The recent utilization of Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) by private institutions as an unconsented method of tracking, monitoring, and selling personal data needs direct attention. The project investigated the social and spatial implications of Facial Recognition Technology, focusing on specific sites in New York where data is collected without consent, to raise questions about our own “face value” in the context of personality collection. On a walk from Midtown to the Upper West, three institutions that used FRT were highlighted: Macy’s Herald Square, Radio City Music Hall, and Fairway Market to propose pavilions for remuneration. Each pavilion’s form is based on the volumes that are generated from FRT cones of vision identified in the three sites; a negative version or inverse cast of the space of surveillance. The whole process of scanning–processing–profiling is a constant feedback loop between subject and collector. My process aims to invert the hierarchical role and position this relationship in a pavilion and, importantly, does not propose a system of redaction but instead incentivizes collective remuneration.
