“Quantum Physics blows away any progressive notion of time” declares Karan Barad in a talk given at Aarhus University in 2016: “Troubling Time/s, Undoing the Future.”

In this fascinating talk Barad contextualizes our idea of time in the Anthropocene age. The Anthropocene, scientists argue, is the new epoch in which mankind has altered the very fabric of Earth. The products of our industries can be found in the farthest reaches of the globe. There is no longer such thing as wilderness; plutonium deposits can be found lacing soil samples on every continent; plastic is progressively outnumbering marine life; species are either moving pole-wards, or becoming extinct. While certain political parties may have us believe otherwise, it is predominantly accepted that the systems and structures of earth are undergoing radical changes, the Holocene age has ceased, and we are now entering the age of the Anthropocene.

So, what can different notions of time, and their juxtapositions, teach us about the Anthropocene, and prompt us to imagine new ways of engaging with Earth, its systems and inhabitants?

Geologic time is of course linear. Linear (western models of time) imagine a fixed progression from past to present to future. Yet, as Barad notes in this talk “the experience of time and history are shaped by places”.

Time is a socially formulated concept that means different things to different people. For instance, on the island of Bali, Indonesia, time is perceived and experienced as a circular construct. In traditional Balinese culture, the experience of moving through time is predicated on an understanding which articulates the present in direct conversation to the past and future, as if in constant motion. Time is experienced as a set of interweaving cycles that are based on the movements of other species, and the seasons, and the undulations of night and day. Circular, or cyclical time is also a foundational concept in many Indigenous, and other Eastern cultures, and has shaped religions such as Buddhism, Sikhism and Hinduism.

Then there is digital time – measured in smaller and smaller increments, by technologies, in part created from raw materials – rare earth metals and such – that have taken thousands upon thousands of years to form. And then there is the time espoused by quantum physics, the mysterious field that inherently rejects General Relativity, one of the critical assumptions on which modern science is based. Quantum physics asserts a wholly different imaginary of time, and indeed of the nature of the universe as we currently know it.

Seen through the framework of Barad’s agential realism, the story of the Anthropocene shakes loose its binaries, and the question of time is thrown into sharp focus.  Much as Barad portends, conceptions of time are changing. Quantum physics complicates our linear notion of time, and I argue that to view the Anthropocene through the model of linear time is to restrict the way we view ourselves, and other non-humans, as agential forces, entangled amongst each other in this new epoch.