ODE TO MICHAEL MANN

2012

In his book, Sources of Social Power, Michael Mann describes power over the last 5000+ years as being composed of 4 enmeshed networks: political, military, ideological and economic.

How much power in these networks has been generated by women?

I would guess that it breaks down something like this:

Political 2%

Military 2%

Ideological 10%

Economic 50%

Total 16%

History has produced no female Marx, Jesus or Adam Smith- thus the 10% ideological contribution. I am (generously) proffering that women contribute half of the economy, even though the money has not parsed out that way over the last 5000 years.

One benefit women have received from their low rate of participation in global power (as Mann defines it) is that they have generally not been fighting at the frontline of battle.

This is my visualization of the female contribution to global power over time.

ALLOCATION CEMENTED

2012

Made for The Center For Advanced Hindsight at Duke University Show:

Poor Quality/Inequality

According to Credit Suisse's 2011 Global Wealth Report, the global breakdown of wealth is:

World Population Wealth

9% 82%

24% 15%

67% 3%

I created an 8 foot wooden cube with a grid at the top that had 100 ribbons hanging from it with ‘coins’ and magnets on the ends.

The idea was to have people walk through the coins with magnetized jackets in order to watch them react as a winner take all situation developed (due to the way I allocated the magnets inside their jackets). However, my structure had ideas of its own. The magnets were very sensitive to any sort of movement. Therefore, I made two videos:

1. WEALTH DISTRIBUTION: Four people enter the cube. They speak of who has wealth and who does not and how it should be allocated. 

2. ALLOCATION CEMENTED: The cube (with the help of the wind) allocated the wealth on its own, mirroring the current global distribution. Initially, all the ribbons are hanging straight down: to each his own. Then, as the wind blows, the coins agglomerate, and the ribbons to which they are attached become intertwined and tangled. Once a few large clumps form, the distribution of the coins and ribbons is cemented.

Dan Ariely:  The economist Thomas Schelling showed in 1972 that even small differences in initial conditions can yield dramatically different outcomes over time. In one of his examples, he demonstrated that a neighborhood comprised of people who have a slight preference for others of the same skin color can gain momentum over time such that the neighborhood winds up completely segregated. Similarly, in a world in which money begets more money, it is easy to see how a slightly better starting point could yield substantially different outcomes down the line.