The thesis identifies a methodology for practice-led Fine Art research that emphasises day-to-day processes, which tend to be overlooked, and a practice, which becomes invisible to the mainstream art world. Attending to day-to-day habitual process is found to open up possibilities for embodied becoming through thinking and re-membering. Negotiating boundaries in face-to-face encounter is discovered to encourage inter-subjective becoming and is explored in terms of ethical interaction. The reflexive methodology considers questions arising from the possibility of exchange instead of gift, art as process rather than commodity, and an attitude of dissensus relating to artists as nonconformists. Tension and interaction in community leads to a pacific process of immanent invisibility, which functions as quiet activism and gentle politics provided by readymade situations. Mierle Laderman Ukeles s Touch Sanitation (1984), Allan Kaprow s Trading Dirt (1983) and selected works of Heath Bunting (2002-2010) are amongst the artworks cited in a discussion of artists who engage with materials or processes that are often overlooked including waste disposal, soil, and institutional structure. Emmanuel Levinas s approach to alterity (Levinas, 1988, 172) and Julia Kristeva s suggestion that connection cannot occur without severance (Kristeva, 1987, 254) have helped define an ethical practice of inter-subjective becoming. Victor Turner s notion of communitas (Turner, 1969) has affirmed a choice to avoid hierarchical structure and engage in processes that result in immanent invisibility. My contribution to practice-led, Fine Art research has involved testing a method rather than proving a hypothesis. I have developed a methodology that values art becoming invisible during the process of emphasising the overlooked in day-to-day life. Anecdotal passages throughout the text together with links in the text to my website and web log demonstrate an integration of practice with theory, which has been arrived at through a process of reflexive speculation. Two discs accompany the printed thesis that allow for digital reading.

Improved cochlear implant (CI) designs and surgical techniques have allowed CI patients to retain acoustic hearing in the implanted ear post-operatively. These EAS (electric-acoustic stimulation) CI users listen with a combination of acoustic and electric hearing in the same ear. While electric hearing alone improves speech recognition in quiet, preserved acoustic hearing allows EAS CI users to outperform traditional CI users in speech recognition in noise and demonstrate “speech masking release,” an improvement in speech recognition in temporally fluctuating noise relative to steady noise. Masking release is arguably an ecologically valid metric, as listeners often attend to target speech embedded in fluctuating competing speech. Improved speech recognition outcomes have been attributed to the spectral and temporal resolution provided by acoustic hearing. However, the relationship between spectral and temporal resolution and outcomes in EAS CI users is not clear. This study evaluated speech masking release, spectral ripple density discrimination thresholds, and fundamental frequency difference limens (f0DLs) in EAS CI users. Both the ripple and f0DL tasks are thought to measure underlying spectral resolution and temporal fine structure. EAS CI subjects underwent testing in three listening modes: acoustic-only, electric-only, and acoustic+electric. Comparisons across listening modes allowed the benefit provided by acoustic hearing to be quantified. It was hypothesized that speech masking release, spectral ripple density discrimination thresholds, and f0DLs would be poorest with electric-only hearing and would improve in the acoustic-only and acoustic+electric listening modes. This would reflect the benefit of preserved acoustic hearing. It was also hypothesized that speech masking release would correlate with spectral ripple density discrimination thresholds and f0DLs, reflecting the roles of spectral and temporal fine structure cues. Lastly, it was hypothesized that EAS CI users with more residual hearing (lower audiometric thresholds) would perform better on all three tasks. Speech masking release was evaluated using a 12-alternative-forced-choice (AFC) spondee recognition in noise task. The noise was a two-talker and a ten-talker babble presented at -5 dB SNR, and masking release was quantified as the difference in spondee recognition in two-talker babble relative to ten-talker babble. Spectral ripple density discrimination thresholds were assessed in a 3-AFC task using a broadband stimulus that contained spectral peaks and valleys logarithmically spaced on the frequency axis. The spacing between spectral peaks (ripple density) was varied to determine the threshold at which listeners could no longer resolve the individual spectral peaks. F0DLs were assessed via a 3-AFC task using a broadband harmonic complex with a baseline f0 = 110 Hz. The f0 of the test intervals was varied to determine the smallest change in f0 that the listener could detect. Results showed that performance in all three measures was poorest when EAS CI users were tested using electric-hearing only, with significant improvements when tested in the acoustic-only and acoustic+electric listening modes. F0DLs, but not spectral ripple density discrimination thresholds or audiometric thresholds, significantly correlated with speech masking release. Speech masking release also significantly correlated with open-set AzBio sentence recognition in noise scores obtained from clinical records. Results indicated that preservation of residual acoustic hearing allows for speech masking release, likely due to access to temporal fine structure cues provided by residual hearing. The significant correlation between speech masking release and sentence recognition in noise indicates that the ability to extract target speech embedded in temporally fluctuating competing speech is important for speech recognition in noise. Funded by National Institutes of Health/National Institutes on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIH/NIDCD) P50 DC000242, American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation Student Research Grant, and American Academy of Audiology Student Investigator Research Grant.

