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 the 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.

asses.masses creators Patrick Blenkarn and Milton Lim are conceptual artists exploring urgent questions around the social value of art, digital labor, 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 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). Their projects have been presented across Canada, as well as in Argentina, Mexico, Spain, Italy, Germany, the USA, and the UK, in English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Catalan.