The following essay is about man and machine, the cyborg and the messiah, it is an
attempt at relating how the world envisages these paradigms and how they react to
them. With a large portion of generated understanding being based upon the realm of
science fiction and art, it is through the works of artist and sculptor H. R. Giger that I
offer forward a dystopian template for understanding the nature of the cyborg.
Firstly, we shall look at the portrayal of the merging of the mechanical with the
biological, the creation of the cyborg, and how these manifest in the human fear of an
unholy alliance. Secondly, we shall show how the adoption of mechanics into the
organic is but one form of the cyborg, and that the adoption of the organic to the
mechanical facilitates the ability to construct a cybernetic space, an organic construct
that houses a consciousness unthought of, or unwillingly applied by humans to our
notion of space. And lastly, we shall look at the notion of the cyborg as replacement
to the human, and how through the combination of biology and machine, man shall
transcend the limitations imposed in nature by the emergence, or the genesis of
cyborg spirituality.
The cyborg, part human, a biological and organic being, that lives, breathes, loves and
hates, and part machine, a cold construction, a tool, logical, unemotional. Lying
within this juxtaposition of nature and construct comes our understanding of what a
cyborg truly is, a bastardisation of humanity to improve or advance our ability to
interface with humanities growing complexities. With mankind pushing the limits of
science and technology, based upon a currency of information, it is understandable
that they desire technology to become an extension of their bodies and thought.
Today, the cyborg exists in one form or another, such as in medicine with artificial
hearts, limbs, and bones. The idea isn’t new, and it is accepted that these advances
create opportunities where none existed before, but I ask you, how far are people
willing to go? How do they see the future with cyborgs? How does this future impact
upon the collective psyche?
H. R. Giger is an artist and sculptor born in Switzerland, trained in architecture and
industrial design, and is considered the worlds premium airbrush artist, and his
speciality is the depiction of the cyborg. It can be said of his work that it is incredibly
dark and sinister in its nature, and the depiction of the cyborg surrounded by images
of death and decay is the reason why he offers anything but a romanticised view of
the cyborg. His work utilises dark tones, mainly dark blues and greens with greys and
blacks, which adds to the foreboding atmosphere. Another technique that is
unorthodox, is his use of thickly layered inks, so much so, that a razor was required to
etch in the details. It is through this vision that Giger offers a dystopian view of the
nature of the cyborg, and the perceived impact on the popular psyche.
It is the darkness expressed in his works that foreshadows his understanding of the
human fear of the cyborg. This fear is manifest on many levels, but we shall start
with the fear of the cyborg because of the perceived loss of the human side during the
fusion of man and machine. This loss of human essence is expressed by Giger in a
number of ways, such in his work Totem, which shows three identical pillars
composed of faces, which show a transition from the most human like face (the top)
down to a more mechanical face (the centre) and finally down to a very mechanical
looking skull (the bottom). This shows a downward progression of human
transformation into machine. The tubes and hoses that flow outward and end in
images of death surround these facial totems also. This is connotative of the machine
sucking the life, or essence from the totem representations of humanity. In the
background, mechanised faces watch onward at the spectacle, almost transfixed in
fascination and fear. In another work, Acrowley, Giger presents an image of the
distortion of mankind through the portrayal of people that have become abominations
through their adoption of the mechanical. Most notable within this collage of
mutation is the indecent violation of a naked female by a vile skull faced mechanical
entity, and a one breasted female. These serve to highlight the intrusive nature of the
mechanical and how by discarding notions of humanity (or the human aesthetic) will
ultimately corrupt or very nature or essence. These images are positioned before an
constructed chasm, which fades to black, a sure signifier for the abyss that man
straddles by being tempted by the cyborg.
