The thesis examines two mock trials staged by artists and separated by a century: the Paris Dadaist’s trial against writer and nationalist Maurice Barrès (1921) and Dutch artist Jonas Staal’s Court for Intergenerational Climte Crimes (CICC, 2021-2022). From a perspective on the form of the trial as part of a regulatory dispositif, combined with Jacques Rancière’s concept of politics, the interaction between art and trial is examined in how it operates within an aesthetic-political register. Although Dada’s trial can be said to push the boundaries of what a trial entails and through the process generate politics in line with Rancière’s concepts, the thesis argue that it is ultimately the logic of the trial that dictates the outcome. Whereas the CICC is rather characterized by a harmonization with the logic of the trial, which falls well under Jonas Staal’s previous practice, and the characterization of the CICC as a counter-dispositif.