Before the Deluge, Act 1: Monere is part of the ongoing research project and trilogy Before the Deluge, an interactive and transoceanic odyssey set against the backdrop of climate crisis. The project explores the sources of knowledge we draw from in preparation for environmental disasters. Drawing from flood myths found across diverse cultures—symbolizing renewal and purification—Monere intertwines these ancient narratives with dystopian tales of environmental devastation, reminding us that the world has ended many times before.
Act 1: Monere is an interactive film built within a game engine. The visitor awakens stranded on a mythopoetic island, adrift in an endless ocean—a place beyond time and space, where all floods meet and come to rest. As they explore the island, players embark on a quest to retrieve three objects from different locations, each revealing a converged cosmology. These objects impart lessons on Earth’s cycles, transformation, monstrosity, and adaptation. As skywatchers, players search for patterns in an endless sky, striving to better understand the world. Meanwhile, a mysterious voice awakens and calls from a water shrine at the edge of land…
In collaboration with Cyanne van den Houten and Ymer Marinus.
Erik Peters (he/they) is an interdisciplinary artist engaging with the worldbuilding potentialities seeded in the act of storytelling, uncovering how speculative fiction can germinate new universes of being. Their research-based and collaborative practice is situated in an interdependent web of ecologies and technologies, human and non-human beings. Within their work, queer methodologies and mythologies are evoked to create multidisciplinary scenarios about possible futures; imaginative worlds staged as immersive and interactive installations, workshops, performances and audiovisual works. They frequently work with emerging technologies and materials such as generative artificial intelligence, game engine tools, ceramics, 3d printing and 3d scanning methods.
Erik holds a BA in Crossmedia Design from AKI ArtEZ in Enschede, as well as having studied Design for Art Direction at the London College of Communication. Complementary to their artistic practice, Erik Peters curates programs, exhibitions and works with several cultural institutions in the Netherlands. They are an organising member of project space and media lab .zip and interdisciplinary research collective collective.wasteland.