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Ce travail doctoral en arts plastiques interroge les enjeux du non perçu de nos constructions spatiales, temporelles ou physiques et propose d’observer ce qui nous échappe, mais que nous vivons, ce qui nous touche ou nous traverse sans que nous le sentions. Il s’agit d’une étude du pouvoir discret de la contrepartie et de la manière dont certains gestes, certaines pratiques plastiques, poétiques, scientifiques la mettent en jeu. Une première séquence est consacrée aux métaphores du fil et du funambule, ils deviennent les modèles à partir desquels il est possible de penser les potentialités de l’inaperçu et d’envisager une forme de désorientation active. D’une part, la structure faite de fils de chaîne et de fils de trame du tissu permet de penser la valeur opératoire du vide. Cela, parce que c’est l’espace entre les fils de chaîne et les fils de trame qui induit la qualité de souplesse, de résistance ou d’opacité du tissu. C’est alors que l’interstice, l’intervalle ou l’entre-deux devient décisif. D’autre part, le funambule est celui qui agit sur le fil. Il adopte une posture risquée, éprise de déséquilibres, de doutes, d’hésitations, d’une attention qui doit être renouvelée à chaque pas au gré de ses sensations physiques et des conditions atmosphériques. Alors, les métaphores du fil et du funambule créent la scène imaginaire de nos propres désorientations face à ce qui se dérobe, face à ce qui, aux marges de nos espaces, de nos rythmes, de notre écoute ou de notre vision, ne se laisse pas facilement saisir. Une deuxième séquence s’efforce de pointer ce qui, dans notre environnement, fait de nous des funambules, ce qui nous déséquilibre ou nous désoriente. Quelles sont nos conditions physiques, physiologiques, psychologiques ou sociales du déséquilibre ? Qu’est-ce qui se loge au seuil de nos espaces, à la lisière de notre vision, au fond de notre écoute ? Comment certains gestes, certaines pratiques ouvrent notre regard à l’inaperçu de notre environnement et en révèlent les potentialités ? / This dissertation in Fine Arts questioned about the undetected of our creations, in space, in time or physically and is an invitation to observe what is easily missed, that touches and goes through us, without our noticing. It is a study on subtle power and how it influences certain movements, plastic, poetic and scientific practices. The first part will focus on metaphors surrounding the thread and the acrobat, they become the model to reflect upon the potential of the unnoticeable and to consider an active form of disorientation. On the one hand, structure made of thread and wefts of fabric allow us to think the value of empty spaces since it is these gaps that are responsible for the suppleness, the resistance or the opacity of the fabric. Then the interstice, the interval or the in-between become essential. On the other hand, the tightrope walker is the one acting on the rope. He is in a risky position, struggling with disequilibrium, doubts, hesitations and he needs to renew his attention after each step according to his physical feelings and atmospheric conditions. The metaphors of the tightrope walker creates an imaginary scenario of our own disorientations in front of what evades us, at the edge of our space, rhythm, vision or listening, which is not easily perceptible. The second part points out elements in our environment which make us become tightrope walkers by inducing unsteadiness and disorientation. What are the physical, physiological, psychological or social conditions for disequilibrium ? What can be accommodated at the limit of our space, at the edge of our vision and in the depth of our hearing ? How certain actions broaden our vision towards the unnoticeable of our environment and to reveal its potential ?