The Backrooms & liminal spaces

[Chojin]

I recently came across the term "liminal space" which kind of encapsulates a feeling I've had a few times in my life.

For example staying back at school after closing period and it felt like the energy had been sucked out. Nobody around, long empty corridors, footsteps reverberating against the walls. The feeling of familiarity but something feeling "off".

I used to commute via a shopping centre and there were times early in the morning that I was the only one there and got a similar feeling of vast empty space. If it was a Friday I would sometimes be in the office alone as others worked from home. A bit Twlight Zone you could say.

I'm curious if anyone else has experienced this?

In the context of this new movement, liminal spaces, including so-called backrooms, are a type of emotional space that conveys a sense of nostalgia, lostness, and uncertainty. They often lack activity and purpose either because they lay unused or because they are spaces of transition - of becoming instead of being. They connect to the basic human condition of ephemerality, the notion that nothing lasts forever. As generic as liminal spaces are, they become impossible to locate and thus transcend time and place, attaining an eerie otherworldly feeling.

Architecture: The Cult Following Of Liminal Space — Musée Magazine

The modern world has gifted us with endless possibilities. We are always on our way to becoming something - always trapped in liminal space.

museemagazine.com

I think the concept of ephemerality pinpoints a lot of the feeling. An empty school corridor may feel strange outside school hours, but our brains can resolve that based on context, knowing that the usual hustle and bustle will return on the next school day.

But what if there is no context? Say you wake up with amnesia in some strange empty place with no rulebook and need to make sense of it all. Well that seems to be the basis of The Backrooms and it's fascinating to see some of the videos that people are posting on Youtube in the last few months. Some of the most creative content I've seen on the Internet. Drawing inspiration from the likes of David Lynch and the film Cube, found footage movies etc. Some are very surreal and take on a nightmarish quality.

 

[Chojin]

Come on dude should you be on the gear on a week night??

P.s. yes I’ve experienced that. 05:30 going through a shopping arcade in belfast totally alone. Weird knowing that a few hours before and a few hours later there’d be 100’s of people. Always seemed bigger with no one there.

Damn and there's me thinking it was just some weird internet craze going around just now made for jump scares and weirdos.
iTS ACTUALLY AN ARCHIETECTURAL MOVEMENT !
But yeah...

Airports at 4am
Train stations.
My work (hospital) when im working late on my own (get scared)
Shopping malls on sundays

Well the unofficial weekend starts on Thursday night

Those are great examples of what I was thinking of, when it feels like the life and soul has been vacuumed out and the place is in a transitionary state.

I thought of another one, after going to the cinema for a late night screening and returning to the multi storey car park. Only my car around, equidistant pillars everywhere. A general sense of unease.

Conversely there are the times when you go to the cinema during the day and come out expecting it to be dark, but it's still light. Not sure if that counts but there's definitely a feeling of all is not what it seems.

 

[Chojin]

Severance (the TV series) uses something like this to good effect with the ‘office’ the main characters work at.

Nice will check those out