The Museum of Illusionism opened in Washington with an interactive exhibit of more than 50 visual effects. [Foto: Tomás Guevara, VOA]
The new Museum of Illusionism in Washington offers an interactive experience based on geometric experiments, mathematics and psychology.
The Museum of Illusionism arrived in Washington DC to join the capital of museums, where space opens up between more than 74 exhibition centersbetween public and private, to entertain and educate visitors.
The Museum of Illusionism is an interactive entertainment center where the senses are put to the test, with spaces created to challenge vision with geometries, mirrors and movement.
“We are a completely interactive space for a museum of experiences,” he explains to the voice of america Casey Paul, director of marketing for the institution, which opened a few weeks ago in downtown Washington DC and receives some 250 visitors daily and doubles the number on weekends.
This museum concept, adds Paul, was created in Croatia and there are currently some 40 locations around the world. This is the fifth in the United States, and it also has offices in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Houston and South Carolina.
For Paul, the development of the concepts with which the public interacts in this museum have developed from “centuries of research and observations”, which in these rooms collect some 50 pieces and spaces.
These “focus on both fun and education” and cover aspects of “psychology, geometry, mathematics and things like that,” he said, while explaining to visitors the challenges and explanations to solve them.
vertigo tunnel
Although a platform with a fixed bridge does not move an inch, placed in a tunnel with neon lights and a moving spiral, the viewer clings to the bars due to the vertigo it produces.
Some visitors scream and turn back. Others try to find balance by charging to some end of the platform where their senses tell them to balance. But there are also those who close their eyes to recover while the dizziness passes.
Washington Icons Present
The Museum of Illusionism also adapts the monuments to presidents and historical figures that are part of the urban environment of Washington to the play of perspectives on the exhibition floor, Paul said.
“Washington has such a wonderful history and a rich offering of museums and exhibits in the area, so we are very excited to be here and to join such a special place, home to so many museums and historical institutions,” he said.
For people from 3 to 103 years old
As it is an interactive museum with an educational approach and challenges for the visitor, the offer indicates that it is suitable for children from 3 years old and up to be enjoyed by adults over 103 years of age, or more, the director comments with a laugh.
In the digital age, visitors are entertained by taking photos to share on social networks, and despite the fact that the objects were invented hundreds of years ago, the museum claims to bet on a tactile and digital interactive experience.
“When you come here you are interacting with things that were discovered, even hundreds of years ago, by scientists, philosophers and monks,” explained the director.