Mitchell F. Chan

Moonboi (2025) Mitchell F. Chan Custom software Get rich quick in this currency-exchange endless runner! Steer your lambo between highly-leveraged short and long positions, just be sure not to get liquidated in a black swan!

June 3 at the @newmuseum ! I'm speaking at DEMO2026, presented by NEW INC @newinc and New Museum. Sign up at mofestival.org/ to hear me talk about why videogames artworks are the best artworks, except for all the times when they suck. I will explain why the sucky ones suck and why the good ones are good. Thanks to @rhizomedotorg !!

@mitchellfchan is a conceptual artist whose practice has taken many turns since 2006: installations, sculptures, blockchain-based art. For the last five years, he’s focused on making video games because he believes games can do something no other art form can. It’s a medium of agency. It absorbs and reorganizes every other medium inside its structure. Interview by @alicescope Edited by @jamisonkh4 Read the full zine at artdao.xyz or via link in bio

SOURCE: Generative Art Lecture Series with Mitchell F. Chan This autobiographical lecture from Mitchell shares his story: how he began working with generative art, the projects that defined his practice, and what he’s exploring now. Mitchell F. Chan Hosted by Lauren Lee McCarthy, Social Software Location: Zoom Date: 7 April 2026 Time: 5pm Pacific RSVP for Zoom access. Link in bio! Co-sponsored by: UCLA Social Software The Generative Art Foundation Coming Soon! Martin Grasser Hosted by Jeff Davis, The Generative Art Foundation Location: UCLA Broad Art Center (EDA) and Zoom Date: 14 April 2026 Time: 5pm Pacific

Brian Jungen's "Shapeshifter" (2000) is one of the most beautiful artworks I've seen. So when I was asked a talk about my 5 favourite artworks, it was the first thing I presented.

I gave a talk titled "5 Perfect Artworks." Here I'm talking about Robert Yang's "Hurt Me Plenty," an artwork that I think is smart, funny, and remarkably effective. Yang inverts a contemporary art trope that really bothers me: art that is heavily dependent on the legitimacy of the gallery to play contrapunto to the edginess of its content. Yang doesn't do that. Instead of re-siting a sub-culture inside a gallery; Yang's work re-sites the viewer inside a simulation of a sub-culture. The result is a much more effective, generous, and honest experience.

Most digital art struggles to engage with scale in a meaningful way. I talk about why that is, and how I try to address it in my works like Zantar. Also: why I like Rembrandt better than Jackson Pollock. Full lecture, recorded at @artblocks_io Weekend in Marfa is on my website, chan.gallery . Presented by @opensea

Last fall in Marfa, I gave a lecture titled FIVE PERFECT ARTWORKS. I tried to share what makes an artwork great, by looking deeply at five of my favourite artworks and sharing what I saw. In this video, I'm talking about Taryn Simon's work, and pointing out some subtle but important ways that it asserts its physical presence in a room. Full video accessible from my website at https://chan.gallery

“Zantar is a gelatinous cube that eats warriors in a medieval village…” the single line that grew into a narratively interlocking suite of mini-games. In a 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘆 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁 interview with the Toronto based Mitchell F. Chan, we speak about the gamification of cryptocurrencies, ludo-narrative dissonance and flow, and finally the challenges of predicting how audiences will meet computer game artworks and whether they will understand gaming’s history of coded meanings. Out of the four games that make up Chan’s 𝘡𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘳 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘖𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 series, the interview pays specific attention to the eponymous 𝘡𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘳 and its companion piece 𝘓𝘢𝘥𝘺𝘣𝘰𝘴𝘴, both notable for their heavy focus on character and the unique ways they counterweight gameplay against narrative storytelling. You can play both games, plus the other two pieces in the series - 𝘔𝘰𝘰𝘯𝘣𝘪𝘰 and 𝘖𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 - by visiting Chan’s website. “I wanted to create the most obnoxiously artiste meta-narrative that I could. A series of games about a game. A fictional game that would be run on this fictional digital virtual economy.” A massive thank you to Mitchell for taking the time to be interviewed for 𝘚𝘐𝘋𝘌 𝘘𝘜𝘌𝘚𝘛 and to Mimi Nguyen of Nguyen Wahed for permission to use images of the artworks and gallery installations. The 𝘡𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘳 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘖𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 series was shown in the exhibition 𝘐𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘵 𝘊𝘰𝘪𝘯[𝘴] which toured between Nguyen Wahed’s New York and London galleries, it has also been presented by De Sarthe at Frieze Seoul and pieces from the series were featured in Select Start at Beeple Studios. @mitchellfchan @miminguyenmimi @nguyenwahedart @desarthegallery #sidequest #mitchellfchan #zantar #insertcoins #nguyenwahed

Our London exhibition’s title Insert Coin(s) is typical of Chan’s critical stance on the status of digital art, which he accentuates by using the familiar arcade invitation that transforms passive viewing into active participation, while simultaneously exploring themes of digital ownership, virtual economies, and technological impact on identity. It seeks to distill complex social and economic experiences into engaging gameplay, the closely observed interaction that stands in for broader cultural commentary. Here, Chan’s artworks produce kaleidoscopic effects reflecting the constant stream of simultaneous inputs, references, and visual stimuli that constitute an intense, provocative and thought-provoking portrayal of digital life today. 📍 Nguyen Wahed London Islington Square, Upper Street, London N1 1AB 🏛️ Mitchell F. Chan | Insert Coin(s) 23 September - 10 October 2025