Photo: © ExcurioLife Chronicles – take a 3.5 billion-year virtual reality journey LiveEvents February 22, 2025 148 PHI Studio presents Life Chronicles After being launched at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in France in October 2023, the experience has toured major cultural hubs including Shanghai, London, and Lyon. As of today. Excurio’s experiences have welcomed over 1.5 million visitors worldwide. Life Chronicles, this expedition offers a vertiginous dive into the history of Earth and living organisms, tracing over 3.5 billion years of evolution through virtual reality. Accessible for ages 8 and up, this original 45-minute free-roaming experience, halfway between education and entertainment, is designed to turn audiences from mere spectators into physically and emotionally engaged players. The VR Experience How can we illustrate the evolution of the planet and the various life forms that have walked it through a non-exhaustive selection of species, places and periods? This is the challenge taken up by Life Chronicles, the immersive expedition designed to let a series of little stories tell the biggest one of all, that of life itself. Thus, the selection has focused on several paleo-landscapes, from the Archean period (3.5 billion years ago) to the present day, including the rise of animal life in the Cambrian (520 million years ago), the great forests of the Carboniferous (300 million years ago), the great dinosaurs of the Cretaceous (67 million years ago) and the rise of the humans (between 100,000 and 60,000 years ago). The paleo-landscapes are set in different regions of the world (chosen for their real deposits), at different periods and featuring a variety of species, sometimes spectacular, sometimes more elusive, that help us understand that life is everywhere, all the time, in multiple forms. Scientific History Designed to be as accurate as possible, this immersive expedition is the result of close collaboration with the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in France and its scientists. Paleontologists, paleobotanists, evolution specialists and bioacousticians all contributed to the project, from scriptwriting to 3D production, including the creation of the graphics and sounds. While Life Chronicles offers a dreamlike, sensory – and sometimes humorous – immersion into the heart of the living world, all the information presented has been rigorously validated from a scientific point of view. To purchase your tickets, visit: www.phi.ca/en/studio/ Life Chronicles is presented in the Old Port of Montreal, near the Science Centre at 2 de la Commune West, Montreal, QC H2Y 4B2.
