An Exploration of Liminal Space

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Welcome to the labyrinth! I have been tasked with guiding you through the many corridors of thought that have formed around the center. First, we should discuss what exactly lies at the center. Ha! Did you think I was just going to tell you what is at the center of the labyrinth? Dear traveler, it is not as simple as that. If you are looking for the precious treasure, you have already lost. I would tell you to leave but there is no point, really, because I suspect you would have already stopped reading if you enter with heroic intentions.  Still with me? Great! If you are unfamiliar with the great Tumblrian realm, there are a few things you should know.

This page is born of the dedication and collaboration of a good many people. Please travel with an open mind and do not be quick to judge. If categorization makes you comfortable, there are tags at the end of every post that detail what authors and topics are discussed. You can search at the top menu to find posts by tags. When you get to the bottom of the page, press the right arrow. There is more! Until there is not.

On behalf of the team of Question Unhappiness Early, Evolve Rapidly, Destructive Ideals Can Kill, we thank you for choosing ApocalypsePark.tumblr.com for your labyrinthine needs.

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Works Cited

Alaimo, S. (2010). Bodily natures: science, environment, and the material self. Bloomington (Ind.): Indiana university press.

Bennett, J. (2010). Vibrant matter: a political ecology of things. Durham: Duke University Press.

Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. "Monster Culture: Seven Theses." From Monster Theory: Reading Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996. 3-25.

Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and danger: an analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. Place of publication not identified: Routledge.

Gaard, G. (1997). Toward a Queer Ecofeminism (Vol. 12). Hypatia.

Tuana, N. (2007). Viscous Porosity: Witnessing Katrina (S. Hekman & S. Alaimo, Eds.). Duke University Press.

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     We arrive in storm February 12th, Wednesday morning. The world is bright, the air is fresh, and minds become one in search for hidden truths of the liminal world. Upon first glance, the park seems untouched by the poisoned hands of mankind. Yet with each second a new discovery unfolds, the picture develops, and we are humbled, and responsible, knowing our wings spread farther than we know.

                                                          “I’ve lived here for an hour.” 

     We know the land, the trees, the water, and the paths as they have come to know us. However, we will never know all of what Apocalypse Park has to offer nor the impact it has suffered through the years. We lived here an hour, a mere moment in the lifetime of nature.  

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Vitamin (D) String Quartet

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     It is important to note the state Apocalypse Park was surveyed in. Usually, the water level is 4 to 5 feet higher so it can be noted that we did not find all of these objects of vibrant matter. Instead, the receding water allowed us access to a world previously eschewed by society.

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A Note on Binaries

Greta Gaard outlines a list of binaries in her work “Toward a Queer Ecofeminism.” These binaries are used throughout the reading to address the issue of feminism and how it interacts with ecological factors to produce an entirely different side of the feminist agenda. We can extract these binaries to use in other situations, such as our exploration of a liminal space we have deemed “Apocalypse Park” here on the USF campus. It was incredible to take a step back and view everything we came across with this binary lens. Pretty much everything can be summed up as “this or that.” Now that we have constructed these binaries around everything, we also have the ability to tear them down, allowing things to be more than one thing or another. Now that we have taken the step back, we can take a step forward, and blur the lines society has constructed around everything.

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          The caution tape that has drifted away from its original location is extremely representative of a choice individuals have to make in their lives. When we see caution tape, we take it as a warning of dangerous things up ahead. We have to decide if the risk is worth the reward. We can either continue down the path or turn away and heed the warning. This tossed aside caution tape is indicative of the first option. In this liminal space, care has been put on the back burner in exchange for more adventurous, interesting things. This definitely feels fitting as you step into this territory because it is so far off the “beaten” path of the campus. It seems risky to be here, yet oddly rewarding in a way that congratulates the individual for their quirky decision. 

           We can also call upon the reason/emotion binary by the same logic. We can either follow reason and make the decision that society believes we should make, or we can give in to our emotions and follow a path that gives us the greatest amount of satisfaction. The caution tape reminds us that sometimes an emotional choice is a reckless one. When considering this binary, I am stunned by this caution tape being in this liminal space. This space has always evoked an emotion in me, and going there always seems to be an emotional choice rather than a logical one. So are we throwing caution to the wind by examining this space? Gaard would want us to re-examine these binaries and discuss how this piece of debris represents something outside of the box defined for us. Maybe there is a way that caution tape cast aside can represent both a freedom from the societal boundaries and a necessary warning to consider everything before proceeding with our free choices. Maybe emotional choices can also be reasonable, even if they seem rash.

