Category: Gothic Spaces (Page 1 of 2)

There was not a lot I could find for this project but I figured I’d try to look for something that seemed a little bit gothic in my small apartment

The first thing I was able to find were this pair of gargoyles on the bookshelf. It was interesting to look at and it was the closest gothic item/element I could find in the space. That and they were reading so it kind of fits into the class well seeing this is a literature class.

The closest thing that I came up with was my bedroom since it has low lighting and it was very plain. However, I focused on my bookshelf, specifically this foam cat I use for Halloween. It looks friendly, but with it’s green eyes, it looks like it could jump out at someone even though it’s just a plain item used to hold Halloween candy. I immediately thought of the Black Cat with this because like Poe, I used to be repulsed by the black cat and it used to make me uncomfortable even though it’s just a foam cat. Now I seem ok with having it around.

I would kind of consider this the architectural uncanny because this is part of my apartment and it is part of my living situation. However, at night it seems very different and dark and it leaves me vulnerable. Especially since the door is open constantly, and there aren’t cameras, it still feels like I’m being watched. This was difficult because I couldn’t find anything that really fit the gothic definition besides that foam cat.

For my gothic space I picked the basement to my building. The reason as to why I refer to this as our basement is because there is no structure built inside the building that would be considered our basement, now the reason as to why I chose this specific place as my gothic space would be because I feel as if it has a great representation of Todorov’s uncanny especially considering the fact that this specific place is such a simple place where the porter sorts the garbage put there by the tenants and acts as a lounge area of sorts for the super that works there everyday, but the uncertainty of anything supernatural or horror related occuring along with the frightening darkness during the night puts you in a constant state of panic affects a person. It’s just very interesting how a place that’s meant to be so harmless and help out the tenants, myself included, could be such a fearful place to be because of how unaware what could be lurking in any corner or dark spot. The story that my gothic space would remind me of would be The Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe, specifically at the ending when the police decide to search the house and are completely unaware of the dead body hiding within the walls of the creepy house, this basement does serve one purpose but could so many secrets to it that all of the tenants could be unaware of, secrets derived from ill intent or anything in general, but we would never know since we are not allowed to roam around (its off limits since it is for use by the landlord and any workers that service the surrounding buildings owned by the landlord) and understand it in depth ourselves.

The area that I choose for my gothic space is a house near me. Some gothic elements that I think are associated with this house are horror and fear. This house is big and beautiful in some ways however there are some aspects to this house that do not feel necessarily right. It looks a little abandon, messy, old, and demolish, there is a window that is broken and glass on the floor. The trees in front of the house also give the house a mystery Which looks like it’s hiding something. This home can look even more gothic when it’s raining or at night. I noticed some gothic architecture present which was the tower. This house is on a hill that is a few feet high above the road and has two staircases connected to it. The staircase is small and it’s shaky. I feel vulnerable on the hill because it feels like I am trapped and have nowhere to go or run.  

When looking at this home, there is a sense of homesickness, I use to live in a home that was kind of like this, and the definition of homesickness states, “homesick due to comparison and recognition; the self, in the act of remembering the past home,”. Although I used to live in a house like this I feel as though something is missing from the home where it doesn’t feel homely. I don’t think I would want to live in this house. I decided to interview my sibling because they had a dislike for the house. They felt like this is a house that you would see in a scary movie and felt that the house was broken and impaired.  The main reason why I feel like the house is gothic is because of the sense of Broken and so many things that are supposed to make a house a home is missing.  

One reading that came to my mind when looking at this home would be “The haunting of hill house”, the way that other people were scared to go into the hill house made me think of me and my siblings, how we are afraid to walk past the house. Also, when my sister mentioned the house was broken and impaired it made me think of the “The fall of the usher house”, and that maybe this house is waiting to collapse too.    

The last image Is a picture that I recently took, I went out to run some errands and as soon as I saw this house, I got a gothic sensation from it. First, the house is away from other properties, so it feels like this house is lonely and isolated. Second, this house is on top of a hill and according to Vidler “The architectural uncanny is represented by a feeling of anxiety in which there are a slippage and lack of clarity between what is homely and what is unhomely.”. The way that the hill is close to the house gives me some anxiety.

