Julia Weist, a visual artist based in Durham, New York, has redefined the role of a private investigator by combining her artistic practice with investigative techniques typically used in law enforcement. Licensed as a private investigator since 2022, Weist’s work diverges from traditional crime-solving to explore the collection and display of surveillance and personal data through her art.

Weist uses the digital tools available to licensed investigators to track how information is gathered and stored, transforming this data into diagrammatic collages exhibited in galleries and museums. One example includes representations of her car as captured by license plate recognition systems, highlighting the pervasive nature of surveillance technology. Describing the infrastructure of surveillance as “the material” of her work, she probes themes of privacy and digital monitoring through a unique artistic lens.

In 2024, Weist sought to renew her private investigator license with the New York Department of State. Rather than approving her renewal by mail, officials summoned her to an in-person meeting in Albany to scrutinize whether her artistic activities qualified as investigative work under the law. The meeting prompted a dialogue about the intersection of conceptual art and government regulation, raising questions about whether an investigation can be considered a form of art and vice versa. Weist explained to the officials that her application itself was "investigating the notion of investigations," and ultimately, her license was renewed, valid through July 2027.

This unusual encounter became the basis for Weist’s new multidisciplinary project, “Questioning,” a theatrical work debuting at New Theater Hollywood in Los Angeles. The production, which opened in early October 2024 and is scheduled to run for two weekends, recreates the Albany interrogation through lip-synced performances. Actors Erika Mugglin, Adron Duell, and Michael Joseph Pierce perform to an hour-long audio recording of the meeting that Weist captured on her cellphone. Although the state investigators initially said the session would be recorded, a Freedom of Information Law request later revealed no official recording could be located.

The play uses the unaltered dialogue to emphasize the complexity and awkwardness of the bureaucratic process, with the performers meticulously matching their speech to the recorded audio. According to Mugglin, the approach highlights the natural rhythms and imperfections of human speech without embellishment. Duell noted the importance of internalizing the tempo of the recording to deliver a convincing performance.

“Questioning” delves into the broader implications of data collection and personal privacy. During the interrogation, Weist expressed concern about involuntary access to sensitive information on her neighbors through private databases. She has highlighted the visual documentation of ordinary activities—such as images of her car at various times and locations—as a stark reminder of the invasive surveillance infrastructure. “Seeing images of my car in every season in every time of day, in locations I don’t even remember going to…it cuts through some of the numbness that we’ve accumulated to data collection and being desensitized to loss of privacy,” she said.

Adding a further layer of complexity to her project, Weist transformed notes taken by one of the investigators into invitations for the play, which were sent to those same officials. The invitations were returned unopened with a note citing ethical restrictions on investigators accepting gifts from subjects, which Weist interpreted as validation that her investigative work qualifies as art.

“Questioning” fits within a contemporary trend of documentary theater productions that utilize real transcripts and recordings, although Weist’s integration of performance and conceptual art sets the project apart. The play’s filmed version will be exhibited at Art Basel Miami Beach in December through Moskowitz Bayse, the Los Angeles gallery representing Weist. This exhibition completes a cycle that began when Weist showed artworks derived from her private investigator research at the same gallery earlier in 2024.

The New Theater Hollywood, which opened in 2024 and has cultivated a reputation for embracing unconventional and cross-disciplinary works, provided a fitting venue for Weist’s theatrical debut. The theater’s founders, Calla Henkel and Max Pitegoff, both come from visual arts backgrounds rather than traditional theater training, aligning with Weist’s experimental approach.

Weist noted the importance of sharing the experience live, stating that a staged performance allows audiences to engage with the tension and ambiguity of her story in a way that a closed-room video recording could not. She also sought to challenge popular conceptions of private investigators shaped by Hollywood, emphasizing that her work is largely conducted through digital research rather than dramatic stakeouts.

At its core, “Questioning” explores the challenge of communication between disparate worlds. Throughout the interrogation, the investigators struggle to categorize Weist’s creative process—sometimes referred to as “work product”—and differentiate between “research” and “investigation.” For Weist, this tension underscores a broader truth about art. “As an artist, we are confusing to people, especially in cases where everything’s meant to be very black and white,” she observed. “We don’t fit. That’s sort of our job, right?”