The Stingers Swarm to Halifax Convocation Tomorrow
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0 N C 0 R D I A,S SDAY ~PORT o 0 VOL. 23 · ~ NOVEMBER 19, 1998 N ° 6 The Stingers swarm to Halifax Convocation tomorrow bout 1,700 graduates from A all four Faculties will receive their diplomas at Fall Convocation, scheduled for 10 a.m. tomorrow at Place des-Arts. The winner of the Gover nor-General's Gold Medal for outstanding scholastic achieve ment is Gregory Huyer, PhD, now doing postdoctoral work in chemistry at Cambridge University in England. The valedictorian will be Catherine Mattes, a Metis scholar from Wmnipeg who did her MA on Louis Riel. To read more about them, turn to page 7. Honorary doctorates will be awarded to Polish composer H .M. Gorecki and Finance Minister Paul Martin. See this page, below. IN THIS ISSUE Gorecki, Martin to receive honours Awards of Distinctioll"' enryk Gorecki is one of the aul Martin, Canada's Minister sition, Martin served as critic for a H most renowned and respected Pof Finance and Liberal member variety of economic and social port Outstanding business people composers of our time. He was born of parliament for Lasalle-Emard, folios, including environment and to be feted. in 1933, in the town of Czernika, in was born in Windsor, Ontario, in finance. He chaired the Liberal cau Page 5 Poland. 1938 and educated at the Universi cus committee on sus tainab le It was certainly a problematic time ties of Ottawa and Toronto, where development and the Liberal task For the love and place to enter life. The unprece he graduated in honours philosophy. force on housing issues. Less than of Spanish dented violence of the First World He graduated from the University of two years after his election to the War had replaced many old values Toronto Law School, and was called House of Commons, he was a candi New programs serve growing with intolerant and combative ide to the Ontario Bar in 1966. date for his party's leadership, interest. ologies, and Poland soon became His first working experience was finishing second among the five con Page8 embroiled in the conflict of these as a merchant seaman on the tenders. two giants. As a young boy, Gorecki Mackenzie River, in the High Arctic Martin was instrumental in the People scienc e had to experience first German, then and on the Atlantic Ocean. He also formulation and development of the Russian, occupation, which left him gained some hands-on experience Liberal Party platform for the 1993 Celebrating a new look. physically so weakened that his very working as a "roustabout" in an federal election, which brought the Page& survival was at stake. Alberta oil field prior to donning a See Martin, p. 11 In artistic matters, this was also a three-piece suit. Last issue this time marked by division and intoler However, he has spent much of term: Decembe r 3 ance. The beginning of the century significant support from the Polish his business career in the boardroom, had witnessed fundamental chal institutions of musical education that first with Power Corporation, and lenges to the aesthetic and syntactic had nurtured the talents of Fredric later as chair and CEO of Canada foundations of music. The universal Chopin and Carol Szymanowski. Steamship Lines. He has also served On the 25th ity of style that had ruled Western As a young man, Gorecki surprised as a corporate director for seven music for centuries had given way to his teachers with the quality of his major Canadian companies. a multiplicity of mutually exclusive musical compositions. He became a In 1982, Martin became a mem styles. Many music lovers rejected master of complex compositional ber of Concordia University's Board this so-called modern music, and techniques and was accepted as an of Governors. In 1987, he was elect turned towards more comprehensi equal by the most prominent com ed vice-chair of the Board, a post he ble popular or historic music. posers of his time. However, gradually held until December, 1988, when he It was certainly not an auspicious and almost imperceptibly, his musical was elected. However, he continued environment for a young man to style moved towards greater simplici his association with the University as start his career, but right from the ty. His 1963 composition Three a member of the advisory board of beginning, Henryk Gorecki proved Pieces in the Old Style marked the Concordia's School of Community to be stronger than his adverse sur beginning of this evolution. and Public Affairs until 1994. CELEBRATE! roundings. Fortunately, he received See Gorecki, p. 11 As a member of the official oppo- Ching Suen presents the first Concordia Betty Goodwin wins first Research Fellow Lecture Harold Town Prize A lighthearted BY B ARBARA BLACK look at computers ongratulations to former