Giger furthers the fear of the cyborg as he attempts to highlight the pervasive manner
of the machine and technology, and how it will continue to invade the biological to
the point where mankind’s innocence is lost to the nature of the machine. Giger
represents the notion of human innocence through the use of babies. In Acrowley,
they are evident on the walls of the abyss, with one looking like it is falling in. Their
innocence is violated because of their sick, sunken eyed, pale look, and as such are
constructed as victims to an illness, that of mechanisation. This theme is continued in
a number of other works, but most notable among them is Biomechanoid XII, in
which three babies are depicted. Like Acrowley, they are depicted as sick or diseased,
with scabs and pustules around the mouth and eyes, and an overall pallid look. This
notion of disease inflicting these babies is due to their cybernetic prostheses that have
replaced their natural limbs. These prostheses take the form of machine gun pistols,
which is totally conflicting with the idea of a baby’s innocence, and biomechanical
legs/posts. This notion of babies losing their innocence to the mechanical weaponry
is furthered by the presence of a grenade strapped to their leather bodices and the
headbands carrying Indian warrior like feathers. This motif is an elaboration upon the
work of Biomechanoid IV, which depicts a solo baby/warrior with a cigarette in its
mouth hooked up to mechanical instruments. As a sculptor, Giger has replicated this
notion of the mechanical obscuring our more human nature through the piece called
Head V, which shows a human head completely covered in leather straps which have
metal spike like protrusions, which revives images of Pinhead from the Hellraiser
movie series.
The notion of the mechanical operating upon us like a disease is a theme that is
mirrored in the movie Dune, in which Giger played a part in the creative design. One
such scene is where the Baron Harkonan serves as a complete representation of
decadence, where he is consumed by his own greatness that has been accomplished in
part by his adoption of mechanics. The Baron also is presented with a hideous
amount of facial sores and pustules, much like Gigers babies, thus showing him as a
sufferer of the sick downward decent away from humanity. This loss of humanity is
demonstrated in the scene in which he confronts a meek servant and toys with his
fear, and ultimately kills the servant by unplugging his heart and revelling in the flow
of the blood that springs forward. This joy in tormenting a more natural human shows
how far the Baron has become removed from his own human nature and empathy, and
the way in which he rejoices in the blood of the servant shows his contempt for what
he was.
Giger acknowledges the lure that technology presents to humans, and the desire for
humans to gain access to an increasingly information based society through the
adoption of technology as an extension of ourselves. In Illuminatus I, Giger depicts a
much lighter style of picture, which is centred on a face that is obscured by dark
glasses that are formed by a safety pin which pierces the face. This can be seen as an
entry into cybernetics, the obtaining of the technology without voicing opposition to it
(the safety pin pierces the face above the mouth and out through the lower jaw, thus
fixing the mouth shut). The face is positioned below an eye, which is symbolic of
truth, knowledge and wisdom, that is, the information that we seek through becoming
a cyborg. Also above the face is an apple, which alludes to the Garden of Eden and
the promise of knowledge and the poison contained within. This is framed by the
images of men being illuminated by the knowledge (glowing eyes) and the destruction
of sight (man with tendril protruding from his eye socket). In the foreground are a
number of mysterious denizens of Gigers imagination. They can be seen as those
who have embraced the technology flowing forward blind to what lies ahead because
of the marvels they have heard of (ears for eyes), it is this misinformed flight that will
ultimately cause the disruption or damage to mankind (the razors that form their
bodies have distinctly suicidal connotations). The warnings in Illuminatus I are
manifested in Illuminatus II, which is again based around the symmetry of the face
from Illuminatus I. However the mood is decidedly darker in nature, as the face is
surrounded by dark images of swirling biomechanical monsters and razors (without
the bodies from illuminatus I, they, one can assume, have been destroyed).
