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.
More information: https://www.las-art.foundation/programme/pierre-huyghe
Image and credit information
Pierre Huyghe, Liminals, 2026. Installation view at Halle am Berghain, Berlin. Commissioned by LAS Art Foundation and co-commissioned by Hartwig Art Foundation. Courtesy the artist. © 2026 Pierre Huyghe. Photo: Andrea Rossetti © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2026. No retouching, intervention, or alterations (such as colour correction, cropping, etc.) of the provided images are allowed without prior written consent from the artist.