The Event
It’s an immersive experience to re-enact Charles Darwin during his historic voyages on the Beagle.
After an initial presentation of the project and the technologies used, stations were set up in a special room. These were equipped with Oculus visors.
The project consisted of 2 different experiences:
- One in the Amazon
- The other in the Galápagos Islands
The VR experience for both projects was
- An initial introductory film in Sir. Darwin
- An animation of the Beagle’s journey and stops.
- A 360° static image with a voice-over describing the characteristics of the environment and the surrounding animals.
A very educational and inspiring experience.
This fantastic project is the result of the work of Marcos Valdes y Matias Guerra.
Down here you can find the links and the biographical information.
Biographies
Matias Guerra
(Santiago – Chile 1973) is a painter, multimedia artist and musician focusing mainly on video and sound experimentation, he has also worked in Information Technology for over 20 years and his work often reflects this diverse expertise highlighting the relationship between humanity, machine and chance. He collaborates with artists, musicians and composers (some active collaborations are with Pino Bertelli, Robert Cahen, Marco Colonna, Toni D’Angela, Agostino Di Scipio, Alessandro De Francesco, Elena Kakaliagou, PGR, Giovanni Andrea Semerano, Massimiliano Viel) and with associations as an organizer or cultural promoter, prioritizing collective and self-sustained projects. Has held workshops and lectures at IED – Istituto Europe di Design, Standards, in Milan, at University of Pisa, Venice Biennale and has published artworks and texts (recently Cinéma & Cie issue #33). His work has been shown in galleries and contemporary art museums (most recently MACRO and Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Rome ) and selected in cinema & video festivals (such as Alchemy Film Festival, Loops.expanded, Invideo, Ondavideo and others).
He is also founding partner and Creative Director for VIS – Virtual Immersions in Science, the first ever spin-off from Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa dedicated to Scientific Outreach.

Marcos Valdes

Marcos Valdes, Scientific Director of VIS, has been for 8 years a research fellow at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. After graduating in Physics at the University of Florence, he obtained his PhD at the International School of Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste. He then carried out research on subjects such as Dark Matter and structure formation in the very early Universe at the “Institute for the Mathematics and Physics of the Universe” (IPMU) in Tokyo and at the Scuola Normale Superiore. He became coordinator of the Scuola Normale Outreach program in 2014. Since then he focused on innovative methods for science dissemination, winning the Outreach National Prize given by the Italian Physics Society in 2015. He is among the founders of the startup VIS in 2019.