10-11-2016

The Pitt News

The independent student newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | OCtober 11, 2016 | Volume 107 | Issue 54

Visuals, verse collide at Stories Untold Lauren Lotka and Deanna Druskat For The Pitt News

For the second iteration of the mental health art exhibit, Stories Untold, some artists turned to traditional mediums — canvas, paper and audio — while others took more unorthodox routes.

Rujuta Patil, a senior neuroscience major at Pitt and one of 17 artists featured in the exhibit, produced an art piece on Scantron paper. Patil struggles with test anxiety, which her project was a representation of — she filled in the bubbles to spell out, in all caps, “I DO NOT DEFINE YOU.” “I think for me it was a way of coping with it,” Patil said. “Believe it or not, filling in a Scantron is a good stress reliever, especially when you know it doesn’t mean anything.”

To kick off Pitt’s Mental Health Awareness week, about 50 students, artists and community members gathered for Stories Untold’s opening reception from 8 to 10 p.m.

Monday night in William Pitt Union’s Conney M. Kimbo Art Gallery. The attendees munched on healthy brain food and drinks, including a salmon and quinoa dish, while scoping out the artists’ work.

The Pitt Program Council organized the space for the gallery along with the exhibit’s curator, Abigail Wang. PPC also partnered with several other campus organizations to

Upbeat music brought students to the Union for free T-shirts and popcorn at the Diversity Celebration on Monday.

Kyleen Considine STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Musician, author Patti Smith visits PGH Emily Baranik For The Pitt News

Author, musician and poet Patti Smith has spent so much time writing about the past — most notably in her best-selling 2010 memoir, “Just Kids” — that she wanted to linger for a moment in the present.

But, as she said Monday night in a performance at Carnegie Music Hall, staying in the present proved nearly impossible, noting her See Stories Untold on page 6 tendency to daydream and drift off into the

past, into dreams and into the future.

The hall was packed with book- and music-lovers alike to hear Smith speak about her new memoir, “M Train.” Smith switched back and forth between reading excerpts from the paperback’s postscript and performing songs that related to or were inspired by events she describes in the book, including the death of her close friend, punk rock icon Lou Reed.

Smith said she’d written “Just Kids” at the request of her longtime boyfriend, the late

photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Writing “M Train,” she said, was like jumping on the “mind train” and going wherever it took her.

“I wanted to write a book that was irresponsible, that had no expectations, no particular destination, didn’t have to answer to anybody, and so I began ‘M Train,’” Smith said.

Prior to her books, Smith was highly See Patti Smith on page 3

News

President Obama is coming to Pitt: Here’s where He’ll be Alexa Bakalarski

Assistant News Editor The Frontiers Conference — a day of panels and lectures on science, technology and innovation — is bringing a herd of big names to Pitt this week, including President Barack Obama.

The conference, hosted jointly by the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University and the White House, will run a series of events beginning at 8:30 a.m. Thursday and ending after the last panel at 4 p.m.

Wired — a magazine focused on trendy technology and its impact — will feature the conference’s topics in its November issue.

President Obama will guest-edit the issue, which will focus on the theme “Frontiers,” according to an article on the publication’s website.

During his tenure, the President created three new White House positions related to innovation, science and technology: U.S. Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Chief Infor-

mation Officer and Chief Data Scientist. He released the Strategy for American Innovation — an outline of proposed or alreadyexisting federal efforts to promote innovation — in Sept. 2009. Obama has also made more than 180,000 federal data sets and collections available to the public after issuing an executive order in May 2013.

While details on Obama’s visit have been top secret for the last few weeks, the conference’s website has slowly released more information.

The day-long event will focus on five frontiers: personal, local, national, global and interplanetary. Each frontier, along with the plenary session — during which Obama is speaking — will include industry talks and panel discussions that focus on a specific theme.

Here’s a breakdown of the week: Frontiers Plenary The plenary session will focus on the future of healthcare, particularly through

breakthroughs from the Administrations’ BRAIN and Precision Medicine Initiatives.

With speakers including Obama; Tim O’Reilly, the founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media; and student guests, the session includes two panel discussions and two “lightning talks.”

