Tower of the Senses

Museum logo

Mohrenturm from the field side

The tower of the senses ( spelling : turmdersinne ) is an interactive hands-on museum ( science center ) in the Mohrenturm at the west gate of the Nuremberg city wall . Visitors can try out sensory stimuli and their processing on themselves at experiment stations. Also, perceptual illusions can be experienced. The owner of the operating company is the Humanist Association .

concept

With eyes, ears, hands, nose and mouth, you can discover everyday phenomena in the Tower of the Senses and experiment as you wish. This experience leads to an examination of scientific phenomena of perception.

In addition to the well-known optical illusions , there are a multitude of phenomena that affect the senses, challenge them, stimulate special achievements or even lead them astray. It is precisely the failures of the perception apparatus that lead visitors to discover how the brain and senses work.

Right from the start, dialogue between experts and the public was important to the Tower of the Senses . The project team succeeded in winning researchers from various German universities for the scientific advisory board. The first symposium in 1998 resulted from this collaboration. Since then, the symposia have been devoted to current topics in brain research once a year.

The museum has an exhibition area of ​​120 square meters. According to the operator, the museum recorded over 30,000 visitors per year from 2006 to 2010.

School and museum

The tower of the senses offers various possibilities for schools, for example

• ready-made offers, such as age-specific guided tours and workshops with reference to the curricula of individual subjects,
• Project proposals such as P seminars , projects with a technical or didactic focus around the traveling exhibition as a mobile school laboratory,
• Support with elective courses, also for the construction of exhibits,
• Cooperation in various competitions such as Science on Stage , jugend forscht and many other successfully implemented projects,
• Teacher training on various topics of perception and brain research,
• extracurricular partnerships.

symposium

Symposium 2007

Every autumn, a popular science symposium with speakers from German-speaking countries takes place in Nuremberg. The symposium offered over 500 participants the opportunity to enter into a dialogue with scientists. The topics of the symposia so far have been:

• 1998: World of Perception, Perception of the World
• 1999: How does the world get into your head? Perception and Brain Research
• 2000: From nerve cells to experience - brain and consciousness
• 2001: The Nature of the Idea - Perception and Intelligence
• 2002: From the Nuremberg funnel to the neural network - learning and the brain
• 2003: If you want to think, you have to feel - brain and emotion
• 2004: Free will - a pious wish? Brain and free will
• 2005: Out of your senses. Dream and trance, intoxication and rage from the point of view of brain research
• 2006: Neurons in Conversation - Communication, Language and the Brain
• 2007: right ?! Sensory channels, convolutions and limits of perception
• 2008: Artificial senses - doped brain. Neurotechnology and Neuroethics
• 2009: Flash of inspiration and the thunder of neurons - intuition, creativity and imagination
• 2010: Man - Woman - Brain: Gender Difference and Neuroscience
• 2011: responsibility as an illusion? Morality, guilt, punishment and the image of man in brain research
• 2012: The animal in man - drives, stimuli, reactions
• 2013: Consciousness - Self - I: Brain Research and the Subjective
• 2014: The Social Brain - Neuroscience and Human Bonding
• 2015: Brains Between Love and War - Humanity in the Age of Neuroscience
• 2016: What drives us? Motivation and frustration from the perspective of brain research
• 2017: Brains under tension: cognition, emotion and identity in the digital age
• 2018: Tickling nerves: How fear shapes our thoughts, attitudes and decisions

Traveling exhibition

Traveling exhibition

A number of exhibits on the topics of perception and hallucinations including an Ames room with the Pausenberger gutter are available as part of a traveling exhibition and the “Box of the Senses”.

history

The idea for this adventure exhibition arose in 1995 in the context of today's Humanist Association, which was already using the Mohrenturm for youth work. A working group made up of students, teachers and scientists developed a concept, involved scientific advisors and supporters and established contacts with potential sponsors.

In 1997, the non-profit "Tower of the Senses GmbH Adventure Exhibitions" was founded. At that time, Helmut Fink became managing director, and from July 2002 to April 2016 Rainer Rosenzweig , who had a doctorate in perception psychology , had a decisive influence on the content of the tower of the senses. The two named people were active in the founding working group together with Rudolf Pausenberger from the start.

In 1998 the "Tower of the Senses Project" was awarded the Nuremberg Region's Innovation Prize in the "Culture" category. In the "Year of the Life Sciences" 2001, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research awarded the touring exhibition within the framework of "Science Street" in Cologne the 2nd Dialogue Prize Life Knowledge.

In 2002, the Sparkasse Nürnberg's Future Foundation, together with the Hüttinger Exhibition Engineering company, provided the city of Nuremberg with the necessary financial resources for the initial investment to convert the tower into a museum. On March 15, 2003, the Experimental Museum Tower of the Senses was opened.

The partner is the Humanist Association in Nuremberg, whose board member Michael Bauer took over the management of the Tower of the Senses in April 2016.

Web links

• Website for the Tower of the Senses
• diesseits.de: “People still overestimate their personal experiences” , interview with Rainer Rosenzweig on the occasion of the 10th anniversary, accessed on May 9, 2013

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Eckart Roloff and Karin Henke-Wendt: Is what we perceive always true? (Turmdersinne in Nürnberg) In: Visit your doctor or pharmacist. A tour through Germany's museums for medicine and pharmacy. Volume 2, Southern Germany. Verlag S. Hirzel, Stuttgart 2015, pp. 135-137, ISBN 978-3-7776-2511-9 .
2. ↑ Visitor numbers 2006 to 2010 (PDF; 306 kB)
3. ↑ Invited contribution for a European didactic competition (PDF; 933 kB)
4. ↑ Competition entry from a school as part of its elective course (PDF; 1.3 MB)
5. ↑ Pupils build an interactive traveling exhibition : 1st prize in Bavaria
6. ↑ Current symposium / overview ( Memento of the original from March 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ↑ Pausenberger-Rinne ( MPG ; 783 kB)
8. ↑ The big traveling exhibition ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
9. ↑ "Box of the Senses", the traveling exhibition in a suitcase ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
10. ^ Homepage of the Humanist Association

Coordinates: 49 ° 27 '8 "  N , 11 ° 4' 10.3"  E