John Hilliard

Guest Speaker John Hilliard gave us an overview of his work from the 70's up to now. Hilliard started out as a sculptor, having been researching Keith Arnatt for the module 'This must be the place' these two artists are very similar, which is partly to do with the era they started out in. Many sculptors used photography to document their work in the 60's and 70's. Hilliard like Arnatt soon realised photography's potential as a medium. Hilliard's sculptures were specific to the place they were in so it was essential for him to document them with his camera. Eventually he realised that he was only making sculptures to photograph them and asked himself 'Why not concentrate on the actual photograph?'. Hilliard then decided to focus on photography, analysing how the photograph could create meaning. This was a major aspect of Conceptual artists using photography. Photography needed to be analysed in order to understand how it can create meaning.

The camera recording its own condition,1971

In this image there are 70 different frames showing the camera recording itself at 7 different apertures and 10 different exposure times. This use of photography shows different versions of reality which are more or less true. Hilliard liked to crop his images to make several different meanings out of one photograph.Cause of Death,1974

With 'Caue Of Death' Hilliard experimented with the way the cropping of an image can effect its meaning. There are four of the same image cropped in a different way and captioned. The body that lay by the water has the caption 'drowned', the body by the bridge 'Fell'. It is the crop and the caption which change the meaning of this image. This use of the caption was often used in newspapers to tell a particular story. The suggestive power of the caption is investigated. From previously reading 'Rhetoric of the image' by Roland Barthes it is clear how strong the power of suggestion is. Barthes explained that photographs don't have clear or specific meanings by themselves, it is the title, text or caption that anchors the image to a particular reading. Another aspect of Hilliard's work which is interesting, is how he envisages an image, which he then draws and tries to recreate. Most photographers don't know what they're looking for until the moment they find it but working with something clearly in mind is somehow more rewarding if you succeed.

Following Hilliard's talk we were given a group tutorial with him for a chance to get an opinion on our projects from one the most influential British photographer of our time. Discussing our projects with Hilliard was interesting as there were several disagreements about his advice which helpful in the end because it encouraged confidence to do what we had to do and also be able to explain why.