unique
A rare mix of the surreal, beautiful and disturbing, sad to hear his passing.
Hans Rudolf Giger, the Swiss artist and designer who scared a generation of movie-goers witless with his Alien creations, has died at the age of 74 after a falling accident at his Swiss home. HR Giger on the set of Alien Giger on the set of Alien It's a fair bet that a sizable proportion of El Reg's readership have some of …
To clarify Destroy All Monsters's point, Giger's use of the airbrush (usually used for rendering shiny shiny new things like cars in advertising) lent the images a photo-realistic appearance. The security guards assumed the images had to be photographs.
Giger was puzzled as to where he was supposed to have taken such photographs.
The first photo of Giger hugging an egg in the alien ship's hold ghasts my flabber something chronic - watching John Hurt amid the eggs I knew that at some point a matt painting took over but I hadn't guessed that the point was "the egg behind him". Nothing like a little fog, some good lighting, a fine director, and of course a fabulous piece of graphic design that meant (like any magic trick) my horrified attention was held firmly where it was meant to be.
I remind you all that there are usually a couple "accidental" deaths in Alien movies, and then the Aliens' hand is shown. Well Mr. Geiger, I'm glad that you died before implantation was complete, you will be missed.
Now where did I leave my 10 mm automtic pulse rifle with over-and-under-barrel grenade launchers...
His museum is definitely worth visiting. It's only a shame that he was greatly disregarded in the art world of his home country - not a single exhibition in one of the major museums in Switzerland (if that didn't change in recent years).
In a former life I used to be very close to his home. One can only hope someone turns his terrace house into another museum (Carmen might have a say in that...). It's a truly amazing place, both the interior and the garden, and should be preserved not as a "shrine" but as a piece of art.
Giger do not seem to have influenced Lynch's Dune film much, if at all. Giger did, however, make a lot of concept art for Jodorowsky's (sadly uncompleted) Dune project, in particular designs for the Harkonnen palace and also some designs for another uncompleted Dune adaptation by DIno de Laurentis.
...an evening of film then diner with the GF turned into head for the first bar and a couple (lots) of stiff drinks, neither of us felt like eating that night. Really scary stuff back then.
Before the film used to have Giger's coffee table book Necronomicon which had to be put away when friends with sprogs visited. Disturbing imagery but brilliantly done. Wonder where that disappeared to?
Someone lent me that book when I was at college, and the work simply blew me away. Considering the inane drivel that occupies so many modern gallery walls, I have never understood why work like Gigers never seemed to gain the far wider audience and exposure it deserves in its own right, not just as set design - although its not exactly uncommon to end up a bit 'niche' if your work has the merest whiff of sci-fi to it.
Those that knew his work though were hugely influenced by it; you see it in particular in a lot of the photography based photoshop work from the 90s, and even in earlier stuff produced with its pricey predecessor, the Quantel Paintbox.
R.I.P. to another genuine icon.
And the world is smaller again.
I remember during the run-up to Alien an article/interview on Giger in an early OMNI magazine in which it was disclosed that a piece of set graffiti read "Giger writes nice things on lavatory walls".
It seems the workforce was freaked out by a lot more than his black attire, and who can blame them? Working among those nightmare forms would give anyone the heebie-jeebies.
RIP Giger. If not for you there would have been no Alien worth the name.