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    During our nighttime excursion at the apocalypse park, we noticed that everything had changed. Nothing that we had seen that morning had remained in the same place. So is it logical to assume that we, too, had been changed by this liminal space? Had we become a part of this space, consumed by the energy that resides there? In this series of images, multiple binaries are captured as we explore the possibility of surrendering ourselves to the apocalypse park.

    When we die, our bodies are returned to the dirt, to be reclaimed by that from which we came. Some believe that our souls continue on, untouched and unperturbed by the ending that is death. Can this also happen when we find a place that exhibits such a strong hold on both nature and humanity? It seems to be a choice between the mind or the body. Do we allow our bodies to be taken by this space? Or do we retain our mindfulness, aware of what we can become? And if our bodies are reclaimed and our souls live on, are we still a part of ourselves, or have we become a part of nature? Gaard would, I believe, say that we can be both. She strongly agrees with the dualism of such binaries. Both choices are possible if we examine them deeply. I’d also like to present the idea that liminal spaces such as apocalypse park claim our souls rather than our bodies. If we form an emotional attachment to this place, we leave a piece of ourselves here in a nonphysical form. We retain our physical being, but our spirit is tied to those places that have an effect on us.

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A Waking Fear

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There was something haunting about the place at night. It was hard to see, with an overpowering illegibility. I love the night for this very reason. I feel encumbered by lots of movement and colors. Nighttime is calm and peacefully shrouded. My eyes relax and my mind can think freely.

When Kennedy and I first set off, I was worried about encountering people. I say people, and not other people, deliberately. I feel pleasantly detached from my self at night. Like I become less than human, or more than. Still, I didn't want to know the strangers who lurk around the research park at night. Once we arrived and I was sure the area was deserted, I was overcome with a new sense of creeping dread. I felt, palpably, that we did not belong there. The ducks, which swim happily during the day, were startled by our arrival and flapped away, irritated. Nothing was as it was when we had left. Every piece of trash had moved, with some disappearing completely. The earth itself had transformed. It was heavy, sodden with an inexplicable dampness. Our feet were pulled into the ground deeper and deeper with each step. We moved quickly, lightly, lest the riverbed swallow us up entirely. The spongy texture seemed so other worldly and impossible. It made no sense. It hadn't rained. There wasn't standing water there this morning. And yet, the earth howled up at us from the tracks we left behind.

The shapes we readily identified during the day were more fluid, with boundaries blurred out and reaching toward each other. At first, I was afraid of dark, ominous shapes peering around trees. But in time, I began to accept the fact that I would not see. There was a gloomy trust about it. Like I had to turn away from the mass and leave myself at its mercy. Obviously, I was not swallowed up by any of the pockets of darkness but I do feel quite strange. I can't stop thinking about what it was like to be totally engaged with place. Alaimo (2010) would say that I was in a "defamiliarizing zone where places becomes self becomes place." Deep down, I know that who I was in that place will never be who I am anywhere else. There is something vibrant that I can't deny. I can't untangle myself. A branch must have snared my hair because every time I blink I see deeper into the ground and I want to feel it. I feel divided, torn. I am not seeing what I am looking at, my computer, my room. I still see the park. 

Is this my posthuman birth? Has seeing the possibilities of looking askew immersed me in a new realm, parallel to this one but entirely ancient and raw? If I have thrown myself off the guided path entirely, then I am glad of it. Submitting to nature's agency has certainly brought me hope. To call on Tuana (2009), if we are in the thick of things, then I am glad I am entangled in nature. Maybe then, it will catch me when I fall.

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We briefly talked about how different the apocalypse park looked at night as compared to during the day. One of the most noticeable differences was the creepiness level of the stairwell in the main part of the park. This staircase leads down into the murky depths of the ground level. When the water level is high, you can not see ground and if you continued down this staircase, you would be submerged up to the knees very quickly. Both times we visited, the water level was low enough so that we could walk down it completely before encountering water. During the daytime, this staircase didn’t seem too out of the ordinary. We considered it an odd placement for stairs, but there was no odd vibe being given off. When we went back that night, though, the air had definitely changed. Looking down those stairs at nighttime is such a creepy experience, as shown by the picture. You can barely see the bottom and the odd placement suddenly seems like an omen of ill will. Who knows what might happen if you were to traverse these stairs? This is a good representation of a culture/nature binary. Humans tend to think of daytime as more civilized because it is the time where most things happen. But nighttime is a whole other game. Bad things happen after dark. That’s why we set curfews for our children and walk home with friends rather than by ourselves. This just adds to the stigmatization of the nighttime, which ultimately lead to our labeling of the stairs at night as “creepy.” Nighttime is when wild things can occur, ones that seem animalistic and uncivilized. And that’s why we attribute it to “nature,” because it is something we cannot quite comprehend.

