Comment by mistersquid

> But linimal aesthetic is different, especially as has recently become popular.

Your articulation of a liminal aesthetic hits upon the tension inherit in the word “liminal”.

By definition “liminal” signals “in between” which connotes an unsettledness or indeterminacy, or what in other realms is called the uncanny. This liminal aesthetic, at its core, is shot through with a sense of the uncanny, and empty devoid spaces where normally there is a lot of traffic convey this aesthetic clearly and succinctly.

Thank you for drawing this distinction.

My intent when referring to the denotation of “liminal” was to remind that even familiar places, such as bustling train stations and busy airport terminals, are also liminal spaces even if they don’t conform to current representations of the liminal _aesthetic_. By preserving the denotation of the word “liminal”, we can defamiliarize such spaces and recover (or emphasize) their liminality.

All of which is the message of art like Brian Eno’s “Music for Airports”. Who doesn’t appreciate the defamiliarization of our “mundane” traversals of the realms we inhabit?