The research vessel OGS Explora is something of a legend in Trieste: it was the first public Italian vessel to conduct scientific research in Antarctica, the most extreme region of our planet where researchers can still find abundant information from the past that helps them to interpret the future.
Without satellite connection and sophisticated technological devices in the 1980s, those first scientific explorations lasted months and were incredibly adventurous. The most extreme part of our planet keeps well preserved an incredible amount of information about our past, that can help researchers to understand our future. Today, after almost 50 years of surveys around the world, Explora is an old elegant lady with many stories to tell. I spent one week on Explora, filming the research team and the professionals on board while using sophisticated instruments to analyze and map the ground under the sea during a campaigns for crustal seismic data acquisition in the Mediterranean.
From this idea were developed two research diaries filmed by the Explora’s researchers Andrea Caburlotto and Fabrizio Zgur : one in the Svalbard Islands (North Pole) and the other in Antarctica. This last diary was shot with 360 degrees cameras and edited as a virtual reality experience.