“Urban Interactions” – 2019 Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture

The Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture of Shenzhen and Hong Kong has announced the theme of its eighth edition, “Urban Interactions”, whose activities and exhibitions will be held in the transport hub of Futian Railway Station, from December 2019 to March 2020. As the city itself is a huge and complex interactive system and with the introduction of new technologies such as ultra-high-speed inter-city railway, big data, cloud computing, Internet of things, AI, etc., more and more unprecedented issues are popping up. The new relationships derived from virtual-real space, HCI and cross-regional mega-city community will certainly turn into a new forefront that human beings are to face in the future.

The exhibition, scheduled to open at the Futian Railway Station and the surrounding areas, consists of two sections, namely “Eyes of the City” and “Ascending City” exploring the evolving relationship between urban space and technological innovation from different perspectives. At the same time, several sub-venues will be set up in other districts of the city to interconnect with the Main Venue, completing an organically interactive network throughout the city.

The “Eyes of the City” section, jointly curated by Carlo Ratti and the South China–Torino Lab aims to investigate how Artificial Intelligence is going to impact architecture as well as people’s daily life in the city. The show will explore how the “Eyes of the City” scenario also brings us to a new understanding of issues such as the distinction between private and public space, the relation between creativity and increasing automation, the role of Big Data, and the ways in which technology can be re-appropriated by individuals and communities.

The “Ascending City” section, curated by Meng Jianmin and Fabio Cavallucci, gathers a number of prestige architects, artists, filmmakers, writers and museum advisors, as well as interdisciplinary professionals around science fiction concepts: here, cities are more than the physical facilities of high-rise buildings; after this dimensional ascent cities will become more intelligent, humanistic, inclusive, convenient and reliable.