World Building

Our world started with the question, “What if the earth rotated so that one night and one day were each a year?” Much like the reading Design Fiction, we realized that, in order to develop a believable world, scientific fact would influence the fictional world, which in turn influences culture, technology, etc. We considered physical implications: long days and nights would lead to deserts during noon and tundra during midnight. How would people survive this world? Here we drew from Garth Nix’s The Seventh Tower. That world is without sunlight. One tribe lives in permanent migration following prey. Another group creates sturdy buildings to survive the cold. That idea sparked a realization that, in our world, the most habitable places would be close to the twilights: average temperatures and a better environment for plants and livestock. While there may be some tribes that settle and wait out the days and nights, others would be circumnavigating the globe in fleets of amphibious vehicles, following the path of the sun. When brainstorming our ideas, we were not able to coordinate together due to different schedules, so we passed on the general idea, and then each separately thought of the implications and added our own insight. The result was a diverse take into the culture of the world.

We realized these large migratory vehicles require energy. They would need to have permanent energy stations around the globe that harness gas, solar power, tides,etc. Due to temperatures and harsh conditions, working at these stations wouldn’t be popular. The circumnavigation also means workers would only reunite with their fleet every 2 years. They would determine who would go by draft, and, just like the drafts during our wars, people who went would be encouraged to do so by society, like it is heroic. Hence the poster by Brendan.

Secondly, if society is traveling along in large fleets, they need to communicate. Since you can’t string wires between ships, they would have focused more on radio technology. This society would thus have developed radio-show style entertainment. That is why Kaily and Brendan created such a radio show from this world, talking about a ship’s captain who has driven farther into the hot day to find an energy station.

When considering the dullness of life on the ships, we also decided that artistic endeavors would likely be abstract. For one thing, the landscape would remain desolate and the lighting wouldn’t change as they remain in the twilight, nearly eliminating drive for representational art. Also, since they solely live on the same ships in the same situation, there wouldn’t be much room for diversity. Thus, for some there would likely be a feeling of entrapment and stagnation that would provide drive for some mode of creation. Kaily created a possible piece that would result from this need--a glass vase filled with unraveled audio tape. This reflects the lack of resources for creation, and the emotion of entrapment. The individuals in this society all receive the same stories and interviews through audio communication, furthering the absence of diversity. However, they cannot escape this void because they are retained in their ships by necessity, represented by the glass vase. The long process of unravelling the audio tape reflects the sluggish rotation of the earth and the unhealthy mindset of this flat society.

In the last artistic piece, we decided to follow the nomadic tribes of the people who became accustomed to the dark. That being those who were unable to create sturdy buildings and closed societies therein, but perhaps had become over exposed to the harsh elements of the tundra atmosphere associated with the night. Immediately, I was reminded of the Native American folk legend of the skin-walker. A person, who exists and functions primarily in the dark, and has the perceived ability to transform into animals or more scientifically plausible, walk on all fours. Again we draw on elements of science and exploration to create this last wild element of our harsh world. I was reminded of the old “Twilight Zone” Episode The Midnight Sun. This narrative explores, very scientifically I might add, a scenario in where the Sun and the Earth are drawing closer to each other. This results in a much hotter days with completely no night. So naturally we wanted to explore the opposite effect of this scenario- the night. If a people were completely shrouded by night for a seemingly endless amount of time, would they in fact become a skin-walker? It is entirely plausible that their eyesight would gradually begin to degrade and as a result, other senses would become enhanced. In order to successfully navigate terrain and seek sources of food and water certainly the indigenous people of the night would require use of all fours, creating a more animalistic evolutionary species. In this last piece, Billy decided to explore the idea of a young person aboard one of these migratory ships who decides to explore the world of the night. Using a camera that is unable to record the images of the night due to a faulty lens, we follow the narrative of a curious scientist seeking to discover if there’s truth to the fear of the indigenous Night dweller that is ingrained into the people of the Day.

Overall, each piece explored a different portion of societal trends whether it be the practical aspect of the science and logical reasoning behind travel and communication, the artistic expression among the people, or the innate curiosity that leads human being to explore dangerous new frontiers.