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Watch out in the labyrinth. It'll get ya.

Kennedy

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Binaries, with their exclusion and unequal power dynamics, are mimicked by a river flowing north to south. The river is intelligible and its path is set into the riverbed. If the binary is fundamentally a river, with power flowing only one direction, then it is impossible to break away from the guided path. Water will flow in the same direction until a greater force, like a natural disaster, disrupts the flow. Such violent interruption is hardly preferable because it would upset the greater environment and inject peril into the current. A more subtle shift, however, would allow side channels and run-offs to be nourished and diversify the strength of the ecosystem. With more paths of varying intensity, the environment would not be entirely dependent on the one dualistic flow of water from north to south. Water's natural and powerful fluidity would be fully unlocked and the scope of the environment would be simultaneously expanded and intensified locally.

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It is odd how such simple objects can evoke such an emotional response, especially in a place like the apocalypse park. While these chairs were generally creepy during the day, a sense of eeriness was laid over them after the sun set. But why? It follows the same logic as the stairwell issue. Nighttime is when the monstrosities come about, and we allow them to consume our thoughts. Laura and I had a long conversation about the possibility of someone living in that area while we were there at night. Fear struck me before I was reminded that other signs of life would have to be found before a conclusion was made. The interesting point here is that these thoughts did not cross my mind during the day. Sure, I found it strange that two office chairs were just sitting out there, but I was soon caught up in the photo opportunity. It was only at night that my irrational thoughts crept in. For centuries, humans have feared the night because of the uncertainty it held. Things are most certainly not different now. We assume the worst when the sun is gone because light is our safety net. It is light that makes these chairs harmless, but darkness injects into them some sort of evil plot. Combine that with the change in their position, and you have a horror story that is contained within our very own apocalypse park.

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Intersections of liminal space and vibrant matter

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     In today’s times, people are fully aware of the risks that are involved with smoking. Despite these threats, people still spend the money and give up their good health to smoke tobacco. This picture represents the irony that is involved with smoking. The words “Smoking Kills” are printed in large, bold letters on the outside of the cigarette carton, clearly defining the dangers of the items contained inside of the package. So why do people continue to smoke? The answer lies in the master/slave binary. In situations like this, where addictions are involved, it is very easy to see the relationship people and cigarettes have. Clearly, the cigarettes are the masters that rule over their human subjects, forcing them to give up time, money, and their physical independence. Smokers rely on cigarettes just like slaves rely on their masters to provide them with living spaces and food. Obviously, cigarettes do not provide a home or meals, but they do provide a sense of comfort for those who smoke. This is a very dangerous binary because once we fall into one category or the other, we are essentially trapped there, forced to forever play out our role.

     I feel that the reason/erotic binary can also be applied here. Reason tells us not to start smoking because we know how addictive it can be. But smoking provides a sense of “cool,” captivating us with the erotic-ness of it. Smoking simultaneously allows an individual to be a part of the in-crowd and the out-crowd, making it a strange in between in social activities. It is this strangeness that drives people to smoking. We, as humans, feel a need to seek out the erotic so we can experience something different during our lives. If we have something erotic, we can stray from our normality and be involved in something that can be considered “exciting.” Again, this can be a very dangerous binary to fall into. If the erotic choice is not entirely safe, reasoning against reason, if you will, may not be the best choice.

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It feels strange to be burying an animal bone. I don't mean to be imposing human standards of death onto an animal's remains. But I think burying it shows respect because we are trying to keep it safe and keep it connected to dirt and the earth. I imagine Douglas would say that it is fine and even productive to take this action. According to Douglas (1966), taboo is designed to set spatial limits and "hedge around vulnerable relations." This is most interesting in relation to our experience with the animal bone. Taboo against touching animal remains stems from concern about disease and germs. During the day, I followed convention. I didn't touch the bone when we first found it, using a leaf to shield me from it. When we came back at night, I threw caution to the wind with little thought. Maybe the darkness made me brave. Maybe it made me feel just monstrous enough to queer convention. I took burial, a ritual usually reserved for humans and so-called lovable animals we keep as pets and formed a connection with the bone and its significance. I challenged myself to dive into the dual vulnerability of touching the bone and honoring life in an expanded form. Returning the bone to the earth is not entirely outside the realm of taboo but it is just different enough to matter.