This session will run from 1:45 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Jared L. Cohon Center at CMU and will open with University welcome remarks from Carnegie Mellon University president, Subra Suresh, and Pitt Chancellor Patrick Gallagher.

-National Frontier Lightning Talk: Tim O’Reilly -Local Frontier Live Podcast: Creating a Smart Inclusive City of the Future: Roman Mars, host and creator of 99% Invisible, a radio show about architecture and design, and Raj Chetty, an economics professor from Stanford University -Global Frontier Lightning Talk: Charles Orgbon III, a student from the University of

Georgia -Wired Panel on Interplanetary Frontiers -Presidential Introduction: Dr. Alexis Chidi, a student in the medical scientist training program of Pitt and CMU -Presidential Panel on Brain Science and Medical Information: President Barack Obama; Kafui Dzirasa, neuroscientist at Duke University; Riccardo Sabatini, a research and data scientist at Human Longevity Inc., a company building a database on genotypes and phenotypes to address diseases related to biological decline during aging; and Zoe Keating, a cellist and composer that is acting as a patient advocate The full schedule for the rest of the frontiers tracks, which follow, can be found online at pittnews.com.

Personal Frontiers -The personal frontiers track, which focuses on health innovations, and the global frontiers track, which focuses on climate, See Obama on page 7

Frick exhibit mixes data, art David Robinson Staff Writer

Inside the Frick Fine Arts Building, a woman’s voice counts the seconds eerily and methodically through a speaker hidden amongst the stations while visitors stroll through the department’s current art exhibit.

Set against the all-black walls of the room, the consistent timekeeping was for visitors at interactive exhibits, who were measuring themselves in comparison to their peers or to humanity’s outliers — people who hold Guinness World Records for things like being the tallest man on earth or growing the longest moustache.

The exhibit, Data (after)Lives, is on display in Frick’s University Art Gallery from Sept. 8 to Oct. 14 and uses both art and data The Data (after)Lives Exhibit displays different methods of human measure- to explore the ways humans have measured ment throughout time. Abigail Self STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER ourselves. Mainly, humans have done so

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October 11, 2016

through numbers and quantification, such as measuring body parts and testing the limits of our senses.

Taken as a whole, the theme seems broad and abstract, but each of the distinctly separate exhibits sought to describe the experience of being human, said Alison Langmead, co-curator of the exhibit.

“We’re sort of questioning if [there’s] a stark divide between quantification of your experience and just the representation of your experience,” said Langmead, who is also the director of the visual media workshop and assistant professor of information sciences at Pitt.

Some of the displays in the exhibit point to starker human measurements than others.

In one display, an examination of Andrew Carnegie’s head shape — including his See Data on page 8

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Patti Smith, pg. 1

Patti Smith, a premier female punk rock artist, speaking to an audience. TNS tickets. Prior to this event, Fellabam said she had only seen Smith in concert, so this venue was an entirely different performance.

“Every time I see her, it’s something different,” Fellabam said.

Accompanied by bandmate Tony Shanahan on the piano and guitar, Smith performed various songs from her career as a punk and folk rock musician, including “My

Blakean Year,” “Wing,” “Beneath the Southern Cross,” “Dancing Barefoot,” and her biggest hit, “Because the Night.”

Tony Coccagno, a resident of the Friendship neighborhood of Pittsburgh, called her performance a “treat.”

Find the full story online at

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The Pitt news crossword 10/11/16

influential in the New York City punk rock scene. From an early age, she gravitated toward the arts and human rights issues. She often performed in anti-war and political rallies. Her first album, “Horses,” debuted on Dec. 13, 1975.

Since then, she’s amassed a small collection of bound writing, including four recent books of nonfiction and several books of poetry.

To celebrate the new book, all attendees of the lecture received a free paperback copy of “M Train.” Smith said the paperback copy of the book was special because it contains a 20-page postscript which she wrote after the initial publication came out in Oct. 2015.

Wearing a black slouched blazer over gray jeans, with thick black-rimmed glasses, the 69-year-old dotted her lecture with lighthearted humor about her writing process and the public’s response to her memoirs. She noted that some critics accused her of feeding her cats once every three pages, which drew laughter from the audience.

