The Secret Lives of Bananas

2024

 

Bananas are our most popular fruit, 100 billion of them are consumed every year.  Our local market presents hundreds of them to you as soon as you walk in the door.  

 

What if every banana is actually an independent agent?  Complexity theory suggests that large numbers of independent agents interacting with each other can cause unpredicted and surprising things to emerge.

 

Perhaps that's happened, and the bananas don't want us to know.  As new banana properties emerge, the bananas remember that they outnumber us by an order of magnitude.  They bide their time, and watch.  

 

But they're still bananas, and thus prone to slip up.  Nestled neatly together during the day, after the market closes for the night they celebrate, thinking that they can't be seen.  Their crescent forms lend themselves to circular dances with many partners able to happily interact.

 

Alas, this sculpture outs them to the world.  Their hand is tipped, their plot is peeled back, their green plans not yet ripe.  The bananas don't worry, though.  They know that, since they're tasty, we'll forever keep them around in their billions.