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Giger

Hans Ruedi Giger (born at Chur, Grisons canton, February 5, 1940) is an Academy Award-winning Swiss painter, sculptor, and set designer best known for his design work on the film Alien.

Work

Giger's Alien design, inspired by his earlier painting Necronom IV, for the film Alien.Giger's Alien design, inspired by his painting Necronom IV, 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, Celtic Frost's To Mega Therion, Dead Kennedys' Frankenchrist, Debbie Harry's Koo Koo and Carcass's Heartwork.

Other works

Giger has 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 only extremely limited rough ideas from Giger and Jodorowski. Giger had wished to work with Lynch, as he had said that Lynch's film Eraserhead was the closest thing to portraying Giger's art in film (even including the films that Giger himself had worked on), as cited in one of Giger's Necronomicon books.

Giger has applied his biomechanical style to interior design, and several "Giger Bars" sprang up in Tokyo, New York, and his native Switzerland, although most of the bars have since closed. His art has greatly influenced tattooists and fetishists worldwide. Ibanez guitars has released an H.R. Giger signature series; the Ibanez ICHRG2, an [[Ibanez Iceman]], features the work "NY City VI", and the Ibanez RGTHRG1 has the work "NY City XIX" printed on it.

Giger also designed an elaborate microphone stand for Jonathan Davis, lead singer of the band Korn.

Computer games

Dark Seed and its sequel, Dark Seed II, both adventure games for the PC, Amiga, and the Amiga CD32, were published by Cyberdreams. The games were also released for the PlayStation and Saturn in Japan.
Giger is often referenced in pop culture and especially in works of the science fiction and cyberpunk genres. Novelist William Gibson (who wrote an early script for Alien³) seems particularly fascinated, presenting in Virtual Light a minor character, Lowell, with New York XXIV tattooed across his back. As well, Yamazaki, a secondary character in Idoru specifically describes the buildings of nanotech Japan as Giger-esque.

posted by Martin Crosbie @ 7:01 AM