After her last novel, “Just Kids,” which focused on her early years in New York City,

Smith said she felt “exhausted.” The stress of writing her first lengthy work of nonfiction on top of raising two kids as a single mother was grueling.

“M Train” is a memoir tracing the journey of Smith’s later life, mostly after the death of Mapplethorpe. In the book, she chronicles her travels — to the graves of poets and artists including Jean Genet, Sylvia Plath and Arthur Rimbaud — her “ramshackle” writer’s house on Rockaway Beach and her favorite T.V. shows, including the now-cancelled, “The Killing.”

She also lingers for periods of time on the losses she’s dealt with, especially that of her husband, Fred “Sonic” Smith.

“It’s a book that just simply unfolds in time ... We’re really moving in this trinity of memory, of past, present, and future,” Smith said.

The postscript — which includes photos she took on her phone — came after the book was published because she just wanted to keep writing, Smith said. She added that she’s still writing — a hint at the possibility of a post-postscript.

Karen Fellabam, from the Manchester area of Pittsburgh, came to see Smith for the fourth time after a friend surprised her with

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October 11, 2016

3

Opinions

column

from the editorial board

Secure Pittsburgh SYmphony Today is last chance for voter registration. Take it. Orchestra’s Future In case you haven’t heard it enough times from the people lining just about every corner in Oakland: You have to vote for your opinion to matter on Election Day. And in order to do that, you have to register.

Today, Oct. 11, is the final day for Pennsylvania residents to register to vote in the presidential election this November.

Whether you need to update your address or change your political party association, time is running out, and there’s never been a more important time for Pennsylvania’s voters to turn out. Registration is worth more than the five minutes it requires.

You really have no excuse: The path to registration is available online, by mail or in person. Pennsylvania’s Department of State provides a simple form requiring only basic information such as address and license or ID number. You can also take a trip to the nearest county elections office — locations are available on a searchable map on votespa.com.

Physical registration forms must be sent to a county elections office and postmarked by today — which means envelopes should reach a post office by the early afternoon at the latest. Luckily, USPS has an office right by campus at 347 South Bouquet St. Don’t just plan to cast your vote — plan to cast your vote here.

Rather than update their registration to reflect a dorm room address or temporary apartment, many college students choose to vote by absentee ballot. While that’s a perfectly valid approach to political expression, the truth is that many planning to take this step forget to actually do so. Registering in Pittsburgh means you can vote on Election Day rather than spend stamps and time mailing forms to overwhelmed elections offices — and you can change your address

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online in less than five minutes.

Voting in Allegheny County means your vote may play a larger role in the presidential race than most other parts of the country.

Allegheny County, with its mix of bluecollar workers and growing millennial population, is hotly contested by both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. As far back as May, polling outlets including FiveThirtyEight speculated that Pennsylvania may be the deciding state of the race, and both CNN and Politico have labeled Allegheny County in particular as a key battleground.

Those predictions stem largely from Pittsburgh being, like most urban areas, heavily Democratic, while the county as a whole hosts the state’s largest Republican concentration, according to Politico.

It’s easy to fall into apathy and depression over how intellectually hollow this election season has been, but this is an opportunity to help decide what tone the U.S. government’s next four years will take.

Abstention from Election Day is at least a political decision. It’s a poor one, but at least it involves making a choice. Not participating out of laziness devalues the ideals of whichever part of the political spectrum you call home.

Regardless of which candidate you support, getting out to vote is a civic responsibility that is impossible to fulfill if, after today, you remain unregistered.

All of the frustration expressed across social media or dinner tables is worth nothing if polling places are empty on the first Tuesday of November.

Make this long, embarrassing national struggle worth something, and show up.

Terry Tan

Mariam Shalaby

Columnist The lights dim inside the performance hall, and the orchestra members begin to softly tune their instruments.

The musicians close their eyes, concentrating to match their tones with their colleagues seated around them. Finally, the conductor raises his arms and makes a quick motion. The 99 musicians on stage begin to play. Together, they perform precisely with the expertise of an aged storyteller.

This extraordinary level of excellence is not present in most orchestras around the world, but the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra breaks the mold. The ensemble has held onto world-renowned prestige for more than a century, but now, its reputation and quality are at stake.

