University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. / It is the intention of this Doctor of Creative Arts to convey the complexity of viewing art in museums. Concentrating on both the physical and cultural contexts of art, I focus specifically on Italian museums that house artworks of the Renaissance. I argue that the viewing experience in these museums is formed at the intersection of cultures, histories, the past and the present, art and the subjectivity of the viewer's own gaze. In this project the personal, physical, cerebral, sensorial and temporal experiences of art are central to my concerns. The structure of this DCA combines my photographic art practice with this written reflection. I work with both the visual and the textual to most appropriately and effectively express my concerns with the Renaissance and Italian museums. In a peculiar act of doubling, I am making art about the experience of viewing it, and through image-making I am able both to explore and to comment more profoundly on the experience of these museums. While my research and writing at times responds to these images, it also inspires them. Here I integrate the past, history and art, with contemporary theories that are relevant in the study ofvision and today's art viewing, and rely on numerous writers across the broad .fields of visual arts, art history and theory, museology, historiography and cultural tourism. In surveying these extensive interwoven disciplines I engage with the magnitude of the social, historical and theoretical studies that converge in the museum viewer's field of vision. Beyond the glorious artworks themselves Italian Renaissance museums exhibit a dense visual and historic culture that provides an enriched viewing environment. They paradoxically intersect 'high' art with a phenomenal popularity that appears ever-expanding through endless reproductions and representations via modern technologies. Through examining these museums with their multiple histories and contexts I hope to argue for a slower, more considered engagement with art, that encourages the viewer to experience the sensual as well as the intellectual aspects that this opulent environment offers.

The phenomenological approaches to embodiment presented by Levinas and Merleau-Ponty cannot provide an adequate account of bodily identity because their methodological commitments forbid them from admitting the central role that sensation plays in the constitution of experience. This neglect is symptomatic of their tradition's suspicion toward sensation as an explanatory concept, a suspicion stemming from Kant's critique of empiricist metaphysics and Husserl's critique of psychologism and objectivism. By contrast, I suggest that only with a robust theory of sensation can the integrity of the body and its relations be fully captured. I therefore develop--contra Kant and Husserl's idealism--a realist conception of sensation that is at once materialist and phenomenological. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts; / Philosophy / PhD; / Dissertation;

The goal of this research is to develop the prototype of a tactile sensing platform for anthropomorphic manipulation research. We investigate this problem through the fabrication and simple control of a planar 2-DOF robotic finger inspired by anatomic consistency, self-containment, and adaptability. The robot is equipped with a tactile sensor array based on optical transducer technology whereby localized changes in light intensity within an illuminated foam substrate correspond to the distribution and magnitude of forces applied to the sensor surface plane. The integration of tactile perception is a key component in realizing robotic systems which organically interact with the world. Such natural behavior is characterized by compliant performance that can initiate internal, and respond to external, force application in a dynamic environment. However, most of the current manipulators that support some form of haptic feedback either solely derive proprioceptive sensation or only limit tactile sensors to the mechanical fingertips. These constraints are due to the technological challenges involved in high resolution, multi-point tactile perception. In this work, however, we take the opposite approach, emphasizing the role of full-finger tactile feedback in the refinement of manual capabilities. To this end, we propose and implement a control framework for sensorimotor coordination analogous to infant-level grasping and fixturing reflexes. This thesis details the mechanisms used to achieve these sensory, actuation, and control objectives, along with the design philosophies and biological influences behind them. The results of behavioral experiments with a simple tactilely-modulated control scheme are also described. The hope is to integrate the modular finger into an %engineered analog of the human hand with a complete haptic system.

