Architect and MIT professor Carlo Ratti stokes the surveillance debate with his biennale exhibition, which is set in a working train station in China and uses facial-recognition technology.
A part of the the Bi-City Biennale of UrbanismArchitecture in Shenzhen, The Eyes of the City exhibition is now open at Futian station.
It features works by over 60 international contributors, including MVRDV, Thomas Heatherwick and Liam Young. All respond to the question of how digital technologies are impacting urban life ? especially sensors that give a city the ability to "see".

Ratti is an expert on the topic of smart cities and head of MIT's Senseable City Lab. He advocates for more transparency and public awareness about how governments and companies use people's data. As the exhibition's chief curator, Ratti set out to provoke debate by employing facial-recognition technology and artificial intelligence to track visitors.
But in contrast to how the public might currently encounter those technologies in today's public spaces, The Eyes of the City educates its visitors about what is happening and secures their explicit consent.

Throughout the venue, cameras are highlighted rather than hidden. There are two information points, designed by Dutch architects MVRDV and located at opposite ends of the venue, that scan visitors' faces for the purpose of recognition.
The participants then choose whether they are happy to be tracked or whether they would like to retain their anon...