New Scientist recommends the quantum soundscape of Liminals
Artist Pierre Huyghe
Ola Rindal
A century ago, when quantum mechanics was developed, physicists felt like they were staring into the abyss: everything they thought was real wasn’t real. Today we’re easily talking about collapsing clouds of probability and spooky action at a distance.
Liminals by artist Pierre Huyghe (photo) reminds us how heartbreaking ideas remain. Set in Halle am Berghain, the former power station of East Berlin and home of the famous techno club, the show includes an imposing video projection and sound installation amid concrete ruins that shake you to your core.
Huyghe’s soundscape, created from atoms collapsing into quantum states, reveals fluctuations as the essential language of the universe. But according to some interpretations, reality is not made up of quantum fields; rather, quantum states are states of our knowledge, so there is no external world. Its middle realm, where a faceless human finds himself entangled in a landscape, expresses this better than any easy phrase.
Thomas Lewton
Features Editor, London
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