WOLFSBURG.- Phæno is showing fascinating mirror images in its new exhibition. Mirrors are among the most familiar everyday objects we have, over which we no longer waste a second thought. Nevertheless, if we look a little closer, they are by no means just functional objects but in many ways thought-provoking and inspiring as well.
Kaleidoscopes, distorting mirrors and the perfect shopping mirror – phæno has gathered together a wide selection of mirror exhibits in collaboration with the Swiss Science Centre Technorama. More than 40 exhibits provide a sim-ple yet intriguing and aesthetically pleasing access to the world of mirrors. The exhibits are different and varied and are therefore impressive from a variety of perspectives: not just adults, with or without interest in the physics in-volved, but also children find it fun and challenging to lose themselves in the distortions and multiple reflections.
The stations range from complex radar mirrors over sim-ple common-or-garden mirrors with plane surfaces in a host of configurations to richly coloured kaleidoscopes. Complexity alternates with pure aesthetics and the play of colour, which makes a visit a fascinating thrill for the youngest of visitors and at the same time interesting for all age groups: Everyone has probably tried mirror-handwriting at some time or other, but painting a mirror-inverted picture with the help of mirrored cones and cy-linders is probably a challenge for anyone. In addition, visitors can shake their own hand in a big, dark concave mirror, can see radar waves being reflected, or can streamline or fatten up their figure with the aid of a mul-tidimensional distorting mirror. Among the exhibits from the physically sophisticated to the playfully funny and aesthetically appealing, the special exhibition also shows an infinity cube full of recursive mirrors and reveals the resolution of an old magic trick. All that is, of course, pre-sented in the familiar entertaining manner we know from phæno, full of wonderful, baffling phenomena and not without a challenging twist of science thrown in.