Fine CArts student Betty Goodwin, BY SYL VAIN COMEAU fuzzy image into a much clearer one, who last week became the first win as computers extrapolate from a few ner of the $25,000 Harold Town Q: If a train station is where a train visible features. Prize for Drawing. stops, what is a workstation? He also illustrated fingerprint Goodwin, one of Canada's most A: Where work never stops. recognition using computers, a com distinguished artists, was born in mon practice in law enforcement 1923 and has lived all her life in 'There are two ways of writing soft today. "Even identical twins don't Montreal. She exhibited with the ware. Only the third one works!" have the same fingerprints, and peo Canadian Group of Painters in the ple's prints remain the same 1950s, but her art really developed its his is "computer humour," as throughout their lives. It was a nat distinctive character in the 1960s, Tdelivered by Professor C .Y. ural area for pattern-recognition which is when she started studying Suen, part-time stand-up comic and research." at Concordia. full-time director of CENPARMI Suen and CENPARMI are pio "She was dissatisfied with what So Certain Was/, I Was a Horse, Betty Goodwin, 1984, mixed media, (Centre for Pattern Recognition and neers in the tricky field of she had been doing, and wanted to Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery Machine Intelligence). It tells Lud handwriting recognition, which is radically change it," explained Pro dites a lot about the nature of especially important to financial fe ssor Yves Gaucher, who became 1980s featuring faceless figures and the Gershon Iskowitz Prize, had computer R &D. institutions. H andwriting is scanned, her teacher and good friend. Good swimming and drowning (see photo}, her first solo exhibition at Montreal's In a humorous and informative lec digitized and then "preprocessed." win started with Gaucher in the and her scratchy, brooding images of Musee d'art contemporain in 1976. ture in the Faculty Club last Thursday, "This can include smoothing, fill printmaking program in 1966, and beds and tubs. Many critics have She currently has two exhibitions in Suen presented some of the history ing some gaps, thinning the lines, they got on so well that she worked remarked on the way these works Toronto, one at the Art Gallery of and challenges of pattern recognition eliminating noise (elements which exclusively with him over the three seem to convey depths of pain. Ontario (AGO) and the other at the and image processing, including some interfere with a clear picture) and years she was here. As Globe and Mail arts reporter Val Sable Castelli Gallery. A new book ofhis Centre's own work. normalization." Normalization The Concordia Art Gallery Ross wrote in last Saturday's two has been published by AGO director Suen said that digital cameras pro means bringing everything to the mounted a show of her work in Feb page feature article, "Betty Jessica Bradley (also a one-time vided the key turning-point in same size, to facilitate the matching ruary-March 1986 that included Goodwin's art- her wounded figure Concordia student) called The Art pattern recognition and image pro of features in the handwriting. Vests (1969 to 1974), and the larger drawings, her sombre steel structures, and Life of Betty Goodwin. cessmg. To illustrate normalization, Suen scale Tarpaulins (197 4 to 1978), her scarred tarpaulin hangings - As Yves Gaucher remarked, "These are cameras that can digi said, "In Japan, they are talking both explorations of "the aesthetic of project such powerful sorrow that Goodwin's career has followed the tize images," he said. "Once you about making use of robots to give surface," as curator Sandra strangers have been known to burst struggle of every artist, and as a have an image in a computer, you haircuts. A visitor from America Paikowsky described them. into tears in front of them." teacher, he tried to support her in can do a variety of things with it. asked, 'How can you do that? Each Goodwin's preoccupation with the However, visual arts critic Blake her self-discovery. "The most diffi You can do manipulation of images; head is of a different size and shape.' tactile has always been accompanied, Gopnik, writing in the same issue, cult thing is [figuring out] what you if you want to get even with some The researcher replied, 'It doesn't however, with a strong graphic ele brought some healthy balance to the want to say, and how," he said. "The one, you can turn their picture into matter. At the end of the assembly ment. As Gaucher said last week, "she assessment: "To fully appreciate only way is to be attentive to your something very different." He dis line, all heads will be equal!'" is an artist who draws," a quality Goodwin, it's crucial to put aside the own self.