Interoperability and the Use of Symbols and Abstractions for Exchanging Information.

Working as a licensed broker helped me to further my understanding of the markets which was foreign to me as an academic where my teaching involved interdisciplinary research in art, technology and the sciences. One of my core interests in developing WRLDs, was to find a method to address the human experience of trading. The creation and dissolution of markets has broad implications for all of us because we experience it in every aspect of our lives. It is as ubiquitous as computing.

In the practice of many of the sciences interacting directly with physical materials brings researchers outside of their “looking apparatus”, (as discussed by science and technology theorist Michel Serres). It introduces information into their work which is unexpected and difficult to control. In the practice of human trading, (not algorithmic), it is as though one forgets that there are at times millions of other individuals attached at the same moment via this technological apparatus where information is exchanged–the buy and sell–in a trading transaction.

My intention for our current project in WRLDs was to develop our virtual space, (The Foyer), so that an interactive 3D virtual form could be generated using a trader’s data, in real time. This interface would allow traders to gain some distance from the trading transaction as well as share and transform their new understanding with others. They could use their own data to create insights based on a tactile form, which could have a value other than an exchange value.

I wondered if this occurred might not be similar to what I observed in the sciences when researchers interacted with physical materials or worked with those outside their fields and bring new insights into trading. Our current tools for trading all repeat the same uses with the data with only slight refinements or variations. It seemed there had to be other methods that used more of what Derrida might consider as an expanded form of writing as in a hieroglyph–where a single abstract symbol contains layers of meaning. This is different than a symbol such as a letter or number which by itself has very little significance. A hieroglyph tells a complete story. A hieroglyph of a river might describe its location, the human use of the river and the surrounding area.