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The Devoid
Nov. 17th, 2025 01:48 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
metafilter_feed...it was hard to say, at first, what was wrong with it, even though, quite evidently, everything was wrong with it. A four-part essay on a 21st century anti-aesthetic, souless and distinct from the uncanny.
I realized that while there was nothing overtly dark or upsetting about these spaces, they triggered a sensation in me that felt much closer to what the gothic originally triggered — far more than the usual tropes we associate with the gothic. Rather than abandoned ruins, these were places that were still somehow in use, and yet felt that some fundamental level of human presence and care had been withdrawn. Eventually, I settled on a name to describe such spaces — The Devoid — and set out to better understand this feeling.
I realized that while there was nothing overtly dark or upsetting about these spaces, they triggered a sensation in me that felt much closer to what the gothic originally triggered — far more than the usual tropes we associate with the gothic. Rather than abandoned ruins, these were places that were still somehow in use, and yet felt that some fundamental level of human presence and care had been withdrawn. Eventually, I settled on a name to describe such spaces — The Devoid — and set out to better understand this feeling.