Throughout our Gothic literature class, we’ve learned different concepts to better understand the meaning of the word “gothic” and we’ve achieved enough knowledge to understand and analyze certain situations, architecture, and even basic images related to gothic literature.

Throughout this gothic space post, a series of images are shown. The first two images were taken while walking down a dark street close to my neighborhood with the first image approaching a street light. While reading “The Invisible Man”, the incident that occurred between him and the blonde man is one thing that I still remember and the way I created the scene in my mind is pretty similar to the picture taken above. walking down a dark street and accidentally bumping into a stranger under a bright street light that brights up only that specific spot while the rest of the street remains dark. I personally think this space can be described as uncanny because it is reality, something we can see, a dark street but it is strange.

For the third image, while touring my neighborhood, this specific building grabbed my attention. While there are bright lights around that building, in particular, it is somehow still dark due to the building on the right side with the dark windows which gives a sense and creates a lot of dark spots in the area. This image stood out to me because it reminded me of chapter four of “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde”, where a maid was looking through a window and witnessed the murder of Sir Danvers Carew done by Mr. Hyde. In this image, we can imagine the maid on the third floor of the building on the left looking through the window while Mr. Hyde beat Sir Danvers Carew to death on the next side of the street (from where the picture was taken)

Last but not least, the fourth image is the backyard of my apartment building, where my landlord parks his vehicle in the dark. While during the day it is quite bright due to sunlight, at night it is pretty dark. I did not take this image blurry intentionally, it was quite cold that night and my hands were frozen, I did not notice the picture was blurry, but afterward while analyzing, it ended up turning out into a good photo. Dark, brick walls, iron fenced windows and the overall color of the image creates this dark feeling of terror that could make us wonder if the building is haunted by looking at the dark windows. If we let our imagination fly beyond us, we could imagine people trapped inside this building tormented by an evil force causing this “random person” who took this picture to feel horrified if he actually saw it happening, even though it is not reality, I feel this image could be fantastic. “The Fall of the House of Usher”, the appearance of the House of Usher can be related to this image.

These pictures are from a small movie theater that closed down in my neighborhood about 2 years ago called Cinema 12 in a plaza. This location to me seems very gothic because it gets a very Eerie feeling around dusk and at night to the point that I’ve seen people avoid walking past it in the plaza it becomes deathly silent around the outside and odd fact that its has had the power on 24/7 since its closing and the insides have an odd mixture of both messy and pristine. The front with the ticket booth and the snack booth seem to be in perfect condition but everything else seems to be in a state of decay or in need of repair. To me the most unnerving part of this theater to me was the 2nd and 4th picture the front still has movie displays from 2 and 3 years ago and the pitch black hallway that has a brightly lit room at the end that seems to be less well kempt than the rest of the theater

The first picture is of my Catholic Church in the neighborhood at night which obviously looks different from what it looks like during day time from what I posted in the Gothic Architecture posts, I couldn’t go in because the doors were permanently closed to the public so I captured photos of what was available for me. Sacred Heart Catholic Church is the name of this Church and I find it Gothic because of the construction of the building and how the atmosphere in the night contributes to why a place of worship seems to be scary when walking rather than being more welcoming and open. The walls are made of grey color stone which is one of the important features in Gothic Architecture. It has pointed arches and columns that emphasize verticality. It has pointed ceilings. The windows are stained glass windows which might be hard to see at night but in the last photo which I took while driving to work you can see the stained glass windows. It’s not the same Church but I thought it will make sense comparing what both churches look like in the day compared to what it looks like at the night. The second picture is a statue of Mary, the mother of Jesus right next to the Church and this is my first time noticing it actually lights up, I guess it was a new upgrade, the environment at night gives you a vibe of just walking by as fast as you can when you are next to the church or the statue because of the unsettling feelings you get from being in that setting. That statue and the fact that it is night time contributes towards Freud’s definition of uncanny whereby you get this frightening feeling of fear and you start getting anxious when you are around this Church at night which is ironic because why should you get that sense of fear around the house of God. The picture shows more horror than terror at night because you get that intense feeling of fear around that setting I know I did why taking these pictures which took me a good 30 seconds and I ran away because I was by myself. The statue also has some Gothic Architecture characteristics, it was built of grey color stone. And the covering around Mary was near close to being pointed. In the last two pictures which are pictures of a random Catholic Church I took why driving, you can see a lot of Gothic Architecture characteristics that it’s made of. The ornate detail, pointed arches, and tracery windows contribute to making this building Gothic, it was built of grey color stone and the windows were stained glass windows. You can also see the tall arched ceiling behind the cross on top. Unlike the first picture, this church seems more welcoming.

