On 23. January 2026, LAS Art Foundation will present the new commissioned work Liminals by artist Pierre Huyghe in the Halle am Berghain, which explores concepts of uncertainty through quantum experiments. It is the artist’s first solo presentation with a Berlin institution.
Image above: Halle am Berghain © Stefan Lucks. Courtesy of the photographer and Berghain Ostgut GmbH.
The large-scale installation combines film, sound, vibration, and light to create an immersive experiential space. Described by the artist as a “modern myth,” the film follows the emergence of a faceless, humanoid figure that passes through different states of being. Huyghe locates the action “beyond time and space, without beginning or end, without inside or outside—in a ceaseless dance of matter in which every moment is a possibility.” The figure struggles for existence while simultaneously attempting to escape a clear reality or form of consciousness. In the process, the boundaries between the inner and outer worlds and between animate and inanimate matter begin to dissolve.
In this allegorical narrative, the artist explores the moment of uncertainty and leads us into a liminal space in which several states are present at once—comparable to a quantum system that, before measurement, exists in a superposition of different possibilities until these collapse into a single reality. Huyghe developed these ideas in collaboration with quantum physicist Tommaso Calarco and philosopher Tobias Rees. These discussions led to the decision to incorporate the logic and outputs of quantum physical systems into both the visual and auditory levels of the work. The production process thus translates states of uncertainty into sensory experiences and makes quantum properties physically tangible.
Sound and vibration play a central role in Liminals. To create a dense acoustic environment, Huyghe and his team worked on various experimental methods. In collaboration with Tommaso Calarco and researchers at Forschungszentrum Jülich, the material vibrations depicted in the film were simulated on a 100-qubit quantum computer from Pasqal and then translated into acoustic parameters. Calarco describes this process as playing a stringed instrument—as if “plucking the atoms of the computer to hear their resonance.” Together with Tobias Rees, Huyghe also developed the idea of a quantum world that lies radically outside human ontologies. An AI model based on quantum noise was used for certain scenes in the film.
The commissioned work transports the audience to a place where the boundaries between body, environment, and consciousness dissolve. It lingers in that moment before perception stabilizes and multiple possibilities exist simultaneously. In this state of limbo, something takes shape that Huyghe describes as “radically alien” to human subjectivity: a quantum reality characterized by indeterminacy and multiplicity. By placing a human-like body in this unstable world, the work raises the question of whether such a reality is even comprehensible—and under what conditions it would be possible to experience multiple states of being at the same time.
Liminals by Pierre Huyghe was commissioned by the LAS Art Foundation and the Hartwig Art Foundation. The work is the second large-scale installation in the LAS Art Foundation’s Sensing Quantum program, which, following its launch in spring 2025 with Laure Prouvost: WE FELT A STAR DYING, was awarded the S+T+ARTS: Grand Prize – Innovative Collaboration by the European Commission.
WHEN?
Opening: Thursday 22. January 2026 at 7 pm
Exhibition dates: Friday 23. January until Sunday 08. March 2026
WHERE?
Halle am Berghain
Am Wriezener Bhf
10243 Berlin
