Women in Tech

In the past couple of years, San Francisco has become a hub for tech industry. Positioned in the heart of San Francisco’s financial district on Market and Montgomery, where every day hundreds of people pass on their way to work, the monument is a reminder of the struggle ahead to achieve fair representation for women.

The monument is in form of an Obelisk. The phallic shape is a representation of the male dominant work place.  The content is divided into two parts:

1-  The hope for a preferred future with meaningful roles for women is displayed through a glass shield.
2- The current experiences women go through at work are displayed on the cap and the side walls  

The Obelisk takes the form of a triangular pillar of 20 feet with a tetrahedral cap. The front wall is wider than either of the side walls. It consists of LCDs with modified Polarization layers. It does not show the preferred future in its milky-glow, until the passersby look at the wall through the polarizer glass placed 5 feet ahead of the wall. They can then explore the vision of the future. 

The polarizer screen in front of the obelisk shows a slide show of newspaper articles, video clips, and pictures of this ideal state. The content will be produced by artists, comedians, journalists, and the project curators.

The video above is an example of how a polarizer works in conjunction with LCDs with modified Polarization layers

The side walls and the cap are LED dot displays, with a rough look and feel. They represent the current tech environment vis a vis women. They act as a board for women to voice their grievances. So, every time a woman is mistreated, sidestepped, or devalued, she can send a text or a tweet to the wall, and her message will keep rotating on the obelisk.  

The above map shows the data flow for the monument. The curation has been minimized in order to keep the input authentic.