Afterman: Synthesis Lab is the eighth edition of Art Encounters, presented by Art Outreach Singapore in partnership with the Singapore Tourism Board at Orchard Road from 29 April to 12 June 2022. The programme returned to Orchard Road with a futuristic exhibition by maker-designer Bao Songyu that used 3D printing and robotics to manufacture fantastical specimens.

Transporting audiences to the year 2222, Afterman: Synthesis Lab invited visitors to imagine a reality where unique organisms can be designed through CRISPR gene-editing technology. Rather than rehearsing the conventional critique that such technology lets humans play God, the installation considered its potential as an accelerating agent of biodiversity. The first container housed a speculative herbarium of mutated specimens with composite features drawn from animals, plants and fungi — each design shaped by responses collected from previous audiences. In the second, an interactive lab invited visitors to assemble their own hybrid specimens from forty parts grown by the artist, each inspired by real biological characteristics and adaptations, and brought to life through customisable movement.

Bao's practice spans installations and kinetic sculptures with elements of robotics and artificial life, driven by a sustained curiosity about social interactions, the future of humans and visual phenomena. A recipient of the inaugural NTU Global Art Prize in 2019, his works have been exhibited at ArtScience Museum and National Gallery Singapore, among others.

As organiser and presenting institution, Art Outreach commissioned and produced Afterman: Synthesis Lab, bringing an experimental, technology-driven practice to public audiences on Orchard Road and reflecting the organisation's commitment to platforming emerging Singaporean voices working at the boundaries of art, design and science.