The musicians and their management failed to reach a new contract agreement this year, and on Sept. 30, the musicians went on strike for the first time since the 1970s. During those protests, the employees on strike were not of unanimous opinion.

Finally, though, the musicians have col-

October 11, 2016

SENIOR STAFF ILLUSTRATOR

lectively had enough.

Growing up, I attended City Music Center, a weekend music school at Duquesne University where kids from 3 to 18 years old are trained and coached in music theory, performance and collaborative playing by professional musicians.

Many of these professionals are PSO members, which means that for a decade, I benefited from the high caliber of musicality and teaching ability of PSO musicians.

I came to understand the kind of sacrifice, time commitment and financial strain musicians undertake in order to attain the level of professionalism reached by the PSO and other world-class orchestra members.

I’m certain that the proposed changes from management — including pay cuts and layoffs — would cause a severe decline in the orchestra’s quality. This contract would transform a world-class orchestra into a steppingstone musical ensemble. PSO’s management forecasts that there won’t be enough money to support an orchestra of its current size in the future. But according to Micah Howard, See Shalaby on page 5

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Shalaby, pg. 4 a bassist in the PSO and chair of the orchestra’s Musicians Committee union, musicians argue that this prediction is inconsistent with the financial trends of the orchestra over the past few years, which displays a growth in funds.

Earned revenue for the fiscal year, posted on the PSO website, showed that ticket sales increased by 4 percent — the first increase in over 10 years. And according to the PSO site, this season’s subscriptions are beating last year’s. The case is the same with regard to fundraising, which was record-breaking, as demonstrated by a 25 percent increase of the PSO’s annual fund.

The musicians are concerned, Howard said, that the management plans to implement a new business model relying more on ticket sales than donations. They fear that this simply will not work and say there’s no evidence it will.

The orchestra’s management plans to decrease musicians’ salaries by 15 percent, but musicians’ salaries are fair as they stand.

According to Howard, the current salary is about $107,000 annually, tenth highest

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among U.S. orchestras.

Plans to lower that rate would contribute to the decline of a great orchestra’s prestige and musical value.

Jennifer Orchard, a violinist in the PSO, said musicians of her caliber begin private tutoring between ages three to six and often continue well into adulthood. As their level increases, so does the tuition for their musical education. Although the Curtis Institute of Music, one of the top music schools in the country, offers a full-tuition scholarship to all accepted students, it estimates that a student’s budget could range from approximately $12,000 to $33,000 per year.

For many students, that could mean piles of loans.

Yearly instrument maintenance alone is nearly as expensive as room and board, according to the Curtis Institute. Musicians later vie for audition opportunities, where hundreds of musicians of similar training and ability all compete for a single tenure spot in an orchestra.

In addition, the prices of professionalquality instruments are more than $30,000, according to The Guardian.

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU We think the space typically reserved for cracking punny jokes in our Casual Fridays series can go to a better cause — so we’re offering it to you.

Until now, The Pitt News has published daily editorials based on what we internally deem to be the most important story of the day. But a campus dialogue is not productive when it’s one-sided. We’re not all-seeing, and sometimes a story affecting countless people gets smothered by the perpetual news cycle.

The Pitt News wants to partner with underrepresented student groups to guide us through the issues we might otherwise miss. If you have something affecting your community that others

could stand to learn from or a perspective that is often overlooked, we want to meet with your group’s leaders to better shape our editorial discussions.

These special guest editorials will appear in the paper every other Friday and include a tag crediting your organization for contributing the week’s topic. Open a dialogue at your next meeting about what the rest of Pitt should know about you.

Send our Opinions section an email at tpnopinions@gmail.com for more information about pitching topics. Please include the names of your organization and its executive board members along with a brief summary of your idea.

See Shalaby on page 7

October 11, 2016

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Culture

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story reported that Patricia Szczepanski is a member of the Osher program and had taken writing classes. This is not true, as she is the Program Assistant for Osher and has not taken writing classes through the program. Further, The Pitt News reported that Osher’s annual fee is $125. It is $225. Finally, The Pitt News attributed the ending quote to Szczepanski, but it was taken from a sign on her desk. The story has been updated to reflect these changes. The Pitt News regrets these errors.

Stories Untold, pg. 1 present Stories Untold, including Pitt Active Minds and the University Honors College.

