Visitors Face Up to Space Museum Exhibit

Probably the most fascinating sight in all the world is the image of one’s own dear mug. After all, our faces are the centers of our identities, the mirrors of our emotions.

Aware of man’s preoccupation with his own likeness, the Reuben H. Fleet Space Theater and Science Center has developed “About Faces,” an exhibition that uses high and low technology to involve the viewer in the study of himself.

“About Faces,” which opened this week at the Science Center in Balboa Park is a highly interactive show that will run through Aug. 28. The exhibit provides some answers, but more often it encourages questions and fun. It’s safe to say that “About Faces” will be one of this summer’s most popular attractions for adults and children in San Diego.

“The face sends a multitude of signals that convey a multitude of messages,” wrote Elsa Feher, the Science Center’s director, in the exhibition’s program. Feher, her assistants and the authors of the 14 individual exhibits in the show have used the results of years of studies about the human face in anthropology and psychology to develop “About Faces.”

The show also combines art and technology. Many of the exhibits use video cameras and computer-generated video graphics developed in part by Ed Tannenbaum, a San Francisco artist. The display modules look like a playground for mixed-media performance artists.

Indeed, “About Faces” feels more like a carnival midway attraction than a science lab. Kids clog the terminals, giggling and screaming at their images, and normally serious adults lighten up, making outlandish faces to play back in slow or fast motion.

But isn’t “About Faces” too much fun, a visitor asks Feher?

“I think anything that stirs a person’s interest must be valuable at some level,” she replies. “The important thing is that we have exposed people to an environment in which they can won1684369966exhibition is about--”joy, mirth, wonder.”

There’s plenty of mirth. The “Sym-Ulations” exhibit, designed to play back the viewer’s image symmetrically with two left sides and two right sides, his mirror image and the view others see, can also produce one-eyed and three-eyed “monsters.”

The “Discernibility” exhibit electronically explodes one’s image. The viewer then brings the particles or “pixels” slowly back together to see at what point he recognizes himself. Scientists have found that part of the brain is charged with recognizing patterns of dots, Feher said.

The “Expression Recognition” exhibit tests viewers’ ability to discern six universal emotional expressions. Happiness and surprise, for instance, are easier to recognize at a distance than fear and anger.

One of the most popular of the exhibits is “Mix and Blend.” Designed by Nancy Burson, it used the same techniques she chronicles in her book, “Composites,” in which a computer combines images of famous figures such as Richard Nixon and Mao. In the exhibit, viewers can combine their images with those of Marilyn Monroe, Oprah Winfrey, Paul McCartney, Pat Morita, Frankenstein’s monster, Andy Warhol and Princess Di.