Leading from
a) Viewing device near to face
Once Giger had decided to use the Sokar barge for the basis of his Space Jockey chair, one can go back to look at the Necronomicon to see possible further ideas for the development of the space jockey in its chair, deliberately or non-deliberately because the contents of Giger's Necronomicon show ideas already infused with Giger's mind so to find him gravitating towards patterns and structures that he would have been previously familiar with unconsciously would only be normal.However here we go back and look for similarities that might show the further development. (NB: This idea also comes from Jean Cocteau's Reveries of Opium which inspired his National Park painting, and perhaps Cocteau's work seems suggestive of Dali's 1929 painting, The Great Masturbator which shows a woman's head appearing to sniff the crotch of a man.
(See Gigers National Park And Jean Cocteau's Reveries of Opium, descendants of Dali's The Great Masturbator))
 |
| details from National Park (1975), Necronom IV (1976) and The Space Jockey (1978) |
b) Easy Riders in the details.
In these images I will refer to the figures who are almost there riding motobikes as "Easy Riders" after the Dennis Hopper movie.
In these images I will refer to the figures who are almost there riding motobikes as "Easy Riders" after the Dennis Hopper movie.
Look at the comparison between Giger's final Space Jockey painting and the head of the creature in Necronom IV turned almost upside down.
Highlighted in green is what I would imagine to be a false eye in the back of the creature's head, and highlighted in magenta is a false arm of an unseen rider.
Maybe this was a remnant of an earlier idea that Giger had for one of his Easy Riders before he inverted the picture and changed the changed the whole sense of the painting to make it a humanoid.
We also see the back extremity with a tip that curves inwards to support the phallic end of the creature's head could very well have served as inspiration for the curved viewing device that extends from the telescope like object towards the pilot.
We also see the back extremity with a tip that curves inwards to support the phallic end of the creature's head could very well have served as inspiration for the curved viewing device that extends from the telescope like object towards the pilot.
This also shows up in Giger's earlier painting in a different way where it shows a humanoid with a helmet covering his eyes and his face close to something that appears to be an appendage or head of another creature in the National Park painting but also seems to transform into a screen for the hidden astronaut to look into in Necronom IV, and this reoccurring idea turns up in the final space jockey.
 |
| Giger's Biomechanoid III |
c) Biomechanoid III and the Talhoffer's 15th C drawing of a diving suit.
Here is an detail of an head from Giger's painting Biomechanoid III (work 255) done in 1974 . It looks vaguely like the skull of an elephant transformed into a biomechanic entity.
It is said that Giger was given a rhinoceros skull to use when making Alien but I suspect that he had an elephant' skull to use instead or as well.
However the head shown here also resembles the headgear from the Talhoffer diving suit design from the Thott manuscript from the 15th Century which displays various designs for various weapons of war barely imagined to have existed in modern day perception.
See also : HR Giger: Biomechanoid III (work 255), 1974, memories of the Egyptian mummy at the Rätisches Museum of Chur?
 |
| head gear for the diving gear drawn by Hans Talhoffer back in the 15th century for the Thott manuscript |
 |
| Diving suit drawn by Hans Talhoffer back in the 15th century for the Thott manuscript |
d) Chiquita corpse.
We also find the character also as a corpse in a hollow found in the painting "Chiquita" from 1972, it basically gives us the complete body of a Space Jockey with the ribcage and head composed from unspecific details. The face of the skull might be inspired by a mouse skull
We also find the character also as a corpse in a hollow found in the painting "Chiquita" from 1972, it basically gives us the complete body of a Space Jockey with the ribcage and head composed from unspecific details. The face of the skull might be inspired by a mouse skull
 . |
| detail from "Chiquita" , 1972 |
And going further back in time, at the bottom of this black and white drawing titled "Astreunuchen" from 1967 you can see another EasyRider lying on it's back embedded into some sort of a sheathe like object and he is holding a pair of handlebars with an enlarged cranium and a pipe running down along it's face leading down to it's belly button.
There is another entity embedded in the opposite end holding a syringe.
There are other examples of a humanoid entity with such a face from this time in his work, including in his ink drawing Atom Kinder. The Easy Rider in the "astreunuchen" is connected to a structure curved
like a boat. Maybe this image came out of familiarity with the Henu Barque
f) Evolution of Space Jockey from nature
A photo of an almost humanoid looking Indian elephant skull from the DK Images website. It resembles the space jockey type skull to some degree, and in the past, people have dug up elephant skulls and have mistaken them for the skulls of humanoid giants.
A photo of an almost humanoid looking Indian elephant skull from the DK Images website. It resembles the space jockey type skull to some degree, and in the past, people have dug up elephant skulls and have mistaken them for the skulls of humanoid giants.
No comments:
Post a Comment