Toronto-based artist Mitchell F. Chan has been creating thought-provoking public works since 2006, and as a result, his portfolio includes a range of conceptually cutting-edge pieces in the form of video games, gallery installations, and NFTs.
In 2017, Chan solidified his position as a pioneer in the NFT space when he exhibited one of the first tokenized blockchain artworks ever at a traditional gallery. The project, titled “Digital Zones of Immaterial Painterly Sensibility,” explored the construction of ownership itself as an experience, examining how the nature of the transaction affects the viewer’s relationship to art.
A dedicated professor at the University of Toronto, Chan combines his practice of conceptual art with an equally strong commitment to education, where he enjoys inspiring students to become curious about the hidden programming languages of today’s world.
For example, Chan’s 2023 sports digital game (The Boys of Summer) assigns collectors a generative avatar (PFP) that evolves based on baseball statistics such as hitting, baserunning, and pitching.
Unlike regular sports games, players have no control over their characters, the game simulates a season and then asks holders to rate themselves on other aspects of life such as money, sex and status, Chan calls the series "irreverent" and "provocative," an exploration of the systems that shape our lives that is both entertaining and insightful — albeit a little uncomfortable.
Chan’s work also includes a creative sports game called “Winslow Homer’s Croquet Challenge,” in which players step into a 19th-century painting.
In this interview, conducted in the lounge of the Thunderbird Marfa Hotel during Marfa Art Block Weekend, Chan discussed his creative process, the role of systems in his work, and how he finds artistic meaning in the structures that shape our lives.
Note: This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.
OpenSea: What initially attracted you to generative art?
Mitchell Chan: My definition of generative art is pretty broad, I used to teach Art Code at the university where I lived in Toronto, and the first thing I would have students do was to reenact a performance piece by Yoko Ono, which would be a set of instructions that would prompt them to do something, to do something unexpected.
This is how I give students an idea of what they’re going to do for the rest of the semester - it’s not that different from this, it’s going to produce a series of prompts that will produce unexpected results, the only difference is, we’re going to do it in a different language, the language of computer code, and that’s all we’re going to learn.
But adding the computer language element - this is not a trivial or superficial change, talking about our language is actually very important because we live in a world that affects our lives - many of the systems that control our lives are also expressed in computer language, and therefore, they can be easily hidden.
It’s easy to overlook how these systems can infiltrate the way you think, and generative art — art that uses computer code to create systems — can be a counter to that invisibility.
OpenSea: How has your personal experience, culture, or background influenced your art?
Mitchell Chan: I have been in the art industry for a long time. It has been almost 20 years since I sold my first piece of art and became a professional artist. In these 20 years, you start to think, how much do you really know about the world and what are you interested in?
You see how technology shapes your world, and ultimately, you know, I want it to be my medium as well as my subject matter.
I think my personal background, especially as it relates to my art, should be no different than yours or anyone else's. I'm a person who has to live in this messed up world, right? That commonality is part of my identity and it dictates what I'm going to do. What's unique to me isn't necessarily what's relevant to someone else, so I really try to focus on being another person, trying to make sense of this crazy world.
OpenSea: Can you tell us about some exercises or practices that help you get into creative flow?
Mitchell Chan: What helps me get into a creative flow state is perseverance and, frankly, trying to live a boring life.
When you start your art career you might have a 9 to 5 job and then you finish that job and you finally get to make your art and you pour yourself a glass of wine and enjoy it, but as your career progresses and it becomes your main job you have to normalize your life.
So, my process is: every morning at 9 o'clock, I sit down at my desk in the studio and start working, and I work until it's time to pick up the kids from school, and it becomes your life, and having that consistency and forcing yourself to do it, it's not a luxury or an indulgence, it's the only way to structure your life if you're going to make this your entire life.
OpenSea: When you create generative art, what is your starting point? Do you start with an idea, an algorithm, or a set of rules?
Mitchell Chan: When I start to create a piece of art, the first thing I look for is a system — usually an algorithmic system or a gamified system — that I think is really interesting to use as a tool, it could be a game, it could be a reward system in some kind of consumer app, that I think has artistic potential, and if you look at it from a different perspective, you might think, “Oh, this is kind of like a metaphor for my life, or a metaphor for something else.” Then I start trying to reconstruct that system and try to put a layer of metaphor on top of it.
For example, in my last big project, I was very interested in how baseball managers assign statistics to player performance to determine the best way to configure a baseball team, and I thought, “This is a story, but it’s also the story of my life.” I’m constantly trying to get better data about how I live my life, hoping that it will somehow make my life more productive and fulfilling.
So, I started trying to create this algorithmic system that could be used to process baseball statistics, and then I applied it to process data about my health, my social life, my social media imprint, and now I had created all of these layers that had a common theme of quantification, and once I expressed the quantification through the same algorithm, I started to have a piece of art, and now I could start to enjoy it, and that's how it started.
OpenSea: Do you find yourself constantly revising and tweaking your work, or are you able to walk away at a certain point and say “it’s done then”?
Mitchell Chan: I am constantly revising and adjusting my work as it progresses, which is why I sometimes need to give myself deadlines because I think a lot of artists go through this.
But another thing I allow myself to do is to discard, and I often throw away a lot of my work after investing months of hard work into it.
Because there’s this danger that you keep tweaking what doesn’t work, and tweaking what doesn’t work, and eventually you get so far away from your original goal that it’s no longer what you started out thinking about.
Of course, that’s great, and for a lot of artists it’s actually an exciting process, but I’m always focused on conveying an idea, and it always starts with a metaphor for the system I’m trying to express in the work, but if I stray too far from that, it’s likely that I’ve betrayed my intentions at some point, so, for me, the most important thing is to be able to let go and start over, and I’m more likely to start over than to keep adjusting to a completely different place.
OpenSea: What’s so special about the Marfa Art District weekend?
Mitchell Chan: What’s really special about the Marfa Art Block weekend is – and I tell you from my own experience – it’s unlike any other art fair weekend on the calendar, it’s an amazing group of people who are self-selected to some extent, it’s not the easiest place to get to, so the people here are really passionate about what we do, and it’s a unique experience because you have to really want to be here to make it happen.
Over the past four years this weekend has become a big tent, it’s more than just a platform to release one kind of art, I’ve said before that generative art is art that is built by systems and therefore is everywhere - this understanding has spread widely in this community.
When I say this is a big tent, what it means is that we now see people creating all kinds of digital art forms, from AI art to other media, and we all understand that underpinning these works are structures and systems.
It’s also really great that there’s a wide variety of people here, using different media and pursuing different ideological goals, all in one place, and there’s an incredible energy here.
OpenSea: Where can people find your work?
Mitchell Chan: You can find my art on my website, chan.gallery.
OpenSea: Thank you so much for sharing your insights!
Mitchell Chan: Thank you, it’s my honor!
OpenSea content you care about
Explore | Collect | Sell | Buy
Bookmark and follow OpenSea Binance Channel
Get the latest news
