asses.masses could be described as a meeting point between Animal Farm, Pokémon, and Final Fantasy. It is a collaborative, irreverent, and political video game designed to be played from start to finish by a live audience. Over the course of more than seven hours, it unfolds an epic narrative (in Catalan) starring a herd of unemployed donkeys who fight to get their jobs back while facing the perils of a post-industrial society that has declared them disposable. It’s a session where the controller is in the audience’s hands, invited to explore the space between the work that defines us and the play that frees us.

The work of directors Patrick Blenkarn and Milton Lim stems from a combination of performance training (devised and experimental theatre), reading and research (philosophy and psychology), and digital media (game engines and real-time interactive systems). Their collaborations have taken shape as performative video game experiments, participatory installations, digital archives, and card games.

Co-direction, text, programming, pixel art, 2D animation: Patrick Blenkarn (Canada)
Co-direction, text, sound design, videos, shaders, 3D visual effects: Milton Lim (Canada)
Dramaturgy, text, touring producer: Laurel Green (Canada)
Original music, sound design: David Mesiha (Canada)
Pixel art, 2D animation: Clarissa Picolo (Brazil), William Roth (France)
3D environments: Ariadne Sage (Germany)
Additional programming: Samuel Reinhart (USA)
Catalan translation: Marc Villanueva Mir (Catalonia)
International distribution: Stéphane Noël / Materialise
Touring operators: Patrick Blenkarn, Milton Lim, Laurel Green, David Mesiha, Stéphane Noël

Created with the support of: Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, The Theatre Centre, VIVO Media Arts, Embassy of Canada to Argentina and Paraguay.
Developed with the financial support of: Creative BC, British Columbia Arts Council, and Canada Council for the Arts.
Produced in association with the National Creation Fund of Canada’s National Arts Centre.

Photo: screenshot from the video game asses.masses