The Grand Pataphysical Tribunal for the
 Examination, Prosecution, and Exquisite
 Unmasking of Grotesque Sovereignty

Docket V: Matter of the Intimate Bureaucracy

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 V: Matter of the Intimate Bureaucracy begins with Witness Craig Saper, Professor in the Language, Literacy, and Culture Doctoral Program at UMBC in Baltimore, Maryland, who is called to testify on “intimate bureaucracies.” He will confront grotesque sovereignty through the prism of intimate bureaucracy: not as power concentrated in the monstrous figure of the King, but as authority redistributed through collective forms of organization.

Where tyrannical sovereignty deforms public life through domination, spectacle, and control, intimate bureaucracies imagine an inverse structure—one in which administrative systems are repurposed for care, participation, responsiveness, and shared political imagination. This testimony asks how power might be reorganized beyond cruelty and command, toward forms of collective life that are more humane, inventive, and politically alive.

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 5: Matter of the Intimate Bureaucracy | Witness: Craig Saper