Another fear that humans hold toward the cyborg is generated from our sense of
identity, of which is based around our individuality. With an adoption of technology
into our biological selves to become a cyborg, we have shown through Gigers work
that mankind sees and prophesises the displacement of our very essence. The
problem that induces fear is the notion that this is replaced by a mechanical norm,
which in essence provides an element of standardisation, or replication of an element
of us. This machine-like standardisation is seen as an abhorrent replacement of
human nature. Giger alludes to the replication of technology providing a standardised
human through the heavy use of repetition within his works, usually in lots of three.
Works such as Anima Mia, Cataract, Li II, Lilith, Necronom IV, an New York City VI,
utilise this repetition of three identical biomechanical or cybernetic subjects, thus
reinforcing an element that defies human individuality. Repetition and
standardisation are the hallmarks of mechanisation, but another element that causes
concern among mankind is the notion of unfeeling logic, and how this threatens our
decidedly illogical human existence. As described in the above Dune example,
humans fear that the fusion of man and machine will lead firstly to the feeling of
superiority, which when combined with the removal of human essence will result in
an unfeeling and dispassionate view of the purely organic. This cool approach to the
human element of the cyborg lies within the replacement of emotion with machine
logic, and the fear that it will ultimately mechanise everything. This fear is
manifested in Gigers Samurai, which depicts three identical biomechanical subjects
whose lower halves have been replaced with a knife blade. This shows that the
mechanical transposes the biological, and reverts to mechanical weaponry to
implement mechanical logic and standardisation.
These fears became a reality in the movie Alien, which depicts a decidedly
biomechanical alien that runs amok aboard a space freighter. Giger was the creative
genius behind Ridley Scotts 1979 movie, and succeeded in creating a creature that
inspired fear. These fears were induced by the mechanical nature of the alien, such as
the extending snap jaw, the battery acid blood, the armour plating, prostheses
extending from their backs, and the exposed portions of its body that looked
somewhere in between organic and mechanical. These attributes are then combined
with another form of unfeeling and unemotional logic, that of instinct, specifically
that of hunting for food and survival. Perhaps it was this mechanised representation
of the alien that inspired fear among movie goers, but one aspect sticks in my mind
above that. The Facehugger. It is this creature that creates most fear among viewers
of the movie due, in my opinion, to the fact that this creature creates a forced interface
between the alien species and humans. The facehugger removes the choice of
mankind in participating in this interaction, as the victim is in a coma whilst the
facehugger plants the seed of the last cycle of the alien life form. When the
facehugger finally falls off, it is through the destruction of the host (humans) that the
biomechanical alien is born.
The adoption of the mechanical to the biological is often seen as the template for the
cyborg, but often neglected is the concept of the biological merging with the
mechanical to create a cybernetic, or biomechanical space. Instead of machines
enhancing humans, the application of organics to mechanical or constructed space
also creates a new hybrid. This hybrid space redefines how we interpret the notion of
space around us. At present, we are familiar with constructed space, buildings,
tunnels, rooms and corridors, all of which are constructed by humans to serve our
needs. The extent to which this constructed space can interact is based upon the
technology that we infuse within it, and our ability to interface with that. This adds
validity to the notion of the cyborg, but what of the concept of adding biology to this
space, so as to create a living breathing space, that interacts with us and not vice
versa. This notion seems very alien to our current state of technology, and to the way
we see and interact within our world, but it is this very outlandishness that has been
used to good effect in art and movies.
How humans perceive this cybernetic space is best summed up in the sequence within
the movie Aliens, which draws heavily upon Gigers work, where the macho marines
are first making their way into the reactor. The transition as they progress from a
constructed space to a biomechanical space becomes increasingly evident, and by
doing so completely redefines how they perceive their surroundings. Coming from
the outside, they are enter a defined and familiar environment of linear tunnels and
sanitised architecture. Slowly though, they become aware of biological alterations to
that space, such as the acid holes that span many levels, which forces them to evaluate
their expected norms of their environment. As they progress further, their
environment changes considerably as the biological aspect of the alien nest starts to
transpose the mechanical structure, until finally the tunnels are completely lined with
biological residue. Though this space is alien to us, it creates a living space as
mechanical and biological merge to create living nest for the hosts (former colonists
holding the alien spawn). This cybernetic space is further brought to life in the
sequence where by Sigourney Weaver’s character Ripley, realises the marines’
proximity to the reactor as the marines sweat it out. This association between the
reactor and the growing intensity of cybernetic space harkens to the living and
breathing space using the reactor as the heart, or life source by providing the heat
required for the alien nest to survive.
