I didn’t know the name for this feeling. The internet said it was liminal. Now I see liminal everywhere.
Video
2025

A $150 million development is set to wipe out 14 acres of green space in East Lansing, MI. The plot has been many things over the past 100 years, including a natural area, farm, Quonset huts, and apartments. This is a liminal space, a transitional space. This is a video art piece made from footage and sound collected at that site.

In the Jonestown Death Tape, listeners will hear Jones, his supporters, his adversaries, and the faint sounds of I’m Sorry by the Delfonics playing at half speed underneath it all. Jones had recorded over the album, adding an unintended, haunting element to the recording.

The audio is my version of the Death Tape for the trees. News clips about the impending development mix with ambient sounds collected at the site. The train, which runs next to the site, is a constant reminder that college campuses are liminal spaces, and development is ever-present.

The footage of the space was edited to look like various levels of a video game, but the footage also fights itself, trying to break free from the virtual landscape. Only at the end do we get a glimpse of the unedited footage, but by then, the souls of the trees are evaporating into the mist.

As the quality of digital media continues to improve, people are increasingly drawn to indulge in nature virtually, even though the resources to run that media put natural areas at risk.

Hailey Becker

Work

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