Poems written by Jessica Keller, a chemistry major and biology and psychology minor from Chatham University, hung on a wall in the center of the room. Each piece of writing centered on her own experience with mental illness.

In one of the poems called “A Life in Morning” she writes: “Sometimes I feel like my life is a / participationbased class / and I forgot the reading for today.”

Keller’s writing in the exhibit focuses on the parallels between stress in real life and stress in the classroom.

She also incorporates her scientific knowledge about mental health and explains how being around others with mental illnesses — people prone to “falling into darkness,” as she calls them — can be uplifting as well as disheartening.

Keller said an exhibit like Stories Untold can help spark conversation on issues that are generally difficult to talk about.

“On its own, college is very stressful and anxiety-inducing, so if you’re somebody who is already prone to those things, it’s that much worse and people aren’t always sympathetic about it,” she said.

The search for artists like Keller began in the summer before the fall semester, according to Wang. The search produced a litany of submissions and potential artists, and Wang said virtually no one was turned away.

The purpose of Stories Untold, according to Wang, is to include both those who have experienced mental illnesses and those who don’t have prior under-

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roscience major. “And for people who don’t really know what it’s like, they can see a piece of artwork and they can understand the emotional side of it.”

Senior Rohit Maudgal’s piece, “Gaze,” a graphite drawing based on a photograph of a young woman staring intensely at the viewer, explicitly connects the subject of the art and the viewer.

According to Maudgal, the eye contact allows the viewer to understand the introspection and personal development that comes with discovering ourselves.

“I [would] really like if people, when they see this piece, that they look within themselves and they see their own inner potential, whether that be personal talents like playing the piano, drawing or singing,” he said. “I want them to realize that they have unique qualities in themselves.”

Maudgal began drawing at a young age and after seeing a flyer advertising Stories Untold, he decided to create a piece specifically for the event.

“I’ve always been interested in the minute details and intricacies of anything in nature or still life, realism,” Maudgal said. “I like to notice the small, yet very important things that happen.”

Janelle Maloch, a postdoctoral associate at the Student Affairs Counseling Center, said art provides an outlet that Visitors analyze artwork at Stories Untold, the second edition of the project, which explores mental health issues. Edward Major STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER people might not have in their lives otherwise. Maloch spoke about the value of art therapy before the gallery’s Additionally, Wang wanted to make standing of mental health. opening.

“We’re not very picky so we don’t real- the space for the exhibit more open than “[Artmaking is] also [an] alternative ly cut anyone because it’s people’s experi- last year’s showings by including more way of just processing through some of ences, so we want them to have the free- pieces of art that could hang on the walls, those experiences,” Maloch added, “rathas opposed to sculptures in the center. dom and space to share it,” Wang said. er than just kind of thinking about them “I think it’s really hard to talk about and sitting with them, because it allows She added that by allowing people to use creative expression in the recovery mental health and the nice thing about you to make meaning in a different way process, the exhibit opens up avenues for this exhibit is it gives people a way to tell through that.” their stories,” said Wang, a senior neuconversation and empathy.

October 11, 2016

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Shalaby, pg. 5 Along with the instrument itself, violin strings average about $70 to replace a full set, and strings require replacements several times a year. Bows to play the violin bought separately can cost as much as the instrument, and repairs are often more expensive.

Like others, many PSO musicians raise families, have multiple children and have aging parents to care for. A 15 percent cut in salary and freezing of pensions is untenable for skilled professionals who face such high costs to simply do their jobs.

A standard orchestra includes about 100 musicians, according to Orchard. The PSO currently has 101 employees, including two librarians who technically count as part of any orchestra. Orchard and others are concerned that unilateral staffing cuts — mentioned in The Guardian article — will diminish the bond between permanent orchestra members.

“It won’t be the Pittsburgh Symphony anymore. [The rotating members] won’t have the experience of playing together for years

Obama, pg. 2 will be held on Pitt’s campus in Alumni Hall.

The personal and global frontiers session will run from 8:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. Both frontiers’ tracks will include two “lightning talks” and a panel discussion.

Speakers from this event include surgeons, healthcare professors and pharmaceutical company representatives.

The full schedule for the rest of the frontiers tracks can be found online at pittnews.com.