Garbage alley way at night

The back of the alley way

My gothic space which is close to me is the very place where people put there garbage. The reason why I chose this as my gothic space was because it had a lot of attributes which we described to be seen as gothic . To start with it has the aspect which define Freud’s definition of the uncanny because it is as stated psychological thing where something thats suppose to be familiar for you gives or brings out unsettling feelings that you knew and can also bring out feelings of fear you didn’t know, and that is exactly what happens wth be and this alley way for the garbage . The reason being that this is a place close to home where I need to go to throw garbage a place I pass by to go home but at night it a mystery to me and gives a eerie feeling when normally a place your familiar with is suppose to give comfort and that made this the perfect example for an uncanny gothic space. To be more specific the things that make the place unsettling are the dried walls which don’t give a sense of clearness the sight of garbage around which can make some people feel almost sick and the feeling of being alone in cramped alley and feeling anything can lurking by the sound the garbage makes with the wind.

The second picture has also is defined by an uncanny but notably Freud’s uncanny but Todorov’s representation of the uncanny which is to help us tell between our uncertainty through the marvelous fantastic and uncanny which can arrive at eerie uncomfortable time. When looking at the back the alley ways the shadows seem to move and nothing can be made out from there and at that point when not feeling settled about if the shadow really move but as you get closer you can see it wasn’t and can finally put it in to the category uncanny which is said to be the supernatural explained and the shadows which are thought to be moving an be explained by the lights.

This alley way reminded me of the novel of the Haunting of Hill House where there where looking for the ghostly dogs. It is said to be seen in the hallway which is narrow just like the alley way and as you keep going there is darkness in front. Also just like the second picture where shadows can be seen too be moving in a sort of way the ghostly dogs aren said to be kinda seen at the end of the hallways off the house. All of those thing contributed to making this place a gothic space where I feel anxiety or uncomfortable to just throw out garbage at night.

The gothic space I decided to do my project about is the basement at my job. For reference I work at a retail store in soho, originally the store at work at was a pop up until about a year ago so this retail space was used my another company. Some of my coworkers call this basement minus 3 because the third floor down. We don’t really use the basement for anything seeing as we have another space where all the restock of clothing items are housed. Ive only been down there for a split second about two times cause the space kinda creeps me out, almost reminds me of a scene out of Dexter(tv show). This space has a haunted characteristics to it first in my opinion starting with the sound of the steps like as you travel down, I feel like the sound gets louder and that’s probably because the steps are metal then if you look in the video the door it’s very old and it’s also made of metal and the handle looks a little weird. Then once you walk into the space there’s a bunch of sheets a plastic hunted up half way and some sheets on the floor and the old brick ways and the dirt on the floor, these things just create a chilling environment. I tried to compare this basement to the one in my apartment building but unfortunately the door was locked but because of this I was reminded of a scene in the first chapter titled ” The Story of the Door” in “The Strange case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde” specifically the part where Enfield tells Utterson about the incident between Hyde and the little girl he had trampled and the door Hyde disappeared into  get a check he uses to compensate the family for what he had done. This mystery with what’s behind the door and not exactly knowing reminded me of my basement because I’ve never actually been inside of it and it’s been a lot for so long but now that it’s locked and I want to see it I can’t. This in turn feels uncanny to me because although my basement is pretty scary to me its also somewhat a familiar space seeming as I’ve lived in the building for more than ten years, this feeling is also found in the basement at my job for similar reasons.

This is the door that leads into my basement.

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