GoGo Art Series Presents Soft Synthetic by Lisa Meinesz

Soft Synthetic is a solo exhibition by Australian designer Lisa Meinesz, part of an expanded iteration of Chin Chin’s long-running GoGo Art Series.

The exhibition unfolds across two sites at the iconic Melbourne/Naarm venue: a nightly projection beamed from Chin Chin’s window over Higson Lane, and a multi-part installation within GoGo Bar.

Soft Synthetic presents a speculative ecosystem of organisms and the systems designed to sustain them. Spanning digital modelling and material fabrication, the project explores how design mediates care, control and biological adaptation in technologically supported futures.

Drawing from the logic of synthetic biology, the work imagines life not as something discovered, but as something stabilised, modified and maintained through designed infrastructures. These posthuman entities exist within support systems that extend care while simultaneously defining biological limits. The project asks how emerging bio-technologies reshape autonomy and whether optimisation and maintenance can ever be ethically neutral.

Positioning design as an active participant in biological futures, the exhibition considers how restorative, non-extractive systems might replace linear models of growth. Through closed-loop mechanical and material processes, it proposes systems that circulate and sustain rather than consume.

Ultimately, Soft Synthetic reflects on how future design practices may not only support life, but actively determine its form.

Wheelchair accessibility: The projection component of Soft Synthetic, visible from Higson Lane, is wheelchair accessible. Please note the installation within GoGo Bar is not wheelchair accessible.