Metallic and Flesh: Nudes Captured Within the Eclectic Residence of HR Giger

The place others see physique horror, Camille Vivier finds heat within the work of HR Giger. In her newest e book, HR Giger by Camille Vivier, Vivier shot the Swiss artist’s house in nearly obsessive element, after turning into unknowingly uncovered to his work as a toddler through Debbie Harry’s KooKoo album cowl. Vivier understands the late artist intimately; in her e book, fashions pose bare within the snow of his Zurich torture backyard, the biomechanical playground behind his seemingly suburban home. 

What began as a style story thought up together with her editor, Beda Achermann, modified when she found that the place had room after room of undocumented treasures crammed with objects and sculptures – all of which had been then punctuated together with her signature, contemplative nudes. “The topic appeared countless,” says Vivier. “I used to be excited as a result of years earlier I had tried contacting the Giger Museum and bar in Gruyère, with out end result. However the home had by no means been shot earlier than. It was this infinite supply of visible wonders.” 

Conversant in the themes working via his designs for the Alien films earlier than beginning the e book, she explains the current Giger revival as an echo of how we now understand ourselves bodily. There are limitless potentialities for reshaping our our bodies, optimising our efficiency, augmenting our realities, even dwelling part-time in our machine-generated metaverses, drawing parallels in the present day with filmmakers like Julia Ducournau or David Cronenberg as a lot as Ridley Scott. 

“I’m not an skilled on transhumanism or cyberculture however I can see why his artwork resonates. You additionally get this sense of a world in peril coming via,” says Vivier. “It’s arduous not to consider chaos once you take a look at Giger’s work, one thing we’re all experiencing and attempting to course of utilizing our personal totally different coping methods. Science fiction appears extra actual than ever.”

Right here, just a few days after her Paris e book launch at Le BAL, Vivier talks about steel turning into as natural as flesh, stumbling on a stash of goth pop ephemera from her previous, and why the Swiss discover eccentrics like Giger removed from odd. 

Ben Perdue: Are you able to recognise any similarities or contrasts between Giger’s work and your personal that make them work so effectively collectively?

Camille Vivier: Giger was a person from a unique time. However his curiosity in ladies’s our bodies, anthropomorphic shapes, fantasies and the unconscious are all linked. His work is darker, extra ‘steel’ and extra dystopian however there may be additionally loads of humour which is one thing I admire and attempt to inject into my work. Not camp precisely but it surely may very well be reconsidered from this angle.

BP: Did it really feel unusual to deal with his home and backyard extra like topics than simply one other shoot location? 

CV: It felt extra thrilling and extra immersive however not that totally different. Even when I had to concentrate to particulars, it by no means felt restrictive – fairly the alternative. Every room and nook of the home already seems like a stage. The interactions between the furnishings, the sculptures and the fashions had been joyful. The home is a personality in itself. Possibly that’s the mythology behind Giger’s work but it surely was like a film set or playground – particularly the backyard with its miniature practice. I might simply shoot with out feeling restricted or bored.

BP: Was the ambiance in the home darkish or unsettling?

CV: I wasn’t anticipating to really feel snug however there’s something very comfortable in regards to the setting, it’s intimate and touching. It by no means felt like a museum, like artists’ homes usually do. You don’t see the objects as relics. You may really feel a heat presence as a result of it’s nonetheless an inhabited place. Carmen, Giger’s spouse, lives right here and Tom, his outdated assistant, has an area for work. The rooms are filled with objects and work by Giger, furnished with prototypes for Dune and different movie initiatives, however nothing appears too ostentatious. The studio has an nearly ’in utero’ really feel.

BP: May you are feeling extra of the artist’s much less public persona coming via, being surrounded by his belongings?

CV: You get an actual sense of underground Zurich within the Nineteen Seventies and Nineteen Eighties, there are Polaroids mendacity round of his buddies, just like the muse Woman Shiva or Swiss artist Manon. Additionally, books, vinyl and VHS tapes, however it will probably all really feel a bit random – a phenomenal desk designed by Giger with a Wi-Fi field on prime, or an Eames chair with a child alien sitting in it subsequent to an train bike. Carmen taught me loads about him together with her humorous anecdotes, and I used to be usually left alone which helped me get a greater understanding of his universe.

BP: What was the strangest or most shocking object you found? 

CV: In the identical room: teddy bears, dreamcatchers and a drawer filled with archived work for Mylène Farmer, a French goth pop icon from my childhood!

BP: As a photographer, what do you make of these Polaroids he shot of his muses from the 70s and 80s?

CV: I’ve at all times favored their energy; they really feel aggressive. They remind me of Carlo Mollino’s Polaroids however with a extra apparent sexual cost. There is no such thing as a full-frontal nudity, many of the ladies are sporting airbrushed bodysuits, however their perspective is horny – they appear harmful or in peril, it’s arduous to say. They appear like Giger’s creatures. You may really feel his proximity with the fashions, so that they’re in all probability buddies, it feels actual. The area appears extra impartial and minimal than his home – Giger usually used his personal airbrush work as backgrounds that mixed seamlessly with the physique portray. I like them as an affidavit, but additionally for his or her highly effective selfmade aesthetic.

BP: Do you assume your personal fashions’ unaltered our bodies assist emphasise the strangeness of his bio-mechanical creations?

CV: Sure, the naked physique at all times lends some strangeness, stress or absurdity to any scenario however right here it contrasts much more with Giger’s creatures – the sophistication of his work subsequent to the cruel simplicity of the ladies’s our bodies. Their female presence calms his extra phallic components, whereas on the identical time melting completely into one another. Metallic is as natural as flesh in Giger’s work.

BP: What did you like in regards to the area, and what did you discover most difficult or troublesome about it?

CV: I cherished that it’s a home area too but it surely may very well be difficult discovering the correct angle, or getting sufficient distance, bodily and figuratively talking. Making a physique of photographs about an artist’s work and setting could be sophisticated but it surely’s an train that I like, as utilizing cultural or pop references is one thing I frequently combine in my very own work.

BP: And did the fashions discover the expertise as pleasurable, do you assume?

CV: It was loads of enjoyable for everybody, and I feel it was simply as inspiring for them to be within the setting. I’m by no means too prescriptive and just like the fashions to behave how they need to – some had been actually performing, some had been quieter, simply observing the place. Yesh was courageous, she’s a mannequin and singer from New York who did a part of the shoot within the snow.

BP: Lastly, had been the neighbours in a position to offer you any perception into what it was like dwelling subsequent door to an artist as famously eccentric as HR Giger?

CV: I by no means bought to fulfill them, however from the surface you’ll be able to’t see the backyard and the home seems to be very regular, simply one other easy suburban home. I do know that they had been conscious of who he was, however I don’t assume it was an issue. Quite the opposite, Giger is a nationwide treasure! And anyway, Switzerland is stuffed with oddities.

HR Giger by Camille Vivier is revealed by Scheidegger & Spiess on 12 December 2022.