Compositional influences on the microstructures, phase stability, and mechanical properties of TiCr₂ laves phase alloys

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering, 1996.Includes bibliographical references.by Katherine C. Chen.Ph.D

The elusive digital frame and the elasticity of time in painting

How can we gain a deeper understanding about the emotional affects of painting with respect to temporality by working with the mechanisms and languages of the moving image? This practice-based doctoral research aims to add to our understanding of the perception of temporality in painterly surface and to investigate the relationship between subjective perceptions and emotional 'affect' in encounters with painting which offer an expanded and enhanced sense of lived temporality. The project sets out to do this by devising art works using the processes, apparatus and structures of 'experimental' film/video and photography. This work seeks to question what can cause the passing of time to become 'elastic' in the perception of the spectator encountering the 'strangeness' of painterly surface as an intense experience and asks how this phenomena may be connected with perceptions of time and vision for the embodied painter engaged in practice. In addition to painting practice within the project, works by Frank Auerbach are taken as examples of 'painterly' surface with which to consider temporality and spectator experience. The written thesis is used to document and reflect on the development of this practice-based work; in particular, insights derived from the two photo/video installation works Que Sera (2010) and Is It You? (2012) which juxtapose material made with high speed filming and long exposures and which engage with the 'frame' as a marker of time passing. The reflective thesis draws on theoretical material, including Maurice Merleau-Ponty's essays which propose painting as a form of metaphysics and a way of understanding how we see; Gilles Deleuze's work on the phenomenology of painting; the experimental film theory of Peter Gidal and recent neuroscientific work by Antonio Damasio, investigating vision and consciousness. This material is used in conjunction with observations from experimental and expanded film works as they deconstruct aspects of subjective temporality and visual perception

Philosophy and the sciences in the work of Gilles Deleuze, 1953-1968

This thesis seeks to understand the nature of and relation between science and philosophy articulated in the early work (1953-1968) of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. It seeks to challenge the view that Deleuze’s metaphysical and metaphilosophical position is in important part an attempt to respond to twentieth century developments in the natural sciences, claiming that this is not a plausible interpretation of Deleuze’s early thought. The central problem identified with such readings is that they provide an insufficient explanation of the nature of philosophy’s contribution to the encounter between philosophy and science that they discern in Deleuze’s work. The philosophical, as opposed to scientific, dimension of the position attributed to Deleuze remains obscure. In chapter 1, it is demonstrated that this question of philosophy’s contribution to intellectual life and of how to differentiate philosophy from the sciences is a live one in Deleuze’s early thought. An alternative, less anachronistic interpretation of the parameters of Deleuze’s early project is offered. The remaining chapters of the thesis examine the early Deleuze’s understanding of the divergence between philosophy and science. Chapter 2 gives an account of Deleuze’s metaphilosophy, alongside a reconstruction of his largely implicit early understanding of science. The divergent intellectual processes and motivating concerns that account for Deleuze’s understanding of the differentiation of science and philosophy are thus clarified. In chapter 3, Deleuze’s use of mathematical and physical concepts is examined. It is argued that these concepts are used metaphorically. In chapter 4, the association between modern science and the Deleuzian concept of immanence that has been proposed by some Deleuze scholars is examined and ultimately challenged. The thesis concludes with some reflections on the significance of Deleuze’s early work for contemporary debates concerning the future of continental philosophy and the nature of philosophy more generally