The Swiss Time Machine

The Swiss Time Machine is a unique augmented reality exhibit designed to answer these questions. This immersive installation brings to life 35,000 years of Swiss glacial history—past, present, and projected future—with stunning realism and scientific depth.

Physical Installation: At the center of the exhibit is a handcrafted 3D wooden relief of Switzerland’s topography. Over this sculptural canvas, a high-resolution 2-minute and 30-second animation is dynamically projected. The animation displays the evolution of glaciers from the year –35,000 to 2100, illustrating how ice once sculpted—and is now retreating from—the landscape.

Scientific Background: The animation is based on state-of-the-art glacier numerical modeling performed by Leger, Jouvet, and al. (Nature Coms, 2025) to reconstruct paleo glacier evolution with great accuracy, ensuring consistency with field observations, as well as by Jouvet and Huss (JOG, 2019) to project plausible future glacier evolution of Aletsch Glacier.

AI-based visualization: A generative AI model transformed the complex model outputs into hyperrealistic, satellite-style visualizations of the Swiss landscape. This model -- GlacierGan -- was developped by Brandon Finley.

Contextualization of Global Warming: By revealing how slow, natural climate processes contrast with the abrupt changes driven by human activity, the exhibit offers a time-traveling lens through which visitors can better understand how the Swiss landscape was shaped—and become more aware of its vulnerability to climate change, which is the core mission of IceAgeCam.

Exhibition places (full exhibit)

Event	Date	Place
Avant-première	June 18 - July 2nd 2025	Géopolis, UNIL, CH
Universal Exhibition, Swiss Pavilion	August 14th - October 14th, 2025	Osaka, Japan
Aquatis museum	Dec 2025, Jan. & Feb. 2026	Lausanne, CH
Mystère de l'UNIL	28-31 Mai, 2026	Lausanne, CH

Exhibition places (film only)

Event	Date	Place
Digital Dreams Festival 2025	5-7 September, 2025	Lausanne, CH
Eiszeit Ausstellung	October 2025 to April 2026	Seemuseum, Kreuzlingen, CH

Please contact Guillaume Jouvet at guillaume.jouvet@unil.ch if you are interested in hosting the exhibit for an event or an exhibition.