Patrick Blenkarn + Milton Lim: asses.masses

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 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, Europe, and the UK, in English, French, Spanish, Italian, and Catalan.

Their next project, dam.nation, follows the true story of twenty Canadian beavers acquired by the Argentinian government in 1946.

Patrick Blenkarn (he/him) is an artist working at the intersection of performance, game design, and visual art. 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. He is the Producer for The Elbow Theatre in Vancouver and one half of Guilty by Association. 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. He is passionate about languages—speaking English, French, Spanish, and German.

Milton Lim (he/him) is a digital media artist, game designer, and performance creator based in Vancouver, Canada. 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. His work has been presented across Canada, and internationally in the US, Argentina, the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia. He is a co-artistic director of Hong Kong Exile, an artistic associate with Theatre Conspiracy, a founding member of Synectic Assembly—an Artificial Intelligence focused art collective, and an Artistic-Leader-in-Residence at the National Theatre School of Canada.