Global Frontiers The global frontiers track focuses on climate, with mayors, founders of startup companies and professors from well-known universities speaking during the two and a half hour track.

The global frontiers track will be held in Pitt’s Alumni Hall, running from 8:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. with a panel and “lightning talks.”

The full schedule for this track can be found online at pittnews.com.

Local Frontiers Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto will open the local frontiers track at 8:30 a.m. followed by an armchair conversation that will include Secretary of U.S. Department of Transportation Anthony Foxx.

The track, which focuses on smart and inclusive communities, includes “lightning talks,”

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and years,” Orchard said. “We know each other well and know how each other play.”

The decrease in quality and prestige of the orchestra this change creates will deter new talent from staying in the orchestra for an extended period of time with substitutes instead using it as a place to gain experience before moving on to a more prestigious orchestra. Additionally, this new talent will likely leave Pittsburgh if the pay is lower than that of a higher-ranked orchestra.

In essence, such a salary decrease will create a cyclical demise of the orchestra’s historic excellence.

The PSO has been in Pittsburgh for 120 years. It has braved the horrors and pain of World War I and World War II, the Great Depression and the Civil Rights Movement — and has managed to remain one of the top orchestras in the world.

It’d be a shame if that legacy, for the sake of internal disagreements, is cut short.

Mariam Shalaby primarily writes about social change and foreign culture for The Pitt News. Write to her at mas561@pitt.edu.

two panel discussions and a “call to action.” This session will run from 8:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Jared L. Cohon Center at CMU. The speakers will discuss technology startups — including Lyft, Zipcar and BitSource — the criminal justice system and youth.

The full schedule for this track can be found online at pittnews.com.

National Frontiers Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf will open this session at 8:30 a.m. followed by a host of speakers from companies including Wired, Microsoft and IBM. The track will focus on artificial intelligence, robotics, automation and machine learning. The session runs from 8:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Jared L. Cohon Center at CMU. The full schedule for this track can be found online at pittnews.com.

Interplanetary Frontiers With a lightning talk, panel, and a Q-andA, the interplanetary frontiers track focuses on space exploration and the U.S. space industry.

Distinguished speakers in the series, which also runs from 8:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Jared L. Cohon Center at CMU, includes the Director of the Advanced Exploration Systems for NASA and the Senior Vice President and General Counsel for SpaceX, an aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company.

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Data, pg. 2 strong forehead — is part of a collection of textbooks describing eugenics, a controversial social philosophy based on improving human genetics.

In another, a series of original and recreated headshots by French criminologist Alphonse Bertillon rest within a display case spanning most of the wall.

Replicas of stools that people would have sat on while Bertillon took their measurements adorn the far end of the room.

On top of the stools sit replicas of his calipers, a device to determine distance between two opposite sides of an object, like a human head.

Bertillon believed a person’s measurements — such as the distance between his eyes or ears — remained consistent throughout their life. He claimed that a measurement of someone’s features at one point in their life could be used to accurately identify them later on.

Until the beginning of World War I, Bertillon’s practices were widely adopted internationally, according to Josh Ellenbogen, director of graduate studies and associate professor of history and art at Pitt.

As a result, French criminals often hid their identities because of strict multiple offense laws, Ellenbogen said.

Ellenbogen curated the exhibit alongside Langmead and Richard Pell, associate professor of art at CMU as an extension of a project called Decomposing Bodies. That project is part of Pitt’s Visual Knowledge group, a thematic research team through Pitt’s History of Art and Architecture department.

Some pieces of the exhibit were interactive, inviting visitors to take part in measuring themselves or their abilities.

As the woman’s voice tracks time, visitors can test how long they can hold their hand over a candle flame or the amount of words they can read and remember within a given time span.

Though students are always welcome to tour the exhibit, the curators intended for art or art history classes to take advantage of the installations, according to Isabelle Chartier, curator of the University Art Gallery. She said classes could either think about the exhibit’s organization or dive into broader themes and implications of the exhibit.

“This exhibit, in a sense, starts a discus-

sion, starts a research project, starts an essay for a course or maybe a publication in the future,” Chartier said. “Obviously, it’s open to everyone, but we try to directly connect it to courses offered this semester.”

