In her latest work, artist Julia Weist turns the machinery of surveillance back on itself. After obtaining a private investigator’s license in New York, Weist used the same tools and databases available to investigators, law enforcement, and corporations to examine the hidden systems of data collection that shape everyday life. What began as an investigation into the infrastructures of privacy, identity, and power became a real-life confrontation with the state when she was called in for questioning by the New York Department of State to clarify why an artist would need a PI license in the first place.
The resulting work, Questioning, transforms that interrogation—an encounter between an artist, government officials, and the invisible architecture of surveillance—into a live performance that examines the legal gray areas, ethical contradictions, and personal stakes of being watched in a data-driven society. Blurring the boundaries between documentary, theater, and conceptual art, Weist reveals how easily the systems designed to observe us can themselves become objects of scrutiny. A performance of Questioning is currently on view at New Theater through July 19.