It is through this creation of the living space that one is induced to feel a sense of
claustrophobia. This is due to the sense that one does not belong within a biological
host, a sense that we, as humans, belong at the top of a food chain, and that by being
within a larger organic entity; we are placing ourselves at threat. It is no coincidence
that the biomechanical scene described above is not revisited again until the aliens are
first fought off in the more normal environment first, and then Ripley is able to return
to fight the queen. Thus it can be seen that a biomechanical space disturbs the
fundamental nature of humans to assume supremacy over their space and position in a
biological world.
Giger readily adapts to this notion of a biomechanical landscape in order to create a
disturbing vision of living space. It is through these landscapes that Giger creates a
sense of foreboding and claustrophobia to serve as a further warning to the fusion of
biology and machine. Some of these depictions, such as Biomechanical Landscape 2,
4 and 10, create a sense of sparsity, where the biomechanical space exists in isolation,
and when combined with Biomechanical Landscape Scythe, shows an ability of this
space to react to any other life forms, and maybe hinting at the fact that it is capable
of an existence without mankind, that is, an biomechanic entity that supersedes
humanity. Where as other depictions of biomechanical space create the impression
that mankind is a tool to serve the greater biomechanical entity, such as the portrayal
of a giant spaceship built in mans own image in Hyperspeed II. The most telling
work of Giger in the area of biomechanical space is his New York City series, which
show uniform patterns of building, but there are distortions within these patterns that
form skulls and other biomechanical faces. This may serve as a dystopian warning of
the progress that man is making toward mechanising the world, where by in the wake
of progress there lies inevitable evils, as the mechanical creates a consciousness of its
own. It is precisely this fear of a consciousness that supersedes our own, be it through
our own progress, or through the biological adaptation of existing constructed space,
that drives our fear of being replaced, made defunct, being eaten, or otherwise made
irrelevant. In The Matrix, the scene where Neo awakens in the human battery farms
in the machine city delivers a prime example of this domination of a biomechanical
space over man. This shows how man can be made subservient to a space altered
biologically to meet needs alien to human logic, machine logic thus delivers an
answer that humans cannot comprehend.
It is precisely this fear of a cyborg consciousness, that drives human fear, and through
this consciousness we fear their ability to transcend our mere biological dominance.
This notion of mechanical perfection, standardisation and repetition is reflected in
Gigers works whereby the subject matter has more of less discarded the majority of
their bodies in favour of a mechanical being. This conscious discarding of the human
body and its essence in favour of mechanical perfection increases the human paranoia,
and is portrayed by Giger in works such as Li II and Jugith, which depict disembodied
heads which are connected to biomechanical paraphernalia. Giger continues this
work of embracing the cyborg, and its dual consciousness between its biological and
mechanical components, by offering forward a multitude of images that taunt the
human fear of cyborg transcendence. Giger creates a sense of cyborg spirituality
through the emulation of Christian imagery transposed unto the notion of cyborg
birth, death and myth.
The idea of cyborg birth is payed regular homage by Giger, as he frequently uses the
concept of cyborg reproduction. In his work Cataract, Giger shows three identical
waterfalls, which are quite symbolic of life and tranquillity, which flow into a pool of
writhing mechanical tubes that flow outward. This either shows the mechanical pool
as product of the waterfalls, or the mechanical tubes as harnesser of the energy and
life force of the waterfalls, either way, they utilise energy and life in their own right
independent of humanity. Further images of cyborg birth are constructed through the
alien eggs in Egg Silo II & III, which depict the alien eggs that are laid within the
biomechanical space that the adult version has created. Here, this biomechanical
space is likened to a living womb, which nurtures and protects the eggs from the
outside world. These eggs, as previously discussed will hatch, and provide a forced
interface with host bodies to ultimately give birth to the biomechanical alien.