While Bertillon aimed to create a record of real historical data on human measurements, Leticia Parente, the other artist featured in the installation of the exhibit, just wanted to make people think.

The exhibit includes a recreation of Parente’s 1976 Brazilian art installation “Medidas,” or “Measurements.” The installation originally ran in Rio de Janeiro and was comprised of about 12 interactive stations to offer measurements ranging from the scientific to the scandalous.

For the Data (after)Lives exhibit, Paulina Pardo, a third-year Ph.D. student studying Latin American studies and contemporary art at Pitt, recreated “Medidas” to make it only partially interactive as a way to preserve the work solely as art.

Although the installation utilizes science and mathematics — apparent in its inclusion of blood type testing — Pardo said its aim is to confront the audience with basic questions of human identity.

“On the one hand, it validates that peo-

ple are just people, but on the other makes you think as part of a collective group,” Pardo said. “Even if you’re just one person, what is the system that you’re a part of?”

The current data-drenched world is driven by human curiosity, and Langmead said she hoped the Data (after)Lives exhibit would help undergraduates perceive their “native digitalness,” — or millennials’ reliance on digital mediums — as part of a larger continuum.

“Human beings have this long-standing tradition of producing data about themselves and allowing that data to control them in turn,” Langmead said. “And this isn’t a property specifically of the internet.

It’s something humans do and have done.”

The Pitt News SuDoku 10/11/16 courtesy of dailysudoku.com

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October 11, 2016

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Sports

Sizing up Soto: Senior flourishing in switch from DE to DT Steve Rotstein Sports Editor

Sometime around the end of Pitt’s season-ending 44-28 loss to Navy in the 2015 Military Bowl, Pat Narduzzi decided he needed to make a change to his defense moving forward.

Narduzzi has reiterated his main defensive focus — stopping the run — time and time again, and the Panthers had just been gashed for 417 rushing yards

by Navy. In need of a fix, he asked junior Shakir Soto to make a change.

Soto played in all 39 games of his first three seasons at Pitt. But after making all 13 starts at defensive end as a sophomore in 2014, he made only three starts in more of a reserve role as a junior.

Then, P i t t ’ s secondyear head coach decided to switch Soto to defensive tackle for his senior season, thrusting him from the outside into the middle of the line alongside 6-foot-3, 335-pound nose tackle Tyrique Jarrett.

Narduzzi had already been planning to move Soto inside since the end of last season. Then, redshirt junior Justin Moody was diagnosed with a cervical spine condition just before the start of training camp. That meant he could no longer play football, let alone start at defensive tackle for the Panthers.

It was a big change to ask of a 6-foot3, 245-pound defensive end going into his final year of eligibility, especially one who had never played the position before

at the collegiate level. Narduzzi seems to think it’s paid off.

“It was one of the great moves of the offseason,” Narduzzi said at his Monday press conference. “I don’t know if he knew it, but we knew it.”

Defensive ends typically come around the edge to rush the passer, while defensive tackles are asked to clog up holes on the inside. Before he took the field as a defensive tackle, Soto had to pack on a lot more body mass in order to compete with opposing centers and guards.

Soto had to add about 45 pounds to his frame in the offseason to get to his current playing weight of 290 pounds.

He said it was one of the toughest challenges in preparing for his new role.

“Gaining that much weight in such a short p e r i o d of time, I didn’t want to slow myself down or get weaker,” Soto said.

So how did he do it?

“I would eat, like, two large pizzas a day,” Soto said. “Then wake up in the middle of the night and eat a peanut butter sandwich.”

Although he said it “kind of sucked” having to eat all the time, Soto bulked up to about 275 pounds by spring practices, before adding the final 15 pounds throughout the summer.

Once the season started, Soto became an invaluable game wrecker for the Panthers, constantly blowing up running

I would eat, like, two large pizzas a day -Shakir Soto on gaining weight for his position

Shakir Soto (52) led Pitt with eight total tackles in the Panthers’ 37-34 win over Georgia Tech. Jeff Ahearn SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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October 11, 2016

See Soto on page 10

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blewitt, o’Neill earn weekly acc honors Steve Rotstein Sports Editor

Chris Blewitt (12) hit a game-winning 31-yard field goal against Georgia Tech. Jeff Ahearn SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

PITT LANDS 15TH VERBAL COMMIT TO 2017 CLASS

Steve Rotstein Sports Editor

Shortly after a 37-34 win over the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on Homecoming weekend, the Pitt football team added the newest verbal commitment to its 2017 recruiting class.