Ce mémoire-création est composé de deux parties. La première est une réflexion sur la sensation comme lien entre le jeu et l'écriture. La deuxième est constituée du texte théâtral Soliloques. L'objectif de cette recherche est de réfléchir sur le transfert possible du stock de sensations qu'un acteur a accumulées par le jeu et dont il peut se servir pour l'écriture. Cette réflexion est élaborée à partir d'une expérimentation: une série d'improvisations solos filmées dans huit lieux non théâtraux, comme première étape de récriture d'un texte dramatique. La partie réflexion de ce mémoire expose d'abord certaines théories du jeu développées par Constantin Stanislavski, Michael Checkhov et Lee Strasberg, afin de réfléchir au rôle de la sensation dans le jeu de l'acteur. Quelques écrits sur la sensation comme source d'inspiration en danse et en écriture poétique ajoutent à la réflexion. Ensuite, le rapport entre le corps du créateur et son environnement est analysé à partir des travaux de Richard Schechner aux Etats-Unis et de la pratique du metteur en scène québécois Éric Jean. Puis, les enseignements de Checkhov et de Strasberg sur la mémoire sensorielle sont exposés pour expliquer le passage de la sensation du jeu (improvisations) à l'écriture de Soliloques. Les écrits de ces auteurs et praticiens constituent le cadre théorique de ce mémoire. Le dernier chapitre de la partie réflexion explique comment la sensation a été abordée et traitée dans le travail de l'actrice et comment elle se transpose dans l'écriture. Cette analyse permet d'identifier, de définir et de justifier tes sensations qui ont traversé tes différentes étapes du processus d'écriture, des improvisations jusqu'à la dernière version de Soliloques. Ce mémoire conclut que les sensations constituent une puissante source d'inspiration pour la création en état de jeu et pour l'écriture. La mémoire sensorielle permet d'inspirer l'actrice-auteure pendant tout le processus de création, en plus d'agir comme le lien entre le jeu à l'écriture. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Sensations, Mémoire sensorielle, Corps, Lieu réel, Improvisation, Théorie du jeu, Écriture dramatique et soliloque.

En utilisant le processus et le résultat de quatre études chorégraphiques comme terrain de recherche, ce mémoire-création se propose de réfléchir sur l'hypothèse de l'ambiguïté du corps de l'interprète comme étant apte à produire la sensation - au sens deleuzien du terme - chez un spectateur générique. Elle suggère que, pour que s'épanouisse la sensation, l'œuvre devrait éviter le passage dans le repérable et le connu et ce, afin d'empêcher son classement catégoriel. Pour dégager le chemin qui permet à l'œuvre et au spectateur d'accéder à la sensation, j'ai ainsi présumé que l'artiste devrait éviter d'illustrer des images interpelant un trop grand symbolisme, et s'abstenir d'orienter l'œuvre de manière trop flagrante vers une idée, une émotion ou un message à transmettre. Il s'agit d'une recherche qualitative qui s'appuie principalement sur mon observation et expérience en cours de processus créatif. Pour faire surgir l'ambiguïté et, par ricochet, la sensation, cette recherche-création s'est attachée à défricher des pistes qui touchent principalement à la direction d'interprètes et à diverses stratégies de création et d'écriture chorégraphique. Cette recherche-création a utilisé comme outils d'investigation les concepts de force, du devenir et de transformation du corps et s'est penchée sur des façons possibles de déjouer l'organisation de la cohérence chez le spectateur. Par ailleurs, cette recherche a montré que l'ambiguïté pouvait être stimulée par divers paramètres esthétiques tels la forme, la notion d'états de corps, une attention particulière portée aux pré-mouvements, ainsi que par diverses indications physiques données aux interprètes. Par ailleurs, elle s'attarde au fait que le surgissement de l'ambiguïté semble étroitement lié à un certain positionnement des sensations physiques et psychiques du danseur, à l'intérieur de la proposition. Cette recherche-création démontre également l'étroite imbrication et entrelacement de tous ces paramètres et suggère que leur relation transductive aboutit à une "esthétique de l'hésitation". Finalement, cette recherche-création laisse planer le doute sur ce qui produirait réellement la sensation, soit l'ambiguïté comme telle, ou bien l'affect généré par l'esthétique de l'hésitation et tel que perçu dans l'œuvre. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Danse contemporaine, interprétation, hésitation, création, sensation, ambiguïté, perception, état de corps.

