Docket III: Matter of the Spectacle of Power

As the American republic lurches toward its 250th anniversary, Zakros InterArts summons The People v. The King: a nine-part live civic-art tribunal of sovereign power. Broadcast as a public process of witness interviews, evidence gathering, and telematic prosecution for the upcoming season of Bunker Fridays, the series begins Friday, May 1, 2026, continuing weekly through Friday, July 3, 2026, 4:00 - 5:00 PM ET.

Docket III: The Matter of the Spectacle of Power begins with Witness Kathy Wagner Hill of the Center for Data Analytics, Policy, and Government, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, who will help frame spectacle as a governing system of image, charisma, scale, ritual, and managed attention. Through the theater of speeches, flags, pageantry, monuments, memorials, media choreography, and the National Mall as a monumental backdrop, we will examine how power stages itself before the public and trains citizens to watch rather than answer. This docket asks how authority exerts itself through symbolic performance, crafting messages and images that transform democratic life into an arena of spectatorship.

Across nine weekly witness interviews and a culminating tribunal performance, The People v. The King unfolds as a public investigation of testimony, evidence gathering, and symbolic prosecution, with online audiences seated as the Public Jury whose live chat, questions, and submissions enter the evidentiary record.

For additional information, witness bios, and series details visit the event page.

The People v. The King | Docket 3: Matter of the Spectacle of Power | Witness: Kathy Wagner Hill