Milwaukee McClunken

and it's fucked up! because circumstances aligned that just as gen z grew up and lost their innocence, so too did the places they frequented fall into disrepair; what more poignant metaphor could you find for dead decadence than having the excesses of your childhood literally fall apart as you grew up? and its so interesting, because it''s not quite the same fear as the dark forest full of monsters that preceded the liminal spaces movement; humanity has long moved past being seriously threatened by packs of wolves or stray bears, and so the mythology around them stagnates. but that level of industrialization, the building of ever-bigger buildings, the stripping of human imperfection in favor of mass-production, the pervasive sense of not fitting into a world that was supposed to be promised to you? that has shaped the concept of a "liminal space" in a facinating way. i think that's why the liminal spaces movement is dominated by man-made locations- to the point where even when set outside, the focus is specifically on an artificial element of the landscape. the mass-production, the sameness of modern architecture- it's expressed by exaggerating it, stretching what would be in reality large but walkable buildings into expansive labyrinths with no rhyme or reason to their construction- which, of course, is the point; that instead of there being no reason for it's existence, like a dark forest, there is a theoretical purpose that these buildings are fulfilling- one that is entirely exclusive of you. it's an expression of decadence a level above dead rich people haunting their own hoarded wealth; a building built entirely for it's own sake, built until it encompasses the entire world, where humanity has been entirely excised. to a generation that now worries more about the seemingly unknowable whims of corporations, dead decadence no longer means old castles and dilapidated manors where one rich man lived and died- it means empty suburbs where no one lives, grungy shopping malls with every booth shuttered, playgrounds and arcades left to rot at the will of an ambiguous gestalt for reasons strange and opaque.

Peter Falk / Columbo