Birth machine

Hans Ruedi Giger (pronounced: GEE-ger) (born at Chur, Grisons canton, February 5, 1940) is a Swiss painter best known for his design work on the film Alien. Giger's Alien design, inspired by his painting "Necronom V", earned him an Oscar in 1980. His fourth published book of paintings, titled Necronomicon (followed by Necronomicon II in 1985), continued his rise to international prominence, as did the frequent appearance of his art in the magazine Omni. Giger is also well known for artwork on a number of popular records, including Emerson Lake and Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery and Debbie Harry's KooKoo. His artwork for the Dead Kennedys' album Frankenchrist was at the center of an obscenity lawsuit against Jello Biafra.

For most of his career, Giger has worked predominantly in airbrush, creating strange monochromatic canvasses depicting surreal, nightmarish landscapes. His most distinctive stylistic innovation is that of biomechanics, a representation of human bodies and machines in a cold, interconnected relationship. His paintings often display fetishistic sexual imagery and are considered disturbing by some. Some of his paintings also feature Satanic imagery, though Giger himself is not known to be a Satanist. He is largely inspired by Salvador Dalí and was a personal friend of Timothy Leary.

He has also created furniture designs, particularly the Harkonnen Capo Chair for an unproduced movie version of the novel Dune that was originally slated to be directed by Alejandro Jodorowski (many years later David Lynch directed the film, using none of Giger's designs). Giger has also applied his biomechanical style to interior design, and several "Giger Bars" sprung up in Tokyo, New York, and his native Switzerland, although the foreign bars have since closed. His art has greatly influenced tattooists and fetishists worldwide.

H.R. Giger has produced concept art for:

• Movies:
  • Alien
  • Species
• Recording artists
  • Magma
  • Emerson Lake and Palmer
  • Deborah Harry (from Blondie)
  • Hide
• Public places
  • Giger Bars in Chur and Gruyères, both Switzerland
• Museums
  • Museum H. R. Giger in Gruyères, canton of Fribourg, Switzerland
• Games
  • Dark Seed and its sequel, adventure games for PC.

Pop culture references

Novelist William Gibson referred to Giger in his book Virtual Light, in which a minor character has a tattoo of one of the New York paintings. As well, in his novel Idoru, the nanotech buildings are Giger-esque.

External links

• H. R. Giger (http://www.hrgiger.com/)
• Museum H. R. Giger (http://www.hrgigermuseum.com)
• Therion H. R. Giger Gallery - fairly comprehensive (http://www.fred-katrin.de/)
• Giger-Art - fan-site and store (http://www.giger-art.com/)