In this collision, the "speech apparatus" is dismantled alongside the physical form. Eric Peter’s poetry acts as a visceral map of obliterated speech , where the body is felt in every misstep , "faint bite" , and moan. It is a linguistic trade in flesh-tones.
Providing the visual counterpart, Pei Shan Lee’s imagery exists in a state of dislocation and decay. From fur-clad limbs to insectoid ruptures, her work constructs fragmented, unstable spaces where the "self" is no longer a fixed entity but a fluid structure of data and memory.
WITH O OR U
I didn’t catch his name, and a
series of questions always the
same pullulates the floor space.
My head, taken or given, is a
scale which, depending on the
goods, leans one way or another.
A moan penetrates answers each
and everyone will forget in an hour’s
passing. Stupified, wondering again
how long he’s lived here, and together
or alone—the excess of numbers,
nouns and obliterated speech
provides a solitude from having to
pierce together the bunch of non-
sense. With a crowbar, i permeate a
room scattered with meat. The ringing
of the doorbell, signals the coming
of age, when a man pulls his tool
out in front of a stranger to engulf
in desperate need for pleasure. Hey,
i see you, peeking from the couch’s
corner. With my peripheral vision, i
sensed your presence—no need to
paint tenebrous tropes to come. With 1
point 5, his sense of rejection and
desire, disturbs a friendly guest or
joy-desperate for attraction. The
bitter makes his crow’s feet obvious,
the primmed lips thin. I observe
his ugly face, thinking of a quick route
out. What was ur name again? He pulls
me back in—iron, steel. I teach some
Dutch, although today or yesterday
nothing is top notch. My CKs somewhere
hidden under a stack of tees and track
pants. In bypass i touch a bush of chest
hair projecting long-lost intimacy into a
twelve-hour ride. Shy from my own deeds,
a blush. All romance amiss, while the door
ajar allows for sounds of an overload to
seep into a hallway of neighbours. At eve
a morning comes. Kissing the men once
more, i get pulled away from the bunch
of sounds never ever climaxing. The bare
night—oh!—its crescent moon, clinching
these bodies in their performative intimacies.
Held-back voices mark a stillness. To them,
time is some thing of the living; the abundance
the potion to a lacking. Did he come?
——— With O or U
by Eric Peter
PILASTERS
I lifted legs to the clouds. Our language one swift. His lick a flicker. Idioms we yielded in abundance, and liquid rose trickled down my neck—munch, moo, off, hummer, huff, here, hinge. Sim, mull, full, sulphur, suffer, misstep, mistle, pus, pores, pond, pyres. Lament, loner, languid, lipless, longer, loft, lift, lived, loved. Hyssop, parole, souplesse, prestige, lissome. Sorrow, thrust, thorough, thorn, thorp, puff, force, flaw, flow, where, air, lair. Who, woe, wow, woooooooooooo. In my name, a wall enclosing. I faintly bite myself into presence. The narration of pilaster in flesh-tone is a trade of the past; in canals i think away the sea.
by Eric Peter
Eric Peter
An artist and poet based in The Hague, The Netherlands. His practice centers on language through a deconstruction of the conventions of historical narrative and social frameworks. In this context, language is to be understood in its most expansive interpretation: encompassing the speech apparatus and non-verbal communication, as well as vocabularies, (mis)spellings, and gobbledygook. Important to Peter’s projects is the interweaving of collective and individual perspectives together with his own personal experiences. Peter holds a BFA from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and an MA in Art Praxis from the Dutch Art Institute. [link]
Pei Shan Lee
Her work flows between dreamlike imagery, generative visuals, and sculpture, centered on the posthuman body, memory, and virtual boundaries. She employs surrealism and non-Western narrative structures to construct fragmented, unstable spaces that reflect the ambiguity and uncertainty of identity amid accelerating technology and cultural displacement. Lee’s practice responds to a posthuman hybrid reality where the “self” is no longer a fixed entity but a fluid structure composed of data, memory, and fragments. Her works quietly question the boundaries and meaning of existence in a generation defined by simulation and continual transformation. [link]
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