Toronto-based artist Mitchell F. Chan has been creating thought-provoking public works since 2006. As a result, his portfolio is an array of conceptual cutting-edge pieces in the form of video games, gallery installations, and NFTs. 

In 2017, Chan cemented his status as a pioneer in the NFT space by exhibiting one of the earliest tokenized blockchain artworks ever minted in a legacy gallery. Titled “Digital Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility,” the project explores the construct of ownership as an experience in and of itself, inquiring into how the nature of a transaction can color the spectator’s relationship to art.  

A dedicated professor at The University of Toronto, Chan combines his conceptual art practice with an equally strong commitment to education. He likes to invite his students to become curious about the hidden programming languages powering our world today.

For instance, Chan’s 2023 sports-inspired digital game, “The Boys of Summer,” assigns collectors a generative profile picture (PFP) that evolves based on baseball stats like hitting, running, and throwing.  

Unlike in regular sports games, players don’t control the avatar. Instead, the game simulates a season and then pushes the holder to score themselves in other areas of life, like money, sex, and status. Chan calls the collection “irreverent” and “provocative,” an exploration of the systems that shape our lives in ways that are both funny and insightful — if a little uncomfortable.

Chan’s portfolio also includes the creative sports game titled “Winslow Homer’s Croquet Challenge,” in which players step inside a 19th-century oil painting.

This interview took place at the lounge at the Thunderbird Marfa during Marfa Art Blocks Weekend, where 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 length and clarity.

‍OpenSea: What initially drew you to generative art?

Mitchell Chan: I have a pretty expansive definition of what generative art is. I used to teach art code at the university where I live in Toronto. The first thing I would have students do is reenact performance pieces by Yoko Ono, which would be a set of instructions, a prompt to do something, to do something unexpected.

And it was my way of letting students know what we’re about to do for the rest of the semester — it’s not any different than this. It’s generating a series of prompts that will produce outcomes that are somewhat unexpected. The only difference is that we are going to do this in a different language, a language of computer code. And that’s all that we’re going to learn. 

But adding that element of the computer language — that’s not a trivial or superficial change. It’s actually really important to talk about our language because we live in a world where a lot of the systems that influence our lives — that exert control over our lives — are also expressed in computer language. And as such, they’re easy to hide.

It’s easy to not be aware of the ways that these systems are infiltrating your way of thinking. And generative art — art that creates systems using computer code — can be a sort of counteraction against that invisibility.

OpenSea: How have your personal experiences, your culture, or your background influenced your art?

Mitchell Chan: I’ve been an artist for a long time. It’s been, you know, almost 20 years since I, you know, sold my first artwork and became a professional artist. And over those 20 years, you start to think about, you know, what do you really know about the world, and what are you interested in learning more about?

And you see the ways that technology shapes your world, and that eventually, you know, I wanted that to become my medium, and also my subject matter.

I think that my personal background, specifically the parts of it that matter to my art, should be the parts of my background that are no different from yours or anybody else’s. I’m a human being who has to live in this mess of a world, right? And that commonality is the part of my identity that informs what I’m about to do. Not anything that is unique to me is necessarily relevant to another person. So I really try to focus on just being another human trying to make sense of this crazy world.

OpenSea: Can you talk us through any exercises or practices that help you get into your creative flow state?

Mitchell Chan: The practices that help me get into my creative flow state are consistency and, frankly, trying to live as boring a life as possible.

When you begin your art career, you probably have a 9-to-5 job. Then you finish that job, and you luxuriate in the privilege of finally being able to do your artwork. You pour yourself a glass of wine, you indulge. But as you move further along in your career and it becomes your main job, you have to standardize your life.

So, my process is: every morning at 9 a.m., I sit down in my studio, at my desk, and I go to work. I work until it’s time to pick my kids up from school. That becomes your life, having that sort of consistency and just forcing yourself to do it. It’s not a luxurious or indulgent thing. It’s the only way to structure your life if this is something you’re going to turn into your whole life.

OpenSea: What’s the starting point for you when you’re creating generative art? Do you begin with an idea, an algorithm, a set of rules?

Mitchell Chan: When I begin creating an artwork, the first thing I look for is a system — usually an algorithmic system or a gamification system — that I think is really interesting and can be employed as a tool. It could be a game or a reward system in some kind of consumer app that I think has artistic potential. If you looked at it differently, you might think, “Oh, this is kind of a metaphor for my life, or a metaphor for something else.” Then I start trying to rebuild that system, and I try to put a metaphorical layer over it.

For example, in my last big project, I was really interested in how baseball managers assign statistics to player performance to determine the optimal way to configure a baseball team. And I thought, “That’s a story. That’s a story, but it’s also the story of my life.” The way I’m constantly trying to get better data about how I’m living my life, with expectations that it will somehow make my life more productive and fulfilling.

So, I start off trying to create this algorithmic system that could be used to process baseball statistics. Then I apply it to processing data about my health, my social life, my social media imprint. And now I’ve created all these layers that have a common theme of quantification. Once I’ve expressed that quantification through the same algorithms, now I start to have an artwork. Now I can start to have fun with it. And that’s how it starts.

OpenSea: Do you find yourself continuously revising and tweaking your work, or are you able to walk away at some point and say, “That’s when it’s finished”?

Mitchell Chan: I am constantly revising and tweaking a work as it’s going on. That is why I need to set myself deadlines sometimes, because I think so many artists go through this.

But the other thing that I allow myself to do is to scrap. I throw out a lot of work, a lot of times after having put several months of work into it.

Because there is a danger that you can keep on tweaking what doesn’t work, tweaking what doesn’t work, and you steer it so far away from your original goal that it’s no longer about the thing that you started thinking it was about.

Now, that’s fine, of course; that’s actually an exciting process for a lot of artists. But I am always really focused on communicating one idea. It always starts with that metaphor of a system that I’m trying to express in my artwork. But if I move too far away from it, the odds are I’ve betrayed my intention at some point along the way. So, it’s all about being able to let go for me and start over. I’m more likely to start over than I am to tweak, tweak, tweak to a totally different place.

OpenSea: What is special about Art Blocks Weekend here in Marfa?

Mitchell Chan: What’s really special about the Art Blocks Weekend here in Marfa — and I’ll tell you this from experience — is that it’s unlike any other art fair weekend on the calendar. You have a really great group of people who have, in a way, self-selected. This is not the easiest place to get to, so the people here are really passionate about what we’re doing. 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 not just about one platform that releases one type of art. What I was saying earlier about generative art being art that’s constructed by systems and therefore exists everywhere — that understanding has really spread in this community.

When I say this is a big tent, it means we now see people creating all kinds of digital art forms, from AI art to other media. We all understand that these works are underpinned by structures and systems.

You also have very diverse people here working with different media and pursuing different ideological goals, all gathered in one place. And that’s just amazing. There’s just this incredible energy here.

OpenSea: Where can people find your work?

Mitchell Chan: You can find my artwork on my website at chan.gallery.

OpenSea: Thank you so much for sharing your insights!

Mitchell Chan: Thank you, such a pleasure!