© The author(s), 2015 | Licensed to the Surveillance Studies Network under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives license.

In May 2013, seven collaborators produced “Work and Play at the Threshold of Visibility. ” The intent of this collaboration was to use the skills of performers and the craft of theatre to explore poorly understood aspects of life within the modern apparatus of actuarial surveillance. This article describes and evaluates that project, situating it within surveillance theory, artistic explorations of surveillance, and performance methodology. We reach ambivalent conclusions regarding its success as research. Three suggestions are made to improve its method: more time to engage collaborative conflict, the inclusion of statistical expertise in the research team, and a more careful and focused recursive design of the research questions and the structure of the theatrical play. We also review the difficulties of making this project legible within the discourse of surveillance research, finding that while this article makes it legible as an exploration and critique of method, that contortion to institutional legibility has wrung the ineffable joy and fun from the event. We believe that that fun was in some way integral to the project, to its creative power, and to its value to the community of surveillance scholarship. We invite discussion of how that joy might be circulated within the discourse of surveillance theory