Ai Weiwei decided to out-bug the police: he set up four webcams in his studio, including one on the ceiling of his bedroom, and he began broadcasting his life on the Web. He called it Weiweicam.com. The cops were flummoxed. After a few weeks, they ordered him to pull the plug. He could not conduct surveillance on himself. He joked about writing a book on tax law, probably a first for a contemporary artist. To him, knowledge of any kind was the most powerful art he could produce. “Their power is based on ignorance,” he said. “We’re not supposed to know.”
