A chance to chat with one of the artists behind asses.masses, Milton Lim, about the creation process.
Artist talk – asses.masses
Milton Lim as part of Beta Festival
13 November 2026
asses.masses is a custom-made video game about labour, technophobia and sharing the load of revolution, designed to be played from beginning to end in a live theatre. This is gaming as performance; an immersive, cheeky and highly original work. Brave spectators take turns at the controller to lead the herd through a post-Industrial society, where asses are valued more for their hides than their potential.
About the artist, Milton Lim
![Milton Lim1 [© Frank Sperling]](https://projectartscentre.ie/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Milton-Lim1-©-Frank-Sperling-1101x1536.jpg "Milton Lim1 [© Frank Sperling]")
Image by Frank Sperling.
Milton Lim (he/him, b. 1989) is an award-winning Canadian game designer, digital media artist, technologist, programmer, and performance creator based between Vancouver and Montréal. His research-based practice entwines publicly available data, interactive digital media, and gameful performance to create speculative visions and candid articulations of social capital. This line of inquiry aims to reconsider our repertoires of knowledge aggregation and political intervention in the contemporary context of big data and algorithmic culture. Milton holds a BFA (Hons.) in theatre performance and psychology from Simon Fraser University and is pursuing his PhD in the future of interactive storytelling at Concordia University. His work has been widely presented across Canada, the USA, Argentina, Germany, the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia. He is a co-artistic director of Hong Kong Exile, an artistic associate with Theatre Conspiracy, a recent artistic-leader-in-residence at the National Theatre School of Canada, and a creative developer on the Innovation Team at Moment Factory.
More about the artists
Image by Frank Sperling.
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, Turkey, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the USA, in English, French, Italian, Catalan, Turkish, Portuguese, German, and Spanish.
Their next projects include, dam.nation, following the true story of twenty Canadian beavers acquired by the Argentinian government in 1946, and DRAGONS, a performance for young audiences about power, hierarchy, toxicity, and teenage dragons.
Image by Frank Sperling.
Patrick Blenkarn (he/him) is a Canadian artist working at the intersection of performance, game design, and visual art. He is a director, writer, programmer, animator, musician, and polyglot. Often engaging with the politics of participation and interactivity, his recent works feature sustained investigations into the subjects of language, labour, democracy, and the art economy, with projects ranging in form from video games and card games to stage plays and books. His work has been featured in film festivals, galleries, and performance festivals across Canada, and recently in Argentina, Mexico, Germany, and the Arctic. Patrick has a degree in philosophy, theatre, and film from the University of King’s College and an MFA in interdisciplinary art from Simon Fraser University.
Support credits
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 the National Arts Centre of Canada’s National Creation Fund.
Beta Festival is co-founded by The Digital Hub and is a Project Arts Centre Associate Festival with ADAPT Research Centre as research partner.
Dates & Times
13 November
6pm
Tickets
Free, booking required
Space
Cube
Duration
60 minutes
Content Advisory
asses.masses includes flashing lights, audience participation, violence, crude language, simulated donkey sex, simulated human sex, and references to drug use, suicide, and police brutality.
Recommended for mature audiences over the age of 14.
Genres
DiscussionFestival
Image Gallery
https://vimeo.com/
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