Odysseum – Cologne Science Center

SESSION DESK as an interactive ‘experience point’
For the exhibition of the Odysseum, a technological museum for children in Cologne opened in April 2009, Archimedes Solutions designed a total of 40 interactive stations to serve as ‘experience points’. The task of the station presented here was to design an exhibit on the topic of illusions.

What hardware was used?
The standard version of SESSION DESK (as version 1.0) was used for the station on TÄUSCHUNGEN (ILLUSIONS). Again, the outer panelling was adapted to the architecture and colours of the room.

What application is running on SESSION DESK?
The aim of the application (ILLUSIONS) is to approach the topic of supposedly objective facts and to demonstrate how easy it is for the media to manipulate the message.

The topic was implemented by a recording of a quote by the politician John F. Kennedy that can be broken down into its constituent parts. The user can arbitrarily remove words and parts of sentence or reshuffle them and listen to the new ‘truth’ in a voice that is deceptively similar to the original. This results in an altered reality, as desired. In addition to the English quote from John F. Kennedy, there is also a quote in German from Helmut Kohl.