![REVOLUTION [REV-UH-LOO-SHUH N]:](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5917729d197aeaa5f48e369b/1494722505317-5XHSL7WHSE1GLKT0CZOY/stars-2.jpg)
Project Brief: Develop expressive typography based on the concept of revolution.
The concept of this project is based on Isaac Asimov’s Nightfall and a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Asimov’s story is about a world that experiences nightfall only every 2000 years. The scene in particular shows us a conversation between a journalist and a researcher, both guessing at what they might see in the night sky. They suppose that there may be two or three stars in the distance, but nothing more than that would be possible. When the night comes, society finds that there are millions and billions of stars in the sky, and it’s clear now why there is no record of past nightfalls. Men have gone mad thinking about the insignificance of their existence, burning down their society.
The fictional planet Lagash is located in a stellar system containing six suns, which keep the whole planet continuously illuminated; total darkness is unknown, and as a result so are all the stars outside the planet’s stellar system.
A group of scientists from Saro University begin to make a series of related discoveries: a psychologist researches the effects of prolonged exposure to darkness; an archaeologist finds evidence of multiple cyclical collapses of civilization which have occurred regularly about every 2000 years; an astronomer who has discovered irregularities in the orbit of the planet around its primary sun. On the other hand, a religious group, the Cult, believe the world would be destroyed in a darkness with the appearance of stars that unleash a torrent of fire.
Combining his knowledge of the repetitive collapses of society at the archaeological site, and the new theory of potential eclipses; the astronomer concludes that once every 2049 years the one sun visible is eclipsed, resulting in a brief “night”. His theory is that this “night” was so horrifying to the people who experienced it that they desperately sought out any light source to try to drive it away, particularly, by frantically starting fires which burned down and destroyed their successive civilizations.
Since the current population of Lagash has never experienced general darkness, the scientists conclude that the darkness would traumatize the people and that they would need to prepare for it. When nightfall occurs, the scientists (who have prepared themselves for darkness) and the rest of the planet are most surprised by the sight of hitherto invisible stars outside the six-star system filling the sky. Never having seen other stars in the sky, the inhabitants of Lagash had come to believe that their six-star system contained the entirety of the universe. In one horrifying instant, anyone gazing at the night sky—the first night sky which they have ever known—is suddenly faced with the reality that the universe contains many millions upon billions of stars: the awesome, horrifying realization of just how vast the universe truly is drives them insane.
- SOCIAL CHANGE, OFTEN ACCOMPANIED BY VIOLENCE;
- RELATED TO ASTRONOMY, CYCLES;
- PARADIGM SHIFTS