KEEP LIMINAL / SPACES BETWEEN SPACES

Liminal spaces: between strangeness and nostalgia

An empty office corridor. An indoor pool where only the light seems to move. A hall that could belong to one of your memories. Keep Liminal turns these places into a procedurally generated first-person walk that responds to sound.

What are liminal spaces?

They are places of passage or transition: corridors, waiting rooms, stairways and paths between rooms. In the internet aesthetic, these spaces often appear empty, outside their usual purpose. Something familiar starts to feel distant or strange when the people and events we expect to find there are missing.

In Keep Liminal, beige corridors, column halls and dreamlike pools become places to wander while light, fog and movement respond to audio.

How do Backrooms and poolrooms fit in?

Backrooms is a collective internet fiction associated with seemingly endless rooms and corridors, often with a threatening atmosphere. It shares with liminal spaces the feeling of being somewhere recognizable that has stopped working as it should.

Poolrooms brings that imagination to indoor pools, tiles, water and quiet passageways. Keep Liminal explores related visual elements in its own procedural environments; it is an independent project with no official connection to Backrooms adaptations.

Anemoia: nostalgia for a time you never knew

Anemoia is a poetic term coined by John Koenig in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows for nostalgia for an era we have not personally experienced. You do not have to have visited a place for its light, colors or sounds to stir something that feels like a memory.

A liminal space can evoke both real memories and this kind of imagined longing. The response is personal: the same corridor may feel comforting, melancholy or unsettling.

How to experience Keep Liminal

1. Open the browser experience with JavaScript enabled and WebGL support.
2. Choose Generative Drone or Generative MIDI to start with sound created by the project itself.
3. To use your own soundtrack, choose Open Audio or MIDI Files. Compatible browsers also let you share audio from another tab.
4. Watch how the music changes the walk, light, fog and water. Press H to hide the interface and Space to pause audio.

Do I need to install anything or bring my own music?

The experience runs in your browser without installation. Generative sound modes let you start without choosing a file. The initial load uses external resources and requires an internet connection.