Introduction
The large-scale environment at Halle am Berghain encompasses film, sound, vibration and light. Described by the artist as a “modern myth,” the film at its core follows the emergence of a faceless, human-like figure, which moves through shifting states. As the artist describes, it is “set in a realm outside time and space, where there is no beginning or end, no inside or outside, only an incessant dance of matter, in which every moment is a maybe.” We witness the figure’s attempts to exist, communicate and escape a single state of reality or consciousness. We see a dissolution of boundaries between inner and outer realms, and between living and non-living matter.
For Huyghe, uncertainty is explored through this allegory to reveal a liminal space where states are superimposed. It is analogous to how a quantum system can exist in multiple states before it is measured, when infinite possibilities collapse into a single version of reality. Huyghe spoke with quantum physicist Tommaso Calarco and philosopher Tobias Rees to explore these ideas. Their conversations resulted in Huyghe’s use of the logic and outputs of quantum systems, informing the final work through sound as well as image. These innovative approaches to production embody states of uncertainty, transforming quantum properties into sensory experiences.
Vibration and sound play an important role in the work. Huyghe and his team used many experimental methods to create a dense sonic experience. Among these, they worked with Calarco and researchers at Forschungszentrum Jülich (Jülich research centre) in Germany to simulate the oscillation of matter depicted in the film on a 100-qubit Pasqal quantum computer, translating the results into moments in the sound design. Calarco describes the process as analogous to “plucking the computer’s atom array to hear its reverberations.” With Rees, Huyghe developed the idea of quantum as a radical outside of human ontology and made use of a quantum noise-based AI model to produce certain scenes in the film.
The commission invites us into a space where the boundaries between body, matter and consciousness begin to blur. It dwells in the moment before perception becomes stable, when multiple possibilities coexist at once. With this work, Huyghe strives to give form to what he calls the “radical outside” of human subjectivity—a quantum reality of uncertainty and multiplicity. By placing a human-like body within this unstable realm, he asks whether we can relate to such a reality at all, and what conditions might allow multiple states of existence to be experienced at once.
Pierre Huyghe’s Liminals is commissioned by LAS Art Foundation and Hartwig Art Foundation. It marks the second large-scale installation presented by LAS Art Foundation as part of its Sensing Quantum programme, which won the S+T+ARTS – Grand Prize: Innovation Collaboration from the European Commission following the launch of Laure Prouvost: WE FELT A STAR DYING in Spring 2025.
Pierre Huyghe says: “The figure is a hybrid creature, an infinite membrane carved by void.... an observer witnessing the ambiguous nature of the entity, its monstrosity, follows states of indeterminacy—of the uncertainty of being, living or existing. The film portrays an inexistent being, a soulscape, a radical outside, striving to combine empathy with the impossible. This fictional world is a vehicle for accessing what could be or could not be—to relate with chaos; and turns states of uncertainty into a cosmos.”
Bettina Kames, CEO and Co-Founder of LAS Art Foundation, says: “We are honoured to work with a leading artist of our time, Pierre Huyghe, on this new commission for LAS, which deepens our inquiry into quantum technologies. Quantum physics’ foundational principles resonate with Huyghe’s interest in states of flux and unstable meaning. His work has long explored indeterminacy—particularly the emergence of unpredictable events within living and simulated systems—which he is able to explore in yet more profundity. The way he crafts scenarios that evolve beyond human control or authorship opens up myriad questions about what lies beyond human perception itself.”
Tommaso Calarco, Director of the Institute for Quantum Control at Forschungszentrum Jülich, says: “I find quantum technology broadly profound because it directly arises from phenomena that defy our intuition, even from a philosophical point of view, and precisely for this reason offers possibilities otherwise unattainable. This foundational connection is what makes it meaningful to embed quantum technology in the context of art—it grounds us in what is really fundamental as humans, since almost all people until today have lived without any form of quantum technologies, but no human being could ever live without some form of art.”
Tobias Rees, philosopher and Founder of Limn, says: “For me, quantum is intriguing not as a scientific breakthrough, but as a disturbing conceptual opening. It releases us into a situation in which the world happens differently: a non-world in which time unfolds non-sequentially; in which linear causality is broken; in which neither discrete objects nor locality exist; in which the distinction between being and thing or life and nonlife has lost all meaning. In our work together we focused on experimentally exploring if we could create images, using quantum systems, that would not only transport those who see them into this other world—but also have the power to produce the spectators themselves in the non-terms of quantum.”
Beatrix Ruf, Director of Hartwig Art Foundation and the future Hartwig Museum, says: “We are thrilled and grateful to be involved in this new chapter in Pierre Huyghe’s work with LAS Art Foundation. LAS’s pioneering work in bringing together artists and new technologies is exemplary, and it is equally fundamental to the work of Hartwig Art Foundation. In the run-up to the opening of a new museum of contemporary art in Amsterdam, we have been working for years with local and international institutions to establish networks and toolboxes for artists to enable collaboration with other fields of knowledge, with the aim of fostering new models of working for artistic production. This inspiring collaboration is now opening up exciting avenues into the forward-looking world of quantum.”