MITCHELL F. CHAN

The exhibition features six distinct interactive sculptural works built from electromechanical pinball components and custom video game graphics pipelines. Each artwork is housed in a thick, colorful shadowbox with backdrops depicting different systems of labor, ranging from corporate, industrial, agricultural, domestic, suggestive live-streaming, to finance. In Cliff Hangers (2026), an open-plan office environment seemingly sets no boundaries for the workers. The controllable flippers suggest a skill-based game. The tiny gap between the ball and the target creates false hope. It pushes the player to analyze their own technique, frantically experimenting with different speeds and timing. Only upon relentless attempts do they realize the system is rigged.

This system of extraction extends from the public workplace to the private home. In Daddy’s Home (2026), a woman holding a baby turns her back to the viewer, looking out a window as a man drives toward the house. The interior is set up as a nursery, stripped of items that define her individual identity. An inverted v-track is placed over the image. Two pinballs travel along the track toward one another, but lack the momentum to clear the peak, missing each other every time. The electromechanical playfield is not mere decoration laid over an image. Both layers are different modes of representing the same thing: systems of labor, extraction, and social mobility.

Chan juxtaposes this struggle against Roundtrippin’ (2026), a sculpture depicting the financial sector. Here, the outcome reverses. The pinball bounces back and forth in a closed loop, continuously striking targets, while the player controls nothing. Together, these rigged machines serve to expose the ultimate logic of the system: it entices and panders to players, yet caters only to capital.