Liminal Space vs Poolcore
リミナル・スペース / プールコア
Both sit in Internet Aesthetics, so the question is not what they belong to but how they behave. Both are read here as aesthetic. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Liminal Space
Photographs transitional spaces empty when people ought to be in them, drawing out déjà vu, loneliness and the sense that time has stopped.
Poolcore
Empty indoor pools, reflections on the water and repeating tile hold calm and unease in the same place.
| Liminal Space | Poolcore | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | late-2010s– | 2010s– |
| Family | Internet Aesthetics | Internet Aesthetics |
| Kind | Aesthetic | Aesthetic |
| Cues | Empty corridors / Fluorescent light / Dated interiors / Public space after midnight | Blue water / White tile / Empty space / Light on water |
| Best used for | Photographing empty facilities at night to show that time has stopped · Choosing settings for work about waiting and passing through | Backdrops for music or short films that need calm and unease at once · Photographing water and leisure facilities in a memory leaning key |
| Type | Keep the existing wayfinding signs and add no new lettering | Keep only depth markings and warning numbers, add no other text |
| Composition | Shoot corridors head on in one point perspective with nobody present | Let tile joints carry the structure and crop the water at the edge |
| Material | Greenish fluorescent white, dated flooring, damp reflections, weak shadows | White square tile, chlorine blue, ceiling light, ripples on the surface |
| Caution | The more unusual the building, the less it touches memory, because the sense of having been here only arrives in ordinary places everyone has passed through. | Photographing the water for beauty alone produces a resort advertisement and loses the discomfort that comes from nobody being there. |