Patrick Blenkarn & Milton Lim
asses.masses
September
2025
national premiere
Sat
27
Sinopse
asses.masses is a custom video game designed to be played from beginning to end by a live audience, one person at a time. It’s a 7+ hour epic story of a herd of unemployed donkeys trying to get their jobs back, all while navigating the perils of a post-Industrial society in which they’ve been made redundant. Cheeky, political, and best described as Animal Farm meets Pokémon meets Final Fantasy, asses.masses puts the control(ler) in its audience’s hands and asks them to discover the space between the work that defines us and the play that frees us.
This performance is a group game, in which everyone can play if they want to. Its duration is variable, depending entirely on the audience's choices throughout the game. There will be four intermissions: food and drinks will be served during each one. asses.masses addresses sensitive content, including topics related to mental health, suicide, police violence, simulated sexual acts and the use of inappropriate language.
work
video games
donkeys
© Vivien Gaumond
© DR
© Francisco Castro Pizzo
© DR
Aditional info
- Price
12€
-
Duration
7h30 with 4 intermissions
- Age rating
14+
- Additional information
Text in Portuguese
Author's bio text
Patrick Blenkarn and Milton Lim are conceptual artists exploring urgent questions around the social value of art, digital labour, and the political potential of games. Mixing their backgrounds in performance, philosophy, psychology, and digital media, their collaborations have manifested in video games, participatory installations, digital archives, and card games. In addition to their asses.masses, Patrick and Milton are also the co-founders of the Canadian national video archive of performance (videocan) and the co-creators behind a performing arts economy trading card game (culturecapital), a role playing game about cultural design (FARCE), and an escape room intervention in a German museum (FUNFUG FORUM). Their projects have been presented across Canada, as well as in Germany, Argentina, Mexico, Italy, the United Kingdom and the USA, in English, French, Italian, Catalan, German, and Spanish. Their next project, dam.nation, follows the true story of twenty Canadian beavers acquired by the Argentinian government in 1946.
Ficha Técnica
- Co-direction, text, programming, pixel art, 2D animation
Patrick Blenkarn
Co-direction, text, sound design, video, shaders, 3D visual effects
Milton Lim
Dramaturgy, text, touring producer
Laurel Green
Original music and sound design
David Mesiha
Pixel art, 2D animation
Clarissa Picolo, William Roth
3D environments
Ariadne Sage
Additional programming
Samuel Reinhart
Portuguese translation
Clarissa Picolo
- Tour operators
Patrick Blenkarn, Milton Lim, Laurel Green, David Mesiha, Stéphane Noel
International distribution
Stéphane Noël / Materialise
Created with support from
Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, The Theatre Centre, VIVO Media Arts, Embassy of Canada to Argentina and Paraguay
Developed with the funding support from
Creative BC, the British Columbia Arts Council, and Canada Council for the Arts
Produced in association with
National Arts Centre of Canada’s National Creation Fund
