Gothic Gossip 2026 Edition
This is a continuation of the topic Gothic gossip in the new new Carolean era.
Talk Gothic Literature
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1housefulofpaper
Time to create a new thread.
A link to this article on "institutional gothic" appeared on Facebook at the weekend.
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/backrooms-and-the-rise-of-the-institutional-g...
A link to this article on "institutional gothic" appeared on Facebook at the weekend.
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/backrooms-and-the-rise-of-the-institutional-g...
2housefulofpaper
This message has been deleted by its author.
3pgmcc
Wishing you a spooky new thread.
The "institutional gothic" article made we think of a title for a song, "Welcome to the Office California".
The "institutional gothic" article made we think of a title for a song, "Welcome to the Office California".
4housefulofpaper
>Thank you!
I don't think I have had the institutional gothic feeling from any of the offices I've worked in. That might have had something to do with the drinking culture that held sway right until the early years of this century.
I did have an unpleasant experience on my second day of work, when I was trying to find my office in a genuinely huge Victorian Gothic building (it resembled a nightmare, in that the building itself was like a massively expanded version of my junior school).
Closer to the institutional gothic experience, maybe, was a visit to Wapping in 1984 or 1985 to find the Doctor Who shop in an area that was still in the early stages of its post-industrial rejuvenation. Well, actually it was a mixture of different anxieties: being on unfamiliar and rough-looking streets, some Blade Runner dystopianism (the CCTV cameras in the tube station, quaint as that now seems), and once inside what I assume was a converted warehouse, but seemed like a new and not-yet-open multi-storey car park, trying to find the tiny unit that was the shop's first premises.That part of it maybe approached the Backrooms vibe.
I don't think I have had the institutional gothic feeling from any of the offices I've worked in. That might have had something to do with the drinking culture that held sway right until the early years of this century.
I did have an unpleasant experience on my second day of work, when I was trying to find my office in a genuinely huge Victorian Gothic building (it resembled a nightmare, in that the building itself was like a massively expanded version of my junior school).
Closer to the institutional gothic experience, maybe, was a visit to Wapping in 1984 or 1985 to find the Doctor Who shop in an area that was still in the early stages of its post-industrial rejuvenation. Well, actually it was a mixture of different anxieties: being on unfamiliar and rough-looking streets, some Blade Runner dystopianism (the CCTV cameras in the tube station, quaint as that now seems), and once inside what I assume was a converted warehouse, but seemed like a new and not-yet-open multi-storey car park, trying to find the tiny unit that was the shop's first premises.That part of it maybe approached the Backrooms vibe.
5alaudacorax
Interesting article.
I've never until reading it given any 'Gothic-inclined' thought to this, but I think I strayed into some of her liminal spaces when I was still visiting city centres. I remember a couple of times wandering through almost deserted new shopping malls that, for whatever reasons, had never attracted retailers. Once, in a bright, bustling shopping centre, I walked through the wrong pair of swing doors and almost instantly found myself in a near-silent, again almost deserted, alternative world of narrow back lanes, back entrances, loading bays and un-signposted passageways. They had in common the uneasy feeling that I was trespassing, even though logic says I wasn't, but perhaps 'trespassing' in some, more esoteric sense of the word than the strictly legal.
A more talented individual than myself could probably have incorporated one of these places into a story. I just felt uncomfortable and wanted to be elsewhere; but I feel a milder version of that in busy city centres anyway. Give me ruins in a dark forest or blasted heath any day.
I've never until reading it given any 'Gothic-inclined' thought to this, but I think I strayed into some of her liminal spaces when I was still visiting city centres. I remember a couple of times wandering through almost deserted new shopping malls that, for whatever reasons, had never attracted retailers. Once, in a bright, bustling shopping centre, I walked through the wrong pair of swing doors and almost instantly found myself in a near-silent, again almost deserted, alternative world of narrow back lanes, back entrances, loading bays and un-signposted passageways. They had in common the uneasy feeling that I was trespassing, even though logic says I wasn't, but perhaps 'trespassing' in some, more esoteric sense of the word than the strictly legal.
A more talented individual than myself could probably have incorporated one of these places into a story. I just felt uncomfortable and wanted to be elsewhere; but I feel a milder version of that in busy city centres anyway. Give me ruins in a dark forest or blasted heath any day.
