The Global Protest Map

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The Global Protest Map is a physical interactive map that displays the world-wide striking activity of women assembly line workers in factories that produce computer components. Striking activity is represented on two levels, by continent and by nation. The level of strikes per continent is displayed by height of the continent from the base of the map. Each nation is represented by one LED whose brightness reflects striking levels in that country. Motors move the continents up and down to display the levels of activity. LEDs dim and brighten depending on a particular country's strike activity level.

Each continent will be made of discarded motherboards and the LEDs will be embedded within these motherboards. The average striking levels for each continent will be displayed by the height of the continent from the base of the map.

The idea for this project emerged from research into globalization's impact on women in the technology sector. The intention is to display the regions most affected by computer production. Statistics indicate that women comprise up to ninety percent of assembly line workers in semiconductor plants worldwide.

Women's enormous representation in the computer components industry, especially the semiconductor industry resulted in their constituting the largest portion of employees with health issues related to semiconductor production. Currently in the U.S., there are 257 pending law suits against IBM, in which former employees of IBM who have contracted cancer argue that they contracted cancer from semiconductor assembly at IBM. The hope with this project is to present the striking activity in semiconductor factories as a way to display the health issues women face in semiconductor fabrication.