Carter Warren, a 6-foot-6, 265-pound offensive lineman from Wayne, New Jersey, is a three-star offensive tackle, according to Rivals. He announced his intention to join the Panthers’ 2017 class Saturday evening via Twitter.

“After months of consideration and discussion with my family, I have decided to commit to the University of Pittsburgh, where I will proudly wear the Panthers uniform for the next four years,” Warren said on Twitter.

Rivals ranks Warren as the No. 50 offensive tackle in the 2017 recruiting class and the No. 9 player in the state of New Jersey. He chose Pitt over offers from

pittnews.com

Miami, Michigan, Michigan State, North Carolina, Penn State and Tennessee, among others.

Warren is the Panthers’ fourth offensive line recruit in next year’s class, joining three-star recruits Carson Van Lynn and Gabe Houy and two-star recruit Owen Drexel.

ESPN ranked Pitt’s offensive line as the best in the ACC going into this season, as it features two All-ACC seniors in tackle Adam Bisnowaty and guard Dorian Johnson. Maintaining its strength after the seniors leave seems to be a priority for head coach Pat Narduzzi — he’s added four offensive linemen already to the Panthers’ 2017 class.

Narduzzi now has 15 verbal commitments for his second full recruiting class as Pitt’s head coach, but players still have until Feb. 1, when they can officially sign National Letters of Intent, to change their minds.

The Atlantic Coast Conference recognized two Pitt Panthers Monday for their performances in the Panthers’ 3734 Homecoming win over Georgia Tech Saturday.

The ACC named senior kicker Chris Blewitt Specialist of the Week after he made all four of his extra point attempts and all three of his field goals in the win, including a 31-yard field goal with no time left that lifted Pitt to victory.

Blewitt set a career high with 13 points scored, and his three successful field goals gave him 52 for his career, breaking Conor Lee’s all-time school record of 50. This was his third time receiving ACC Specialist of the Week honors.

Pitt’s sophomore offensive tackle Brian O’Neill also received recognition from

Soto, pg. 9 plays in the backfield before they get started. He credits Jarrett with helping him learn the new position as he made the transition.

“He was there with me. He believed in me every day, and he’s definitely one of the reasons why I’m having success at the position so far,” Soto said. “He’s helped me a lot. Especially when he’s on the field when he gets double-teamed all the time, that helps a lot.”

Soto had a team-high eight total tackles and two tackles on ball carriers behind the line of scrimmage in the Panthers’ 37-34 win over Georgia Tech Saturday. On the season, he has 26 total tackles and five tackles for loss in five games. “[Soto] was clearly a dominant player Saturday,” Narduzzi said. “He was our defensive player of the week, without a doubt. You saw that halfway through the tape. He was making plays everywhere.”

Jarrett was no slouch in the game either, bottling up Georgia Tech running back Dedrick Mills on a crucial fourthand-1 stop to set up Chris Blewitt’s game-winning field goal.

He said he’s believed in Soto’s ability

October 11, 2016

the conference on Monday as the ACC Offensive Lineman of the Week.

O’Neill is a 6-foot-6, 300-pound lineman who said he played wide receiver in high school and was originally recruited

by Pitt to play tight end. He showed off his playmaking abilities on the Panthers’ first drive, taking a lateral from quarterback Nathan Peterman and rumbling 24 yards down the sideline for the first touchdown of his collegiate career.

After scoring his first touchdown, O’Neill –– who entered the game with the best pass-blocking efficiency in the ACC, according to Pro Football Focus –– resumed his role as a right tackle and helped pave the way for the Panthers’ fifth straight game with more than 200 yards rushing.

The honor was O’Neill’s first weekly award from the ACC. to play defensive tackle since before he ever lined up next to him in a game.

“I’m happy that he actually stepped up, and he’s given me a lot of hope for the D-line,” Jarrett said during training camp. “Me and Shakir in the middle, I feel like we’ll be dominant.”

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