The Surrealist movement, which emerged in France after the First World War, aimed to investigate and express how thoughts really worked in the absence of all control exercised by reason, and outside of all aesthetic and moral influence. Surrealism took many forms in art. One of its cornerstones is the idea that the unconscious is the truest and most profound level of reality. H.R. Giger had various influences, including the surrealist art of Salvador Dalí, Hans Bellmer and Max Ernst. Traditional Surrealism was founded by artists such as Dalí, Ernst and Magritte. It focused on exploration of the unconscious, dreams and alternative realities. Giger espoused this side of the movement and complemented it with dark, technological aesthetics heavily inspired by biomechanics.
In an interview, Hans Ruedi stated that: “The style that’s influenced me most is Art Nouveau, due to the elegance of the forms and drawings. My biomechanoids are influenced by the style, which is architectural and blends machines with a stylized concept of progress.”
Giger’s fascination with biomechanics stemmed from a combination of anatomic aspects, technological features and dream-like visions. His work was often seen as a criticism of dehumanizing technology and the fear of the unknown in the modern world. Giger presented his own take on Surrealism, by fusing biological and mechanical forms and creating worlds that seem to straddle the boundary between organic and inorganic. His works often depict hybrid creatures, distorted human bodies and environments that conjure up feelings of unease and claustrophobia. The approach reflects a modern, dystopian interpretation of Surrealism, which conveys the fears and concerns of the 20th and 21st centuries while remaining true to the core concept.
Giger believed that the arrival of new technology meant human beings would evolve into a hybrid species: half person and half robot. He was totally fascinated by the idea. In his words: “I’m fascinated by new forms, new possibilities and the fears aroused by this evolution, when things like this get out of control, such as with genetic engineering. But you can’t stop the creation process. It’s ironic: humans are destroying their world by doing things like burning the Amazon rainforest, and at the same time they’re building an alternative one. As we come to the end of the second millennium, I think people are going through a phase of rethinking and reassessing their evolution and themselves, compared to the past.”
Giger combined the greatest fears of the contemporary world with the mind-bending, visionary writing of Lovecraft. There is no doubt that this is why he called his first great collection of worksNecronomicon, the title of a book that was never written but was used as a literary device byLovecraft. Published in 1977, H.R. Giger’s Necronomicon simply contains a selection of his most famous works. A suburban take on Baphomet appears on the cover and from the title onwards, it pays tribute to the writer H.P. Lovecraft, the “loner of Providence”.
Writer, poet, literary critic and essayist Howard Phillips Lovecraft is considered one of the leading names in horror fiction, alongside Edgar Allan Poe. He is seen by many as one of the forerunners of Anglo-American science fiction, not to mention the father of Cosmicism, a literary philosophy that he invented. The core notion in Cosmicism is the insignificance of humans in the general scheme of the universe. It is a philosophy that was clearly shared by Giger.
In Lovecraft’s varied output, there are frequent references to the Necronomicon. As mentioned above, it is a fictional book that is cited as if it were a real piece of literature. Lovecraft described the Necronomicon as a book of black magic written by the “Mad Arab” Abdul Alhazred, who lived in Yemen in the 8th century and died in Damascus in mysterious circumstances: Lovecraft claimed that he was torn to pieces in broad daylight by an invisible creature.