mcworld in the house.

this past week has been an effort at collecting mappable, consistent data, which has proven to be a major challenge. right now, my mapimation is heading in the direction of having a base map which morphs through height extrusions showing the countries that have mcdonald's (where the heights reference the extent of influence within that country, based on founding year and number of mcdonalds within that country). transparent toruses overlaid onto this map represent the major players in global beef exportation, and the toruses morph into spheres. i'm planning on animating these spheres along circular, radial paths to show where the beef gets transported. i'm working on creating landscapes to represent the different cow pasture typographies found in different countries, and also incorporating a history of cow domestication and migration within these typographical representations. i want to show the big mac index to integrate purchasing power and political power based on this purchasing power into the map, but i'm having difficulty with finding a good way to represent this. also, i have yet to find a feasible manner of mapping the golden arches theory of conflict prevention.






brief history of cattle:

• Cattle are related to the AUROCH group of mammals and were found in europe and asia during the stone age.
• 1623: British brought the first cows over to Plymouth Colony.
• As Spanish colonization of the Americas took hold, cattle were introduced in places like Argentina, Central America etc.
• Around the Industrial Revolution, England was the beef-eating capital of the world. Not only to increase food for a growing population, but also to keep wages down, and due to the influence of wealthy meat industry leaders and landowners, beef consumption was made affordable to more and more people.
• The British Empire distributed much rum and meat to its military forces, thus helping to subsidize the sugar and meat industries.
• To support an increasing demand, Britain would look to its empire, its colonies and other areas for additional beef and support of grain production.
• American meat industries, eager to make profits from the British demand looked to increase their cattle production. However, they had to overcome problems including available rangeland and meeting the specific taste requirements of the British which, involved having fatter cows. Indians and buffalo were in the lands that cattle producers needed for rangeland. This led to the famous near extermination of the bison, which would also “deal” with the Indian problem.
• This destroyed the Indians of the Plains, to whom buffalo were central in their culture as both a major food source and spiritual power. They were moved off to reservations and other lands but no means of real chance of continued meaningful existence.
• To meet demands of fatty beef by the British, corn was increasingly fed to cattle. Furthermore, the price of grain was so cheap, it was advantageous to feed corn to cows. This formed a symbiotic relationship to the extent that even today, the price of corn is closely linked to the demand for the price of cattle.
• After World War II, the surge in automobile use (helped by a $350 billion project to construct 41,000 miles of highways in the United States) led to the growth of the suburbs and fast-food restaurants that were making beef, and in particular, the hamburger a prime choice. (Eric Schossler's Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal ).

world beef flow: