Learn about the first population of Argentines who inhabited the islands, prior to the English usurpation of 1833, feel the blow of its Patagonian wind, walk its hills and grasslandsand the rocks of Cerro Cove or Arriving at Mount Longdon, where the fiercest battle of the war took place, are some of the virtual experiences proposed by the recently inaugurated Pisar Malvinas immersive experience at the Malvinas and South Atlantic Islands Museum, located in the Memory and Human Rights Space (ExEsma).
Developed by the National University of San Martin (Unsam) within the framework of the Activate Patrimony contest of the Ministry of Culture of the Nation, Step on Falklands is proposed as an innovative tool to learn about and reflect on the Malvinas Cause from a journey through different historical aspects, but also from the feeling of “being in the archipelago”.
Thus, the immersive experience also invites you to walk Mount Longdon, discover its unique “stone rivers” there, cross paths and raise with your hands a helmet or a boot of an Argentine soldier, and until seeing and hearing the engines of the Cessna plane of the Argentine pilot Miguel Fitzgerald.
The passage of a little fox characteristic of the place and later extinguished by the depredation of the islanders who saw in it a threat to their sheep, and viewing the Argentine continental shelf from an air base are other impressions in which those who visit the Proposal open to the public on April 29 in the museum located in Santiago de Calzadilla 1301.
“The experience is extremely experiential as well as emotional”pointed out, in dialogue with Télam, Edgardo Esteban, war veteran and director of the Malvinas and South Atlantic Islands Museum, so much so that “even the ex-combatants themselves, when visiting the proposal, said that if someone blew a little wind on their ear, they felt that, 40 years later, they were walking and transiting the Malvinas, they didn’t want to leave there anymore because, even, they are companions who had never returned,” he said.
Groups of no more than nine people (a limit adjusted to the physical space) They carry out routes that are made together with several “players” with a virtual reality helmet (in the Oculus system, the latest generation in these technologies).
During the seven minutes that the tour lasts, the participants literally feel like they are stepping on Falkland soil.
The “realism” of the landscapes and objects that the visitor can find on his tour “impacts” and “generates curiosity” thanks to 3D technology, Esteban, also a journalist, writer and screenwriter, explained to this agency. In addition, thanks to the use of an innovative hand tracking system, objects can even be manipulated, passed to another player and placed in different places.
This allows “collective” tasks to be carried out, such as the assembly of a kind of model of the first permanent population on the islands, as well as in a puzzle the headquarters, the mast, the cannons and all that structure of a population of more of 150 people and 23 Argentine families that were expelled by the British usurpers in 1833.
The choice of technological tools and virtual reality was not accidental: “The basic idea of the proposal was how to motivate and reach the youngest and these instruments did not give the possibility of doing so”, says Esteban.
The objective is “to give them the possibility of having this experience and, in some way, attract them to what this love, this commitment and what Malvinas means, beyond 40 years of the South Atlantic conflict, have to do with it,” he added. the official.
The truth is that in the 15 days since its inauguration, Pisar Malvinas achieved attention and great demand from schools and different institutions to visit it, in addition to the general public, who leave “very mobilized by the possibility of walking through our Malvinas Islands”, Esteban pointed out.
WE INAUGURATED THE IMMERSIVE ROOM “PISAR MALVINAS” ??
On Friday, April 29, at the @MuseoMalvinasthe experience was inaugurated #Stepping on Malvinasa virtual reality tour of our Malvinas territory that invites us to observe its landscape, its geography and its fauna. pic.twitter.com/lVkpwNMDE1
– Malvinas and South Atlantic Islands Museum (@MuseoMalvinas) May 2, 2022
The Pisar Malvinas room can be visited for free from Wednesday to Friday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on weekends from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Pisar Malvinas is not only here to stay (it will be one of the permanent proposals of the Museum), but – made possible by its technological application – it will also seek to federalize itself with visits to educational institutions, museums or cultural centers throughout the country.
“The intention of the Museum is that this be one more attraction so that children, young people and students can experience Malvinas as another way of reaffirming our sovereignty over the islands”, closed Edgardo Esteban.
