O&O regeling 2021. Erik Peters is a multidisciplinary artist engaging with the world-building potentialities seeded in the act of storytelling, uncovering how speculative fiction can germinate new universes of being. His research-based practice is situated in the multi-porous web of independence of ecologies and technologies, human and non-human beings. Within his work, queer methodologies are evoked to create multidiscipinary scenarios; imaginative fables staged as spatial and interactive installations, workshops, publications and audiovisual works.
Climate futures: aquatic worldbuilding, queerness and speculative ecologies (workshop series) - How can we explore queer relations and kinship with and between more-than-human perspectives?
How might future ecologies adapt to the possible climate futures emerging from climate crisis? And how can we explore queer relations and kinship with and between more-than-human perspectives? Following a set of scenario projections painted by The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we will dive into the ocean in search of future species that might exist on this planet. Working with worldbuilding techniques, speculative storytelling methods and generative artificial intelligence tools, we will collectively explore the habitats and perspectives of the aquatic species that have yet to exist.
Xenofossils - Xenofossils presents a series of future artefacts emerged from human interventions on Earth's ecosystems. The pieces speculate on new fossils, entities and alliances that might unfold from the fusion of natural and human-made ecosystems beyond a nature-culture dualism. The artist recently conducted research in the Philippines on the use and development of artificial coral reefs, used in the fight against the extinction of this fundamental life form.
By immersing yourself in the work, you get to know the symbiotic and unified voice(s) of the coral. What might they tell us about their experience of the world, which now finds itself between organic and synthetic matter? The works are created in collaboration with ceramist Funda Baysal using ceramic 3D printing as a process of reconstructing natural materials, drawing parallels between print layers and geological layers.
How to Wake Up the Ghosts - ‘How to Wake Up the Ghosts’ is an immersive film installation that explores the thresholds of artificial nature and interconnectivity. Based on a 1756 publication in which whale hunters found a piece of coral near the Arctic, the piece presents a speculative future with remnants of human efforts to counter the global ecological crisis. The work reveals a truth that is made up of reconstructed pieces of coral and reflects on the blurred lines between ‘reality’, ‘nature’ and ‘technology’ from a more-than-human perspective. The voice of the coral takes you on a journey of reflection. As a plural entity, its being carries opposing perspectives on what it means to be alive in a neo-ecological world.
From Then to Here - Welcome to the liminal. In his first solo exhibition, Erik Peters builds on his practice of collaborative worldbuilding to co-imagine a transcendental space with portals into alternate realities. They are worlds, existing somewhere between the present, the no-longer-conscious, and the not-yet-here. Taking place on different spatial and temporal paths, each world amplifies the others in the space. Together, From Then to Here, proposes a collective quest of sensemaking and imagination: where are we now, and where do we go from here?
Queer Mercury - Queer Mercury (17 min) is a visual exploration into the possible utopian impulse embedded in queer collectivity. Queer futurity, as explained by José Esteban Muñoz, is essentially about the rejection of the ‘here and now’ and an insistence on potentiality for another world. More important than defining an end goal is striving for, and moving towards, more inclusive worlds. De documentary follows three members of the Dutch ballroom scene during the preparations for the Utopia Ball, held in Kunsthal in September 2021. The three protagonists reflect on how ballroom culture pursues this utopia by creating an inclusive space in which all gender identities and expressions are welcome. The performances can be experienced as a continuous striving towards inclusive futures that are not yet here, with gestures and movements that transmit knowledge of queer histories and possibilities.
The Possible Worlds at the Intersection of Fiction and Design - 2019, "What design fiction and speculative design are is intrinsically defined by what (their makers think) their role is in society and also intrinsically includes their fictional nature. This thesis explores this deduction by reflecting on these critical practices from multiple perspectives, answering therewith the question: how can design be used to encourage speculation and critical reflection through the use of fiction?"
The_Designer.TMP - 2019, detail of the installation
Imagining narratives for preferable AI futures - Workshop, 2020. "As AI systems are often pretty invisible, most people imagine artificial intelligence in the way it often is portrayed in sci-fi and pop culture. The Terminator, Ex-Machina, Blade Runner: AI is basically the same as an evil robot, right? This workshop aimed to explore the anxieties and prejudices we have around this technology and instead of imagining the easy-coming-to-mind dystopia, focus our gaze on preferable AI futures.
Speculative design helps us to imagine and visualise these explorations, so we can open up these topics for discussion. To focus on real life issues rather than the creation of utopias, we used the Sustainable Development Goals as a framework to thematize our anxieties and narrow down the focus of possibilities."
The_Designer.TMP - 2019, "(from digital temporary files, or foo files) is a project about the changing role of the designer in a changing world. The_Designer.TMP presents a semi-fictional script spoken in the alternative language of wavelengths. This script is materialised through a wall print of the editorial process in creating the script and four garments representing each character in the script. The project proposes a new more-than-human language, based on sound frequencies. Each character speaks at a different waveforms: sine, square, sawtooth and triangle. What position could the designer take in this changing world? And what language could be a suitable as an inclusive communication format for this new ecosystem?
