the satisfying feeling to watch empires collapse, going nowhere yet being nowhere, and the constant desire for the internet to long for niche cultures.
> 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 between awake and asleep). You can also experience it at the end of a sleep as you transition back into being awake. It's a flowing place where colors, shapes, and sounds keep morphing in very interesting and often beautiful ways. Unlike lucid dreaming there is no notion of being in control. Supposedly this was a secret to the creativity of Dali. He would sit in a chair with some keys in his hand and allow himself to drift off. When he fell asleep the keys would fall out of his hand, hit the floor, and the sound would wake him up. Then he would draw whatever he had been imagining during the liminal dreaming right there on the spot. Edison supposedly also had a similar trick. Supposedly. I have sometimes imagined some really beautiful (and catchy!) music but I've never been able to remember it in detail after waking.
There's an interesting connection to draw between liminal spaces (especially the Backrooms variety) and the "latent space" concept from AI, both mechanically and sociologically. Basically, generative AI is an industrial-scale blend of almost every image and concept in human history, and within the labyrinthine, uninterpretable neural networks that power it, you can "find" every conceivable combination of objects, styles, and features. It won't always make sense, but everything (or a plausible echo of everything) is in there, somewhere, mindlessly assembled by a process that even its creators do not fully understand. Call it a metaphor for how late capitalism swallows up every movement, trend, and icon and churns out endless copies and imitations, each a little more degraded and disconnected from the original intention than the last. Like the way McMansions echo traditional architectural features, but shrunken, toylike, and not fit for purpose beyond a vague signaling at wealth and taste. In a society that feels increasingly overrun by these kinds of blind processes and cultural distillations, an aesthetic that connects it to a physical place (and one that happens to resemble so many anonymous places around the world and in our collective dreams and memories) is bound to be compelling. And how appropriate that it came to prominence not through any particular creator, but through an anonymous post expounded on via the internet.
It's so weird to open a page on HN and see a photo of a place that I went to all the time as a child, but as some kind of abandoned-space porn for Zoomers (Century III mall).
I don’t think it’s as directly attributable to “late capitalism,” as the article suggests. I speculated on a few ideas:
- We Have No “Coming-of-Age” Rituals
- Nostalgia
- Our Cities are Transportation Networks
- Modern Political Systems are Extremely Liminal
- The Death of God
- We Lack a Process-Oriented Language
Yeah, no. I'd say we're still looking for the most inexpensive variant of Modernism 125+ years after it's introduction - aesthetic driven entirely by the capabilities of machines that created it, embodied by Apple, every look-alike 4-door SUV, and anticontextual urban ruins of oversized-tiled econoboxes warehouses.
Ive always felt that the Art World seems to talk in its own tone. And that tone is arrogant, looking down on people, and haughtiness. Words dont mean with the Art World as they normally do. And definitions are scarce, since you are expected to innately know them, or be 'out'.
> Liminalism (if we can christen this as a movement, and we should) is a form dedicated to the discovery of digital found art. It is important not just because of its content, but because it signals the migration of critical terminology and thinking into popular discourse in a truly democratic sense, independent of the traditional confines of the art industry as expressed in exhibitions, galleries, and museums.
This is not the language of an elitist.
If anything, it sounds like someone defending Liminalism's inclusion in the contemporary canon from arrogant elitists.
It’s just one group of elitists slap-fighting another.
Are we really supposed to take seriously that “liminalism is the defining aesthetic of our time”?
> This is not the language of an elitist.
It absolutely is. Someone claiming to tell you what is “important”, what is “truly democratic”, in contradiction to “traditional” structures is elitism at its most insufferable.
Calling liminalism the "defining" aesthetic of our time is a bit much (though I get the article is trying to hitch its wagon to the Backrooms, aka the "current popular thing"). It's an aesthetic microniche, about as popular as vaporwave, or cyberpunk, grunge, or Y2K (think flip phones, bulky plastic cameras, etc.). There's a ton of these, and some are surprising: for example, there's even been a relatively recent revival of the "old-money" aesthetic, especially motivated by fashion brands like Rowing Blazers, etc.
I thought similarly, but the article actually was published prior to Backrooms movie release and popularity, though there is a nod they were aware the concept was being optioned to A24. Though I agree, “defining” might be a bit strong.
The same art world (or more specifically the "Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute") also named "Frutiger Aero" the defining aesthetic of 2000s, even though it was really only seen in a few places (Aqua aesthetic is very different from Aero). All of this should probably be taken with grains of salt.
There is no “official opinion” of the art world. These are just different organizations with their own opinions.
In fact, when you see someone in the art world claiming that X is a "defining" anything, it usually means that they have a big collection of X for sale.
In this case, I imagine it's submarine marketing for the movie that's out.
I never got why Frutiger Aero got so popular as a ‘nostalgic’ aesthetic, when it’s basically the Windows Vista, GNOME 3 (the awful rewrite of GNOME 2), KDE 4.0 (the buggy, emo black rewrite of KDE 3) look?
