The Next Big Thing

At the new California Science Center, size counts.

Like so many things in America’s super-size-it culture, museum officials decided during design sessions a few years ago to convey a fairly complicated physiological concept by going large. Way large.

Thus was born Tess--a 50-foot, mostly anatomically correct woman whose transparent body helps demonstrate how the organs keep the body in balance. At various times throughout her 15-minute performance, audiences will see Tess’ TV-sized heart beat, her stove-sized lungs pump, and her refrigerator-sized brain light up like a pinball machine.

“We could have gone with something human size and just stuck it on a podium. Or we could have made her 20 feet, and that would have been kind of cool,” said David J. Combs, the museum’s life science curator. “But at 50 feet, she’s going to be big and memorable.”

Audiences of up to 120 at a time can gauge just how memorable Tess will be starting Saturday, when the exhibit debuts as part of the grand opening of the new Science Center. Tess--a friendly nickname for Test Dummy--is ideally intended for seventh-graders, but all school-age kids can enjoy the lively presentation.

Of course, when you’re 50 feet tall, the thing that smirking seventh-graders want to know is, is everything to scale? You know, everything?

Well, bad news for the hormone-happy: Tess is G-rated. But there’s plenty of educational bells and whistles to keep kids and even adults charmed with Tess, who accounted for a fourth of the exhibit’s $7-million price tag. Despite her size, she moves remarkably well, especially for someone with a 6-foot head.

Through animatronics (the same thing that powers Abe Lincoln at Disneyland), her eyes blink, her face registers emotion, her finger taps, one of her 30-foot-long legs stretches out, and her arm raises 27 feet into the air. To draw attention to her insides, Tess is outfitted with pulsating strobe and chaser lights that illuminate her circulatory, brain and nervous systems.

Actually, Tess’ height is more a result of space and cost restrictions than any homage to the campy 1950s film “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman.” Although in earlier incarnations, Tess apparently appeared as hostile as her cinematic forebear. “She looked a little macabre,” said Combs. “So we modified her a bit. We didn’t want her to be a scary icon.”

An audience’s first glimpse of the kinder, gentler Tess will be inside a multimedia theater, which resembles a body workshop for test dummies. There, Tess appears to be “relaxing in a lounge chair,” Combs said.

The physiology lesson begins with Tess’ cartoon sidekick Walt, the affable but bumbling maintenance man. Once Tess gets the talkative Walt “to put a sock in it,” she explains how the body’s organs regulate temperature, energy and oxygen during a soccer game.

The California Science Center (formerly the California Museum of Science and Industry) opens to the public Saturday after a $130-million expansion. 700 State Drive, Los Angeles. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free for exhibits. (213) 744-7400