Giger utilises the female form frequently, and compromises the traditional notion of
sexuality by harnessing a mechanising erotism. In this respect, Giger is offering an
interpretation of the female form as mother to the cyborg, by drawing associations
between female sexuality and the mechanical intrusion of this sexual role. In
Biomechanoid 005, 008, 009, 010 and 011, they show an obscene portrayal of females
engaged in sexual intercourse with the mechanics that are incorporated into their
bodies, which is in keeping with the notion of lost innocence and essence. This birth
motif is carried further by the adoption of phallic imagery to heavily mechanised
subjects. Works like Alien Monster V show an alien type creature that forms a circle,
which is connotative of the life cycle. What makes this work interesting is the
inclusion of two salient features. The first is the mouth, and the other is a large
phallus, with the mouth representing the primal instinct to feed and the association
with cold machine logic, and the phallus showing the cyborg as propagating their
own kind, also an allusion to instinct and machine logic. This connection between
instinct and machine logic highlights further the human fear that inevitability cyborgs
will transcend the need for humans. This notion of female mechanical erotism and
cyborg self propagation is more evident in the works Biomechanoid 1, 2, and 75,
which portray female subjects that are interacting orally with the phallic nature of
machines. This sexualization of the interface between biological and machine
demonstrates that the cyborg operates in a role that actually nurtures the female
subject, and thus transposes themselves into the traditional role of nurturers. The
overall nature of these pieces show that the cyborg has transcended the role of
humans, by shedding illogical human emotion, innocence and essence, they have
adopted consciousness that accepts its human origins, but discards all that is not
logical or instinctual.
With a sense of consciousness comes a sense of placement within a wider system of
spirituality. Giger replicates a Christian style of imagery to portray the cyborg within
a spiritual context, by alluding to a dark, or evil genesis. This birth of the cyborg
shows how a consciousness strives for a sense of belonging and identity, however
Giger deliberately utilises Christian concepts to deliver a warning of this level of
spirituality. In Satan I, Giger portrays the devil as a biomechanical being, which is
holding Christ (in the well known crucifixion pose) as a slingshot, aiming the
deathblow to the viewer. This is a direct allusion to the evil of the fusion of man and
machine, and how spirituality will not be a saviour for man, but machine
consciousness will result in man (the viewer) being overcome. This theme of
decaying human spirituality is continues in Cocon, which shows a mechanical
landscape with web like tendrils that contain decomposing biological matter, and
within one of these webs, lies a distinctly Jesus looking face. Clearly, Giger warns
that human spirituality is being supplanted by the mechanisation of mankind. With
the decline in human spirituality comes a rise in the portrayal of cyborg spirituality, as
Giger creates a sense of mythology through quasi-Christian imagery. In The Spell II,
a female form is depicted, bathed in an unearthly glow, reminiscent of an angelic halo
of light. She appears to be holding some phallic object and releasing glowing life
form, thus furthering the notion of creating life. The female’s head is merged with a
biomechanical space, which features a goat’s head adorned with another phallus. This
association with biomechanics and the goat’s head alludes to the dark satanic nature
of this genesis. This cyborg birth is in stark contrast to the backgrounded condoms,
which are tipped with the already discussed diseased baby faces. This may be
connotative of the fact that the efforts of man are ultimately constrained by our own
devices, leading to the notion that cyborgs must deliver their own genesis. The use of
angelic imagery to further cyborg spirituality is shown in The Trumpets of Jericho,
which depicts three angelic faces whose heads dissolve into a series of trumpets
blowing, giving a sense that the cyborg does indeed have a consciousness that needs
to be vented and delivered to the world through these angelic messengers. Lastly, the
piece Lilith portrays three biomechanical females that are shrouded in biomechanical
looking wings, giving the impression of dark angels.