Current understanding of sensitivity and sensation experienced across the ocular surface remains limited. This project explored the regional variation of corneal sensitivity and transducer function, interaction of sensory and autonomic nerves in the lacrimal functional unit, and the ocular surface sensitivity in Dry Eye and with silicone hydrogel (SH) lens wear. Experiments were undertaken, using Belmonte esthesiometer to deliver pneumatic mechanical, chemical and thermal stimuli and Cochet-Bonnet esthesiometer for tactile stimuli, to the cornea and conjunctiva. Psychophysical methods were used to determine the thresholds of stimulus detection, and the magnitude of sensations to suprathreshold stimulation was estimated assuming Steven’s power law. Additionally, tear secretion in response to corneal sensory input was determined by tear meniscus height measured using Optical Coherence Tomography. Sensitivity to pneumatic cool and mechanical stimuli varied slightly across the cornea while chemical sensitivity was not different between regions. The transducer function was also similar between central and peripheral cornea but different between stimulus modalities. In comparison, the reflex tearing response to suprathreshold stimuli was greater with central corneal stimulation. Also, corneal and conjunctival hypersensitivity was found in the dry eye symptomatic group, and it appeared to be associated with symptom severity, tear film stability and corneal epitheliopathy. Refitting with SH lenses after an initial no-lens interval led to increased conjunctival pneumatic mechanical sensitivity, while corneal tactile sensitivity showed a decrease. In addition, corneal staining induced by certain lens-solution combination appeared to be accompanied by increased corneal and conjunctival sensitivity. In conclusion, the position-invariant corneal sensitivity to pneumatic mechanical, chemical and thermal stimuli suggests that the distribution of human corneal sensory fibres may be more homogeneous than previously hypothesised. The mechanisms mediating the sensory aspect of corneal nociception may be similar across the cornea, while, perhaps due to the importance of the visual axis, the tear reflex response to central and peripheral cornea seems to be driven by different neural circuitry, perhaps at the higher levels of the sensory processing pathway. It appears that alteration in sensory processing of the ocular surface occurs in Dry Eye and accompanies SH lens-solution-induced corneal staining. This altered sensitivity seems to be more prominent in the conjunctiva than in the cornea.

Current understanding of sensitivity and sensation experienced across the ocular surface remains limited. This project explored the regional variation of corneal sensitivity and transducer function, interaction of sensory and autonomic nerves in the lacrimal functional unit, and the ocular surface sensitivity in Dry Eye and with silicone hydrogel (SH) lens wear. Experiments were undertaken, using Belmonte esthesiometer to deliver pneumatic mechanical, chemical and thermal stimuli and Cochet-Bonnet esthesiometer for tactile stimuli, to the cornea and conjunctiva. Psychophysical methods were used to determine the thresholds of stimulus detection, and the magnitude of sensations to suprathreshold stimulation was estimated assuming Steven’s power law. Additionally, tear secretion in response to corneal sensory input was determined by tear meniscus height measured using Optical Coherence Tomography. Sensitivity to pneumatic cool and mechanical stimuli varied slightly across the cornea while chemical sensitivity was not different between regions. The transducer function was also similar between central and peripheral cornea but different between stimulus modalities. In comparison, the reflex tearing response to suprathreshold stimuli was greater with central corneal stimulation. Also, corneal and conjunctival hypersensitivity was found in the dry eye symptomatic group, and it appeared to be associated with symptom severity, tear film stability and corneal epitheliopathy. Refitting with SH lenses after an initial no-lens interval led to increased conjunctival pneumatic mechanical sensitivity, while corneal tactile sensitivity showed a decrease. In addition, corneal staining induced by certain lens-solution combination appeared to be accompanied by increased corneal and conjunctival sensitivity. In conclusion, the position-invariant corneal sensitivity to pneumatic mechanical, chemical and thermal stimuli suggests that the distribution of human corneal sensory fibres may be more homogeneous than previously hypothesised. The mechanisms mediating the sensory aspect of corneal nociception may be similar across the cornea, while, perhaps due to the importance of the visual axis, the tear reflex response to central and peripheral cornea seems to be driven by different neural circuitry, perhaps at the higher levels of the sensory processing pathway. It appears that alteration in sensory processing of the ocular surface occurs in Dry Eye and accompanies SH lens-solution-induced corneal staining. This altered sensitivity seems to be more prominent in the conjunctiva than in the cornea.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Psychology." Includes bibliographical references (p. 55-61).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 221-226). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 129 p. : ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 96-109).