The Deep Time Jam was run between 24 – 25 September 2016 in the TAG Lab. The jam was focused on producing games and playful experiences based around the notion of “deep time” – scales of time and futures that are generally not imagined by us in day to day life.

As a starting point, the jam participants watched Director Michael Madsen’s film, Into Eternity, which poetically documents a permanent nuclear waste repository under development in Finland, named ONKALO (“hiding place”). The facility is designed to last 100 000 years (the length of time required for spent uranium to be rendered non-reactive), raising serious philosophical questions about the legacy of communicating the danger of such a location. Given that the radioactive properties of uranium were discovered barely 100 years ago, this is a devastating responsibility to be bestowed upon future generations. This permanent facility must now outlast the entire lifespan of the human species, up until this point. Equally devastating is the knowledge that this repository is only designed to address the situation in one small northern country—a mere fraction of the global output of nuclear waste produced annually.