It was the lowest point of computer graphics. Who the hell is nostalgic for that? Probably just kids that had their formative years in those ~2-3 years. Not sure you can even call it a niche.
I’m a fan on the vaporwave/Windows 2000/XP aesthetic, the Vista era is when everything started going to shit.
The 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[2], mixed with some nostalgia for the eeriness playing Resident Evil-type of games as a kid, the satisfying feeling to watch empires collapse, going nowhere yet being nowhere, and the constant desire for the internet to long for niche cultures.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wAo54DHDY0
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Leaves#Legacy
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creepypasta
> 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 between awake and asleep). You can also experience it at the end of a sleep as you transition back into being awake. It's a flowing place where colors, shapes, and sounds keep morphing in very interesting and often beautiful ways. Unlike lucid dreaming there is no notion of being in control. Supposedly this was a secret to the creativity of Dali. He would sit in a chair with some keys in his hand and allow himself to drift off. When he fell asleep the keys would fall out of his hand, hit the floor, and the sound would wake him up. Then he would draw whatever he had been imagining during the liminal dreaming right there on the spot. Edison supposedly also had a similar trick. Supposedly. I have sometimes imagined some really beautiful (and catchy!) music but I've never been able to remember it in detail after waking.
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
There's an interesting connection to draw between liminal spaces (especially the Backrooms variety) and the "latent space" concept from AI, both mechanically and sociologically. Basically, generative AI is an industrial-scale blend of almost every image and concept in human history, and within the labyrinthine, uninterpretable neural networks that power it, you can "find" every conceivable combination of objects, styles, and features. It won't always make sense, but everything (or a plausible echo of everything) is in there, somewhere, mindlessly assembled by a process that even its creators do not fully understand. Call it a metaphor for how late capitalism swallows up every movement, trend, and icon and churns out endless copies and imitations, each a little more degraded and disconnected from the original intention than the last. Like the way McMansions echo traditional architectural features, but shrunken, toylike, and not fit for purpose beyond a vague signaling at wealth and taste. In a society that feels increasingly overrun by these kinds of blind processes and cultural distillations, an aesthetic that connects it to a physical place (and one that happens to resemble so many anonymous places around the world and in our collective dreams and memories) is bound to be compelling. And how appropriate that it came to prominence not through any particular creator, but through an anonymous post expounded on via the internet.
Interesting article, but calling it THE defining aesthetic of our time feels a bit sensational.
"our particular slice of dystopian late capitalism."
Did not call it the aesthetic of our time since the term was first used for post world war I economies.
We must be in late-to-its-own-funeral capitalism.
Liminalism? Nah thanks sorry I'm into littoralism these days, give me coastlines and beaches.
It's so weird to open a page on HN and see a photo of a place that I went to all the time as a child, but as some kind of abandoned-space porn for Zoomers (Century III mall).
Same here! I haven’t been by the area for years but I guess it’s in a state of demolition currently.
A few years ago I spent awhile researching liminality for a blog post:
https://onthearts.com/p/what-are-liminal-spaces-and-why-are
I don’t think it’s as directly attributable to “late capitalism,” as the article suggests. I speculated on a few ideas:
- We Have No “Coming-of-Age” Rituals - Nostalgia - Our Cities are Transportation Networks - Modern Political Systems are Extremely Liminal - The Death of God - We Lack a Process-Oriented Language
Anyway you might find it interesting!
Yeah, no. I'd say we're still looking for the most inexpensive variant of Modernism 125+ years after it's introduction - aesthetic driven entirely by the capabilities of machines that created it, embodied by Apple, every look-alike 4-door SUV, and anticontextual urban ruins of oversized-tiled econoboxes warehouses.
A lot of the images in the article aren't actually that liminal.
This stuff is maybe more liminal: https://x.com/PenguinWeb3/status/2063196355011424582?s=20
Ive always felt that the Art World seems to talk in its own tone. And that tone is arrogant, looking down on people, and haughtiness. Words dont mean with the Art World as they normally do. And definitions are scarce, since you are expected to innately know them, or be 'out'.
> Liminalism (if we can christen this as a movement, and we should) is a form dedicated to the discovery of digital found art. It is important not just because of its content, but because it signals the migration of critical terminology and thinking into popular discourse in a truly democratic sense, independent of the traditional confines of the art industry as expressed in exhibitions, galleries, and museums.
This is not the language of an elitist.
If anything, it sounds like someone defending Liminalism's inclusion in the contemporary canon from arrogant elitists.
It’s just one group of elitists slap-fighting another.
Are we really supposed to take seriously that “liminalism is the defining aesthetic of our time”?
> This is not the language of an elitist.
It absolutely is. Someone claiming to tell you what is “important”, what is “truly democratic”, in contradiction to “traditional” structures is elitism at its most insufferable.
What are some terms that would have benefitted from elucidations? Also can you give an example were the tone felt arrogant?
Where in this article do you feel that people are being looked down on?
Cocaine, crazy egos, and unchallenged mental illness will do that.
Except for the fact that modern design aesthetic has eliminated spaces with an uncontrolled and ambient vibe. Which makes this article bs.