SomaX(change)tatic hall explores the idea of the next generation trading markets, taking a cue from the previous human-to-human and entirely digital(algorithmic) models of trading platforms. The cybernetic and neurologically augmented trading hall is a machine which senses and reacts (pulsating, secreting, warming up) as a human body, augmenting the (biologic) wiring of its human users(traders, investors, clients), allowing them to become cyborgs of heightened pheromonal, haptic and olfactory sensitivities. The space aims to become the dramatic “milieu” or stage bridging the events of the global metal markets, the landscapes it is affecting and trading environments worldwide which orchestrate all these events; creating a spectacle in which the spectators are also the actors and the incomprehensible trading market becomes a non-virtual reality to be lived in.
The vestibule is the first space visitors and traders go through, which is the doorway to a world of altered reality where the senses are heightened and responsive to changes of the external realities of the global trading markets. It is the space where the bodies get initiated to this synthetic sensitivity and are cleansed of the contaminants of the exterior world.
the implied volatility of the market is very low. The infrastructural veins surrounding the hall are being pumped with hot air collected from the heat of the servers at ground level. One can tell the traders of this hall are very optimistic and confident as the floor slab frequently pulsates releasing heavy steam. Even the visitors watching from the mezzanine can feel the heat oozing from the pipes of the hall at this point. The optimism and confidence is turning into a hectic frenzy in the room as vision is getting blocked by the trubulent air and the traders constantly rush to the fountains at the perimeter as they get dehydrated. Pretty soon, the petals trapping the steam inside the hall will open up as their veins get overheated and contract.
On a particularly high implied volatility day at the zinc exchange, all the veins of the hall are glistening with dew condensed on the cold surfaces. A calm cloud is floating close to the ground. The timid traders here have been quite passive for the past few days, since the accident which happened at one of the largest zinc mines of the world in Minago, Canada. The traders cheer up a little when small white particles start to drop from the oculus of the hall. Maybe this will help them clear their mind and think of how to get out of this bearing market as they start to smell the copulins that have drifted from the meeting halls nerby, falling into the exchange hall with the help of the cold.
