Where is the avant-garde?

[version]

On a superficial level, there is a lot of literary encryption going on in Remainder. For example, the building that he constructs in order to replay his displaced trauma memories, or his constructed memories of a time before the trauma, is called Madlyn Mansions, which is kind of a reference to Proust and the madeleine, which is the memory trigger for him. And there are other things. There is a whole sequence that is almost exactly paralleling the rhetorical pattern of the opening of Kafka’s The Great Wall of China, when he’s talking about how he went about building the house.

But, in a way, that doesn’t matter, I mean that’s kind of cute if you want to notice it. And in fact, if it were conscious, were it really explicit, if the hero had been an intellectual and said, “Oh, this is a bit like Proust,” then the novel would be over then and there, and you don’t need to write it. So it’s quite important that whatever influence is going on there does get buried. In that respect, encryption is actually an absolutely fundamental necessity in order to do something new, otherwise we are just annotating the old stuff.

 

[linebaugh]

stumbled on a subreddit for these images
https://www.reddit.com/r/LiminalSpace/

 

[linebaugh]

looking at these now I think @shiels got it best:

a living space that’s not presented because there’s nobody else to present to. They make you feel like an intruder on something boring on face level but quite intimate, lonely, and no matter what materials or looks or friends or accolades we build around ourselves to hide it... don’t we all return to a room like this in our heads? Well, don’t we?

 

[linebaugh]

Its the 'not presented because theres nobody to present to' factor. Feels like you've slipped out of existence, the Langoliers could get ya any second. Maybe were never entirely convinced the world exists when were looking elsewhere.

 

[linebaugh]

These images are universally either of some sort of passageway- hall, corridor, stair etc.- or are taken from a vantage point just past the proper boundary of the room, i.e. the vantage point of a passageway. Think for many of these, all that's needed to create that feeling we were describing is tossing a little grime and low light onto these outsider positions.

 

[linebaugh]

But those that have the select details that throw everything just a little off- a lit screen in a dead room, unusually colored light, unexplained shadows- those images that feel properly surreal, I think I was originally on to something here:

Hmmm, digital spaces and aesthetics represent that massive pool of possibilty that can create that mystical feeling, similar to how the immense size of the manor/castle added to the gothic feel. Both the digital gothic and traditional gothic are looking at human creations, like were getting spooked at the approach of behavior beyond what we think of as our fairly grounded humanity

Its those surrealist details reorienting the image into a new system of associations because traditional logic wont suffice to explain. In that I think there's an element of Rilkean horror to these images. The surrealist bits force us outside our tiny epistemes and onto a seemingly infinite space that to look upon is both lovely and devastating.

 

[woops]

stumbled on a subreddit for these images
https://www.reddit.com/r/LiminalSpace/

some of these are great, some are just post your spooky photo's

 

[woops]

others again remind me of when urbex was big and i would sometimes find myself in a tunnel under a road with an abandoned broom and upside down plastic bin.

 

[shiels]

Its the 'not presented because theres nobody to present to' factor. Feels like you've slipped out of existence, the Langoliers could get ya any second. Maybe were never entirely convinced the world exists when were looking elsewhere.

Human-made environments teem with meaning, curiosities and symbolism that we don’t always have the permission or courage to explore because of who might be watching, what they might be thinking of our behaviour in this space, their space. Who are you, what are you doing here, what do you want? What’s your role?

I’ve felt a blissful aloneness, a detachment and freedom looking through the window of empty school classrooms near my house as a child, factories and big empty art studios give me the feeling too, and sometimes the office after everyone has left in the evening. These are purposeful places, and when they’re emptied of people they empty of expectation, and I feel freedom. You can feel and see and smell and think about social processes, work and relationships and objects without the distraction of a social self, without being in the process. Without anyone wondering what you’re up to or what it means. It’s why being a ghost would be appealing. And there’s the pleasure in trespassing, intrusion, voyeurism, but I’m not there for anyone or anything in particular. I don’t need to be here, maybe I shouldn’t be here, nobody knows where I am. You have the time and peace to allow your senses to take in the functional and decorative aspects or savour the silence.

Places free of people can engage the imagination, the potential of a space opens up when you don’t have a role. I get a strange physical feeling in the chest, like a yearning in some empty places,”I could cut free, be anyone, do anything.” They allow us to imagine other lives, other selves …. It’s pleasurable to get analytical and imagine who was here, how did they use it, what type of people are they, how do I act here, what type of person could I be? And you can feel the presence and absence of the previous occupants at once. You can sense a little how long they haven’t been there, when it’s been a long time you get a glimpse into a process of decay, death. A gap opens up, between what a place once did, who it was for, what it meant and said and what it now says, things change, dust gathers, plants grow, you feel the entropy.

I think part of the attraction of these images, intimate places without owners and users present, without the subjects for the objects, without the restrictive and exclusionary effects of private property, has a little of the same effect. Other people and spaces define and restrict us. To present, to be present is to be there for, and to exist for, others. There is no self outside the social. When looking at the images we’re feeling the fear of being alone, the certainty of death and the desire to be cut free (relief from the anxiety of bonds and expectations and worries) all at once.

 

[shiels]

Does everyone else feel that?

 

[luka]

yes everyone feels that. talked a bit about it in the walking thread.

 

[shiels]

Don’t be so deflationary

 

[luka]

sorry. it was a good post. i gave it a like.

 

[luka]

i don't think the images are terribly interesting let alone the cutting edge of contemporary art. but i liked your post.

 

[shiels]

Poured my heart into it. Imagining you responding as I write. Elucidating further in ways that I Couldn’t. And then you just go aye mate we’ve already said all that in 2009

 

[luka]

alright! alright! i feel terrible now!

 

[shiels]

i don't think the images are terribly interesting let alone the cutting edge of contemporary art. but i liked your post.

nobody said that. We’re just talking about our feelings mate!

 

[luka]

i'll make it up to you! i'll do anything! just make the guilt and shame stop!

 

[linebaugh]

Yah, its that the images are unspectacular but still evoke these strange feelings that's interesting. Its all about the feeling man

 

[woops]

let him have it shiels