Andrew Hill
Location
My work is concerned with visuality and the way in which visuality figures as fundamental to questions of knowledge, politics and history.
It is organised into two overlapping areas: how the act of seeing functions in different historical moments and settings, and the relationship between conflict and visuality. In regard to the first area I am currently engaged in work on the ‘scopic economy’ of early modern Europe - how the act of seeing was distributed and attempted to be organised in this period - through focusing upon a series of specific settings and moments. The first of these - the meeting between Henry VIII and Francis I at the Field of the Cloth of Gold - provides an emblematic instance of the role played by visuality in contemporary diplomacy and international politics. In turn this meeting raises a series of broader questions about the relationship between the Renaissance Prince, the broader political structures of the period, and visuality. This work also provides the focus for my methodological interests around the relationship between visuality and knowledge. In regard to the second area - conflict and visuality - I have explored this relationship in regard to the War on Terror (including the book Re-Imagining the War on Terror) and Northern Ireland. My current work addresses a series of themes around visuality, conflict and aesthetics, including the relationship between war and beauty. I am convenor of CRESC’s Visuality & Power integrative theme.
