matt martin

you arrive at the foot of mount kailash      a himalayan peak sacred among buddhists and jains and hindus and followers of bönpo      the latter is tibet’s indigenous faith      the summit’s snow-covered dome caps nearly vertical slopes      no one has achieved the top since the sage milarepa flew there on a sunbeam a thousand years ago       a spanish expedition in 2001 was cancelled after protests from religious leaders      to honour one’s faith one must circumambulate the mountain      a trek of three days      completing the circuit triggers a spiritual current      and voltage equals current times resistance      the greater the path’s resistance the greater the voltage      but you did not come here to walk the route      you’ve made a deal with tibet’s occupying chinese government      to build an orbital motorway round kailash      you observe the diggers and steam rollers and men at work      soon anyone able to afford a car will complete the pilgrimage in mere hours      and repeat the circuit again and again with ease      low resistance but high current still equating to high enough voltage for motorists      yet robbing pedestrians of the resistance they need to accumulate the same charge      now the road is complete      how will you circumnavigate the peak

     •    drive round it clockwise like hindus and buddhists
     •    drive widdershins like jains and adherents of bönpo

matt martin

“in the days of the fox a snake will be born and this will bring death to human beings      it will encircle london with its long tail and devour all those who pass by”      this is what geoffrey of monmouth set down in the eleventh century      transcribing the document known as the prophecies of merlin      in this case merlin foresaw london’s orbital m25 motorway      jaws of bridge over and tunnel under the thames at dartford grasping the serpent’s own tail      this ouroboros constantly sheds its own skin of motor vehicles      each scale a car or truck      hence the name of the nearby town of slough      the snake always renews itself in time to consume another rush hour of human woe      the road is a kinetic sculpture serving as an idol that reconvenes older ophidian cults      from norse myth the world serpent jörmungandr      whose venom will exhaust the sky when the world ends      or apep the ancient egyptian night snake      who attempts to swallow the sun during its commute home through the underworld every dusk      what turning will you take to escape leviathan’s coils

     •    veer west from the m4 junction at west drayton and head towards slough
     •    take the a13 north of dartford and drive into london’s east end

matt martin

the programmer tells you three rules so your code can be fast enough for h.f.t.      “do not touch the kernel        do not touch main memory      don’t branch”      any of those crimes will slow a computer’s running of its operations in parallel      if you wanted to make h.f.t. slow enough for human minds to follow      you’d need a text branching from page to page in baroque ‘if then’ loops      you’d need to reach elbow-deep into memory’s morally grey matter and squeeze it until it cried meaningfully      you’d have to plant a kernel beneath london’s financial centre then wait for coiling growth to push upwards through pavements and topple the corporate towers      to attempt such branching would be madness      instead your trading activities shine along unimaginably straight cable that runs on for hundreds of miles underground      you can’t detect light because you have become light      but if eyes could operate down here they might wish they couldn’t when faced with horizonless distance      a tunnel two feet wide was bored through a mountain range’s base to accommodate this fibre-optic route    the owner of an ice cream parlour was paid millions to let it pass beneath the yard behind his shop      a bridge was built over an estuary with no purpose but to hold this pipeline level      no traffic allowed on the crossing in case vibrations should skew a photon from its path      no refraction      no distraction      your trading speed now approaches that of light      the one way to increase your advantage is to change the laws of physics      how might this be done

     •    take physics to court and force it to lift its restrictions
     •    fund research into transmission routes that don’t require passage through space

matt martin

this algorithm has an exoskeleton      its brain inhabits a mainframe in a data centre on an industrial estate in new jersey or outside frankfurt      tendrils extend from there to siphon capital from dark pools around the world      the infrastructure reaches underground through fibre-optic cables to other cities      at least in cases where buildings or mountains or the earth’s curvature block more direct signalling      within financial districts trades beam through the air from bank to bank      fortunes are invested in technology to ensure the time lag when buying and selling is close to zero as possible      you follow a strand of this network      tracing it through underwater cabling until you emerge in a mirror-windowed data centre near slough      a prime location for transmitting business between london and north america      different companies hire space here for their servers      the more you pay the closer your server gets to the middle of the floor      there to gain an advantage of nanoseconds over competitors trading from the perimeter      the machines are chilled by nitrogen to maximise conductivity and speed      this coolant is the liquid in the contemporary slough of despond      “the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sin doth continually run” says john bunyan in the pilgrim’s progress      he advises a spiral path through the world on one’s journey to perfection      what will you do with his wisdom

     •    follow bunyan’s advice
     •    take the straight road to heaven instead

matt martin

in 1965 the poet harry fainlight attended london’s royal albert hall      to read at the international poetry incarnation      countercultural youth crammed tiers of seats to imitate the audience at a victorian operating theatre      there to watch surgeons like allen ginsberg and adrian mitchell save the body politic by lancing with language the napalm-filled cist of the vietnam war      but then fainlight came on and dissected himself      in his poem the spider he unspun an acid trip during which he had fixated upon a particular cobweb      he was inspired by how an arachnid on l.s.d. weaves its silk traps asymmetrically      as he read out the poem his ribcage cracked open      each bone paddling air as one limb of the ulcerous spider at his core      “all lines of power      fiscal or muscular      radiate from there”      self as nexus of the collective hallucinations that constitute capitalism      finance figured as flashing through networks and thrumming in repetitious cycles      prophesying high frequency trading’s lysergic unreality      this was not what the audience had come to hear      his reading was as asymmetric as war by guerillas against a conventional army      those booing from up near the rafters enjoyed the perspective of u.s. air force bombers      but what is your favourite line in the poem

     •    “an ulcer is the brain of commerce”
     •    “myself already a fat successful old spider just back from doing big deals in the mental brokeries”

matt martin

autobiography      years before the financial crash of 2008      i did my best to be capitalist      i took a job at a mortgage broking firm      my task was to process mortgage completions once all the approvals had been received      every case that i processed represented somebody gaining a new home      but i had no contact with any of them      no way to know what might become of them next      arranging a house for somebody is normally seen as kindness      but these boons were often assaults      we worked with lenders like northern rock      specialists in sub-prime mortgages      at the touch of a button that transferred one row of numbers between spreadsheets      i dropped debt into the lives of those who couldn’t sustain their repayments      years later the backwash of defaulted loans would erode northern rock down to sand      is there a difference between killing families with drone strikes or with usury      my discomfort with all this was obvious      on the last day of your probation my manager called me to her office for a meeting      “we think you might be happier in community-oriented work”      she explained that it was important to trust the c.e.o.’s ethical choices      our role is to enact them      we are the technology through which finance operates on the world      don’t worry about the human beings you’re processing      as far as you’re concerned they’re just numbers upon a screen      to demonstrate how this should work in practice      i was asked to clear my desk and leave the building right away      and you      how would you respond to such a change of circumstances

     •    scale back your outgoings to match your reduced income
     •    reply with physical violence to the systematic brutality of capital