Ellen Handler Spitz, honors college professor of visual arts, recently reviewed the art show The Event of a Thread by Ann Hamilton, which runs through January 6 at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City, for the online magazine Artcritical.

Spitz says that “The Gothic Revival Park Avenue Armory… provides a perfect venue for Hamilton’s swings, her 42 pigeons in miniature, stacked dovecotes, and the immense white silken fabric that billows from on high, responsively rising and falling according to the visitors’ velocities as they sway on their swings, pushed often by perfect strangers.”

Relating the exhibition to its title, Spitz says, “by the most gossamer of threads— of silk and of sound—connections proliferate.”

The review, “Gentling The Savage Enormity Of Gargantuan Space: Ann Hamilton at the Armory,” appeared online on December 20.

Josiah Dykstra, a Ph.D. student in Computer Science, won the Outstanding Case Study Award for 2012 of the The American Academy of Forensic Sciences, based on his presentation of a paper by Dykstra and his advisor Alan Sherman,
published in the Journal of Network Forensics. Dykstra will accept the award in February at the Academy’s annual meeting.

The fall 2012 edition of The Center for Women in Technology newsletter, CWIT Update, is available on our website. Take a few minutes to read about all of the exciting things happening in the CWIT community.

Nadav Kander, TIME

This past week, TIME announced their 2012 Person of the Year: two-time winner, President Barack Obama. Though noted for his dynamic leadership skills “amid great adversity,” TIME‘s choice has already been criticized with people claiming that the title is obsolete. According to one reporter for The Atlantic, 

[it is] impossible to think of a less interesting, more predictable choice than Barack Obama, who also won the award four years ago… It’s a big missed opportunity. Just look at the other finalists – especially Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teen blogger shot in the head by the Taliban for her advocacy for women’s rights. 

2009 TIME 100 honoree Sarah Palin had similar thoughts, sharing the following on Fox News:

…TIME magazine, I think there is some irrelevancy there, to tell you the truth. I mean consider their list of the most influential people in the country and the world, some who have made that list — yours truly! that ought to tell you something right there regarding the credence we should give TIME magazine and their list of people.

Yet, what stands out about her argument is not calling the TIME 100 list and Person of the Year “irrelevant,” but questioning the magazine’s reasoning for including herself on the list.

Ironic? Or just oblivious?