The beauty of abandonment

I posted some of these photos before, but I can't get them out of my head. While beautiful and haunting at the same time, they also show our insignificance in frightening perspective. Moving past the philosophical implications and aesthetics, there is a twelve year old boy inside me that wants to explore these ruins from top to bottom. He believes that somewhere in the labyrinthine twists and turns monsters, ghosts and secrets wait to be discovered. The dystopian images spark my adult imagination as well, stories rush through my brain, descriptions of societies that live in these ruins, beneath the mainstream radar that practice a strange hybrid of ancient magic and modern technology.  Also, what wonderful locations to make films.  L The Retail Ruins of America's Ghost Malls With all the malls and retail spaces dotting the American landscape, ruined malls could someday stand as memorials to modern society. Photographer Brian Ulrich documents abandoned and neglected retail spaces, including many that have already fallen into decay. The more immaculate of these malls evoke the nation of ghost malls Cory Doctorow imagines in his recent book Makers, or seem ripe for zombies. But the decaying images offer possible glimpses of America's eventual ruins. Ghosts of Shopping Past [Morning News via Boing Boing] 1 2 3 4 5 6 Send an email to Lauren Davis, the author of this post, at lauren@io9.com. Abandoned Ruins of the Soviet Empire After the fall of the Berlin Wall, many Soviet bases and monuments were left to crumble, never repurposed or reused. These memorials to the USSR stretch across Eastern Europe and Asia, a more global view of a modern nation's ruins. Eric Lusito took these images and more for his book After the Wall - Traces of the Soviet Empire. [After the Wall via Nerdcore] 1 2 3 imgimgimgimg

Posted via email from Lee's posterous