Donkeys, labour, technophobia, and sharing the load of revolution: asses.masses is a 7+ hour video game designed to be played from beginning to end by a live audience. Told across 10 episodes and a wide range of game forms, the show follows the epic journey of unemployed asses as they navigate the perils of a post-Industrial society in which they’ve been made redundant. Each night brave spectators take turns stepping forward from the herd (audience) to seize the means of production (controller) and become the player. There are no instructions. It is up to each audience and their self-elected leaders to work together to play out their version of the story.
Cheeky, political, and best described as Animal Farm meets Aesop’s Fables retold by Franz Kafka, Karl Marx, and Sonic the Hedgehog, 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.
Patrick Blenkarn (he/him) is an artist working at the intersection of performance, game design, and visual art. His research-based practice revolves around the themes of language, labour, and economy, with projects ranging in form from video games and card games to stage plays and books. His upcoming collaborations explore date farming practices in southern Iraq, climate science in Svalbard, and donkey labour worldwide.
Together, Patrick Blenkarn and Milton Lim are the creators of the video game for the stage, asses.masses and the arts economy trading card game, culturecapital. They are also the co-founders and lead archivists behind videocan, the online national video archive of Canadian performance.
Link to video: asses.masses Excerpts [FIBA 2023]
Website:https://www.assesmasses.work
Dossier: https://www.assesmasses.work/dossier