Answers to Some Questions about Bananas
2006»Answers to Some Questions about Bananas« is the re-telling of my encounters
with the world’s first economic computer – a dedicated hydromechanical
analogue from the 1950’s - and how this machine became embroiled in the
politics of the developing world.
Known as the Phillips Machine, this hydraulic computer was developed at
the London School of Economics by the New Zealand economist Bill Phillips
who was at the time enrolled as a student. The Phillips Machine, standing
almost 2m (6”) high is a representation of fiscal and monetary flows in
a national economy.
The machine caused a sensation when it was first demonstrated at the L.S.E.
In contrast to electronic computers of the day it is extremely visual:
a fixed volume of water - dyed red to represent money - is pumped like
blood through a circulatory system of transparent pipes and slices. The
fluid accumulation in the various holding tanks becomes the measure for
the economic data. Phillips built the machine to comprehend for himself
certain theoretical problems. The solution to build a fluid model may
trace back to his earlier employment on a hydroelectric dam and in the
dairy industry.
The Phillips Machine soon became a popular teaching tool in university
economics departments. In total perhaps 15 were produced and shipped to
cities world wide including, Chicago, Melbourne, Istanbul, Boston, Amsterdam
and Guatemala City. In the U.S. the noted ecomomist, Abba P. Lerner marketed
and sold the machine, but under a new name - the Moniac. Lerner’s enthusiastic
efforts lead to several sales including one in particular that interested
me. In 1953 a machine was sold to the Banco de Guatemala (the Central
Bank of Guatemala). It seems that through this sale the Moniac had entered
several new worlds, it was no longer in the educational realm (rather
it was in an institution that monitors money circulation) and, it was
now in the developing world.
Charting a peculiar export of the 20th century - Western economists and
their quixotic quest in the tropical world - my unfulfilled search for
the lost Moniac purchased by the Central Bank led me to construct a facsimile
of that model. The machine became the centrepiece of the installation
and is seen in the context of a promotional film from United Fruit, the
largest private landholder in Guatemala at the time. Together they allude
to a tropical economy based on the banana and the thwarted search for
national prosperity. My working replica Moniac was left unattended for
the duration of the exhibition reducing it to a decrepit, ruinous, economic
state.
related: Banco
de Guatemala
CCA Wattis Institute
for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco Capp St. Project 28.11.06 – 24.02.07
Vilma Gold, London
13.07.07 – 12.08.07
Tate Modern, London
»The Irresistible Force« (group exhibition) 20.09.07 – 25.11.07
»Not Quite How I Remember It« The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada, curator Helena Reckitt, 07.06.08 – 01.09.08
»Master Humphrey's Clock « (a project by de Appel
curatorial programme), Leidsche Rijn, Utrecht, the Netherlands, 12.05.08
– 08.06.08
publication title: »c/o
The Central Bank of Guatemala«
