January 2017

leading from

Updates 2013-17

January 2017

Thursday, 26th January 2017
Bellamy Down Under illustration in Radio Times provides a loose starting point for Biomechanical Landscape (Sack) (work434)? The idea that the painting shows signs of the illustration of David Bellamy sitting on a Boabob tree

Sunday, 22nd January 2017
1) Added: Eraserhead: Lady in the Radiator about the time when David Lynch had the idea about this certain character for his film Eraserhead. This movie was one of Giger's favourites for a while and he connected it well with the experience of his own paintings.  Meanwhile David Lynch the director thought that they had borrowed ideas from it for Alien.
2) Added: Eraserhead: Sentence from the bible
3) Added: Eraserhead: Philadelphia  story
4) Added: Eraserhead: Dead Mice
5) Re-edited Alien vs Eraserhead

Saturday, 21st January 2017
Added:  William Onyeabor "Crashes in Love" album cover (1977) referenced in Giger's Alien Life Cycle Hieroglyphics (1978)?
Legendary synth-funk music maker William Onyeabor died this week. Jumping on the idea that Giger too had an interest in William Onyeabor and and wanted to do something with this interesting album cover, "Crashes in Love" (1977) (absolutely nothing written to my knowledge to say he did).

Friday, 20th January 2017
1) Had a realisation from the Sokar Funerary Barque from the Papyrus of Ani was another thing referenced in Jean Delville's Treasures of Satan
2) Realised that the unused Alien logo by Michael Doret and Todd Schor also bore signs of the Sokar Funerary Barque

Tuesday, 17th January, 2017

Although I knew about  Teufelsküche (Trans: Devil's Kitchen) (Also: Stalingrad)  (1944)
by Max von Moos for some time, I suddenly realised it was in the Treasures of Satan family and referenced Gethsemane (1944) by Mark Rothko, and in turn, von Moos' picture was referenced by Dorothea Tanning in Avatar (1947).

Monday , 16th January , 2017
At the bottom of Koenig books in Charing Cross Road found a book about the Eshu which is a character which appears to be the trickster side of the Elegua from the Yoruban belief system, and this also connects with the mythological concepts being played with in Wifredo Lam's paintings and one of his Femme-Cheval is mentioned amongst the paintings here. However none of these sculptures are dated apart from a number being made somewhere in the 20th century in the workshop of Bamgboye of Odo Owa (ca. 1893–1978) from Nigeria. I am not having any realisations from god knows where about anything that Giger ought to have seen or be generally aware of in some way. But some of the Eshu sculptures suggest something of Necronom IV's head and head support. A question might be asked about the relationship between these sculptures and Dali's drawing Nefertiti from 1972. 

Sunday, 15th January 2017
1) Continued to update Alien:Yaphet Kotto joins Alien
2) Updated Alien: Ridley's creative turnaround adding information about Ridley's trip to see Star Wars. No real certainty about exactly which month he saw Star Wars but it was sometime during the summer in LA. A problem might be that we can know that Star Wars premiered at the Chinese, was there two weeks, was played elsewhere for two weeks and then returned for another two weeks after that.

Friday, 13th January 2017
1) Updated Alien: Greenlighting but took the information about how Spielberg helped Alien get made from the page about how various directors were approached and added it to this page instead since it made more sense. If there's something more to add to it, did Spielberg's interest get the script into Lieberson's hands?
2) Realised that the "A surrealist family has the neighbors in to tea" Cartoon from the New Yorker, 2nd January 1937) by Carl Rose might have contributed to the ideas in Picasso's Guernica.

