Reconstructed setting· The columns of time

The network

1950 → Today

This backdrop shows the present, the period when most of humanity became urban: a city skyline lit at night, a rocket standing on its launch pad and a satellite overhead.

Backdrop representing the contemporary period: a city skyline lit at night, a rocket standing on its launch pad and a satellite crossing the sky. Within this period, the majority of humanity becomes urban and artificial satellites are placed in orbit around the Earth.

What the evidence shows

Nocturnal lighting is represented literally: more than half of humanity has lived in cities since about 2007, and the artificial lighting of settlements is observable from orbit, which constitutes a new characteristic of the planet. The satellite symbolises the space age, which began with Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, launched by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957. The rocket standing on its launch pad evokes the one that launched Sputnik 1: a modified version of the R-7. The R-7 was the first intercontinental ballistic missile, that is, a military rocket built to strike another continent. In 76 years, world population moves from 2.5 to 8.2 billion.

Bounds and conventions

This is the most difficult backdrop to establish without bias, being the only one its readers inhabit. It represents a city at night, the setting in which most of the present population lives but in which only a minority lived at the start of the period. The rocket and the city are drawn side by side for the sake of the composition: the backdrop shows no particular place.