LAS Art Foundation presents a new commission by Pierre Huyghe at Halle am Berghain, which delves into uncertainty using quantum experiments. This new body of work marks Huyghe’s first solo presentation with a Berlin institution. It is commissioned by LAS Art Foundation and Hartwig Art Foundation.

The large-scale environment encompasses film, sound, vibration, dust, and light. Presented as a myth, the film at its core follows a faceless and hollow human form. Pierre Huyghe describes the form as “a hybrid creature, an infinite membrane carved by void,” adding that “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.” The artist describes this fictional world as a “vehicle for accessing what could be or could not be — to relate with chaos; and turns states of uncertainty into a cosmos.”

For Huyghe, unstable perception reveals 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. To explore these ideas, LAS and Hartwig Art Foundation have brought together Huyghe and scientist Tommaso Calarco. Their conversations have resulted in Huyghe’s use of the logic and outputs of quantum systems as raw material. This raw material informs the final work through experiments with sound as well as moving and still images. These innovative approaches to production embody states of uncertainty, transforming quantum properties into sensitive experiences.