Joe Ansel, developer of the phæno exhibition area
- Curator Joe Ansel at the interactive station "visual effects"
Joe Ansel has been developing interactive exhibits and managing Science Centres for some 30 years now. He was engaged at the most influential Science Centre in the world, the Exploratorium in San Francisco, during its most productive phase and has since worked for institutions throughout the USA and across the globe – in Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Spain and New Zealand.
Joe went to the Exploratorium in 1972, three years after its foundation. The Exploratorium has turned exhibition displays into interactive exhibits, developed museum programmes, and with both of these elements together initiated a new kind of museum, the "Science Centre".
As a member of the executive committee, Joe Ansel was jointly responsible for the overall management. As director of the exhibit workshop, he was involved in devising and constructing over 125 original exhibits.
- the echotube
Since 1992, his company Ansel Associates, Inc offers a full range of services for Science Centres: from exhibit development to complete displays.
Asked about the themes at phæno, he told the Wolfsburg Journal:
"phæno's themes are patterns, change, movement and perception. These terms are very broadly conceived and therefore entail an exhibition that is dynamic rather than static."
- magma
Visitors looking for something particular will find experiments on the themes of acoustics, aeronautics, biology, chemistry, electronics, health, heat, human performance, language, light, magnetism, material structures, mathematics, measurement, mechanics, music, optics, orientation, perception, resonance, temperature, time, weather, water, and waves.
- test your own reaction time
All the others, who just want to be open to surprises, will find a rodeo gyroscope, a real hands-on tornado, sinkable ships, household appliances running on muscle power, human bones, weightless objects, visible sounds, experiments with currents, a sound laboratory, a cell laboratory in which professional biological tests can be carried out personally, chemistry experiments – without teachers –, the light of the elements, whirlpools, Pythagoras' theorem, a packet of assorted nuts, do-it-yourself bridges, the chance to be an Ice Princess for once in a lifetime or to run headfirst through a wall, waves on a string, lenses on a table, running on a disk and not getting anywhere, a game where ambition doesn't win, floating water, visitors who mysteriously disappear and reappear, real geysers, pocket-size weather, the world of pendulums, suitcases with a mind of their own, rainbows, shifting sand dunes, and a host of other things ...
The Wolfsburg exhibition team also includes the Berlin-based exhibition-makers Jörg Zander (architect) and Matthias Ossmann (engineer).
Further Information: Ansel Associates Inc.
