From surveillant text to surveilling device: The face in urban transit spaces

This paper considers the power, the significance and the operation of the human face as it transitions from being a mere object for defining dispositions to an agency for transmitting control in contemporary transit spaces. Seen as the most idiosyncratic surface of the body, the face has become a critical object for the measurement of truthfulness in recent years. CCTV and facial recognition technologies have increasingly been deployed in various transit spaces such as airports and railway stations to scan, detect and recognise particular facial characteristics of the target face so as to identify risky situations and intervene before they become hazardous events. However, this paper shows that in addition to these techniques of control-at-a-distance, the face is becoming an important site for a different technique of control as well. Specifically, the face is becoming a key site for circulating a particular range of affects to modulate individuals and to maintain security in transit space. A growing number of transport operators are now supplementing 'detached' infrastructures such as CCTV and security personnel, with more 'affective' infrastructures of social control such as friendly smiling platform staff and welcoming station concierges at information desks. By taking a closer look at one Japanese railway operator, Keikyu Corporation, and its implementation of the 'Smile Scan technology', this paper investigates how the face of the passenger is modulated, made receptive and thus turned into an agent of social control in urban transit spaces.