The Stock-Trading Yucca Plant

In September 1999, the Swedish artist Ola Pehrson attached electrodes to the leaves of a Yucca plant. These monitored the plant and were linked to a computer program tracking the 16 most active stocks of the Stockholm stock exchange. The Yucca thus made recommendations on these stocks.

If its recommendations performed better than the bourse's general index, it would get light and water. If the plant failed to deliver profits, it stayed dry and in the dark. It is reported that the plant performed well above the general index.

The stock-trading Yucca was part of an exhibition by seven Swedish artists in Stockholm, and has since appeared appeared again in another exhibition in 2000. I do not know if the plant is still turning a profit, or whether it is even still connected to the stock market. Who knows, it might yet manage to buy the world.