Spirituality is not complete until the cycle of life is completed. Spirituality deals with
death as frequently as it does life, and provides a sense that life is not meaningless,
and that in death there is enlightenment. Gigers works are full of the imagery of
death, as this delivers a well-recognised symbology of warning, and the consequences
of engaging in the fusion of man and machine into the cyborg. The Magus, is one of
the few works that can be said to allude to an afterlife. Perhaps Giger doesn’t wish to
address the issue directly, or maybe he cannot foresee a spiritual conclusion to a
mechanical off switch, or the unknown darkeness that follows human death. In The
Magus, Giger portrays a figure that can be largely associated with death, a cloaked
figure with a face shrouded in shadow. This ‘death’ character is in the presence of
biomechanical beings that feature goat horns, which continue the idea of the spiritual
darkness, associated with birth, and continues with it until death. These figures are
gathered around a bowl filled with what can be described as a biological worm soup,
reminiscent of the primordial soup from whence mankind sprung. Giger twists this
vision further, by showing the ‘death’ character being attached to strings that are
controlled by the biomechanical creature. This serves to show that ‘death’ as humans
see it is a mere puppet to mechanics, and that by adopting mechanics, man somehow
escapes death, or at least controls it.
Humans can understand this sense of cyborg spirituality based upon life and death, as
it closely mimics our own religions, and Giger delivers this sense of history through a
form of iconic art. In The Seal, Giger portrays a simple collection of images within a
circle that summarize the notion of birth (the goats phallus between the women’s
legs), life (the star and the biomechanical background) and death (the goats head), and
their association with the realm of the biomechanical. This lifecycle-based spirituality
is most salient in Alien Hieroglyphics, which outlines the stages of the life of the alien
in the Alien movies, showing the egg, the face hugger, the chest burster and lastly the
adult alien. By providing a sense of mythos to this cyborg spirituality, Giger delivers
a sense of validation to the notion of cyborgs transcending mankind by giving history
to the concept, and thus of permanence. Mankind fears this idea that there could be a
greater concept, one that relegates them from the top, and could do so in a permanent
way, and by doing so challenges every aspect of humanity, from the body, mind and
spirit.
In conclusion, H. R. Giger provides a dystopian vision of the cyborg and they ways in
which they are perceived. Giger plays upon the fears of mankind towards technology
and the mechanisation of society. The cyborg provides a manifestation of these fears
by providing a representation that forgoes everything that humans believe makes them
human. Fears based upon the replacement of our physical biological bodies with
machines, the standardisation of those new parts, and the loss of identity threaten the
very notion of humanity. The relinquished humanity of the cyborg stirs a primal fear
that humans will become defunct, and will eventually be put on the wayside because
of the systematic and cold logic of machines defies many illogical concepts that form
our true humanity. Giger continues this elevation of fear by furthering the concept of
the cyborg to create a cybernetic space, which is discomforting to mankind’s current
premise of mastery over the environment. Giger offers a concept that the
environment itself can interact with mankind, and in the case of the alien movies, be
completely hostile. As mankind struggles with the loss of humanity in the cyborg,
Giger furthers the idea that the cyborg will develop a consciousness based upon its
cold unhuman logic, and will transcend human dependency or domination. This
consciousness, Giger proposes, will transform into a spirituality that, based upon the
distortion of Christian imagery, can only be deemed as a bastardisation of human
spirituality. Hence, Giger’s portrayal of the cyborg can only be seen as dystopian
because of the way his works play upon natural fears, and challenges notions of what
makes humans human, and then by distorting our spirituality he proposes the cyborg
as a threatening and parasitic blight toward humanity.