Liminal does not mean minimal. It means in-between, neither here nor there but in the interstices, transitional.
Dictionary.app in macOS Sequoia defines (with example usage) "liminal" as
> 1 occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold: I was in the liminal space between past and present | the paintings in this exhibition are the result of recent investigation into liminal states.
> 2 relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process: that liminal period when a child is old enough to begin following basic rules but is still too young to do so consistently.
Your articulation of a liminal aesthetic hits upon the tension inherit in the word “liminal”.
By definition “liminal” signals “in between” which connotes an unsettledness or indeterminacy, or what in other realms is called the uncanny. This liminal aesthetic, at its core, is shot through with a sense of the uncanny, and empty devoid spaces where normally there is a lot of traffic convey this aesthetic clearly and succinctly.
Thank you for drawing this distinction.
My intent when referring to the denotation of “liminal” was to remind that even familiar places, such as bustling train stations and busy airport terminals, are also liminal spaces even if they don’t conform to current representations of the liminal _aesthetic_. By preserving the denotation of the word “liminal”, we can defamiliarize such spaces and recover (or emphasize) their liminality.
All of which is the message of art like Brian Eno’s “Music for Airports”. Who doesn’t appreciate the defamiliarization of our “mundane” traversals of the realms we inhabit?
Like many things throughout history, I strongly suspect it means whatever the author means.
A Nina Simone song comes to mind: everyone's gone... to the moon...