Thursday, 12th January 2017
Realised that Icarus (1975) by Marc Chagall was another descent of Treasures of Satan, after seeing it in a book in a bookshop the previous day, and referenced Leonora Carrington's "And then we saw the daughter of the Minotaur" (1953) with Delville's Treasures of Satan

Wednesday, 11th January, 2017
1) Updated Yaphet Kotto joins Alien

Tuesday, 10th January 2017
1) Had the realisation that Mickey Mouse design took inspiration from the Tutenkhamun Desert Stone pectoral.
2) A thought about how the lit part of the Steiner-Prag's golem face picture resembles an angler fish.
3) Realisation that "Napoleon’s Nose, Transformed into a Pregnant Woman, Strolling His Shadow with Melancholia amongst Original Ruins" (1945) by Salvador Dali seems to reference Edward Burne-Jones' "Perseus: The Doom Fulfilled" also references the Tutenkhamun Desert Stone Pectoral.
4) Realisation that Necronom II references Sexy Prick, Big Pussy (Enmara daibolo) (1836) by
Kuniyoshi.


Monday, 9th January 2017
1) Realised how a couple of Steiner-Prag's Golem illustrations perhaps referenced Edward Burne-Jones' Perseus: The Doom Fulfilled and then realising how the latter's sea monster might easily have been inspired by the Egyptian Sema-Tawy symbol, after finding out that Dali's "Napoleon’s Nose, Transformed into a Pregnant Woman, Strolling His Shadow with Melancholia amongst Original Ruins" was a key to unlocking a few things more. Thought for the last few years that the Sema-Tawy was a good starting point for a monster design somehow, but glad that Eddie Burne-Jones possibly got there first almost a hundred and thirty years ago. We can still be buddies .
2) Realisation that Angel of death over Purgatory(1951 to 1956) Ernst Fuchs appears to references  "Napoleon’s Nose, Transformed into a Pregnant Woman, Strolling His Shadow with Melancholia amongst Original Ruins" (1945) by Salvador Dali 
3) Realisation that James Gleeson's "Nerve Garden" (1946) references Dali's "Napoleon’s Nose, Transformed into a Pregnant Woman, Strolling His Shadow with Melancholia amongst Original Ruins" (1945) 

Sunday, 8th January, 2017
1) Added: Problems with Alien profits blocking production but still there's more to explore. Perhaps I'm interested in how the conversations between people in Hollywood film business can be not quite as things out to be, to the point that it looks more like some sort of an hallucination.
2) Added: Signing James Cameron on but still there's more to explore
3) Added a page for Peter Jackson because he was considered for Alien Resurrection and owned an Alien Queen
4) Realisation that "Napoleon’s Nose, Transformed into a Pregnant Woman, Strolling His Shadow with Melancholia amongst Original Ruins" (1945) by Salvador Dali seems to reference Edward Burne-Jones' "Perseus: The Doom Fulfilled"
5) Realisation that Burne-Jones' "Perseus: The Doom Fulfilled" is referenced in Steiner-Prag's "Vice" from The Golem.

Friday, 6th January 2017
1) Added Alien: Ron Cobb's Narcissus
2) Realisation that a poster image of Mickey Mouse from Fantasia (1940) references the lit part of Steiner-Prag's Golem face.

Thursday, 5th January 2017
1) Realise that, if the Necronom IV were inspired by Drowned World, then it would be sort of a representation of the diving suit scene mixed with the idea of the Triassic Dreams haunting the characters of the novel
2) Realised that Wifredo Lam's Femme-Cheval referenced the lit parts of Steiner-Prag's golem face.

Wednesday, 4th January, 2017
1) Had a sudden idea that Necronom IV might have actually been inspired by something in J G Ballard's "The Drowned Word"
2) Thinking further about a comparison between the angler fish and Giger's Necronom IV.

Tuesday, 3rd January, 2017
Realisation that  that a poster image of Mickey Mouse from Fantasia (1940) is referenced in Giger's Necronom IV

Monday, 2nd January, 2017
1) Added : Alien: Covenant : Billy Crudup.  Nothing much there I admit but I've documented what I can find
2) Added: Alien Covenant: Callie Hernandez. There's a little bit more there than the Billy Crudup article since she had more to say in the interviews.
3) Saw Gethsemane (1944) by Mark Rothko at the Royal Academy of Arts' "Abstract Expressionism" exhibition and realised that it was part of the Treasures of Satan family
4) Decided that "Soft Construction With Boiled Beans (premonition of a civil war)" (1936)
by Salvador Dali was also part of the Treasures of Satan descendants