Evidence of "Bio-Mechanoid" within Alien

"@centrosphere...why would you want to eradicate the one term that universally defines the artistic vision of H.R. Giger and Ridley Scott as it refers to the derelict, the Sj and the xeno in 'Alien'? It's the essence of the thing...the fundamental definition of what 'Alien' is." As I said before _ in the thread about interestellar scenes _ my personal sense of esthetics asks for some degree of realism. That´s why I´m pursuing a more rigorous definition of "bio-mechanical". To me, "bio-mechanical" is a term that or defines some kind of "cyborg", a mix of biology (self-organing matter) and hardware (some sort of assembly), or is a tautological term. As the xenomorph clearly isn´t a cyborg, to me it´s only an organism, albeit a very singular one. Besides, I would dispute what is the "essence of the thing" here. You must remember that a movie is a complex, collective product. The original O´Bannon idea for the movie, that I would consider as the "core" of Alien properly, is silent about the nature of the xenomorph. Actually, he was inspired by the behaviour of some species of wasps that put their eggs inside living beens. Also, Giger is not a science person, he is an artist. His influences are from Salvador Dali and Ernst Fuchs _ look at this: [img]http://lila.info/wp-content/fuchs.jpg[/img] Artistic freedom can, and must, go wherever it wants to. But if we are talking sci-fi here, and not fantasy, then we should ask what kind of being the xeno is. I think the internal coherence of the "Alien" universe, where Scott brought to sci-fi the realities of an industrial society ("truck drivers in space", etc.), deserves that we develops a science-based understanding of the xeno. Of course, some persons will like this approach, some will not. As ArchEtech just said, every approach can be accused of "reading too much" into the movie. I can see that my initial proposal _ erradicate the term "biomechanical" _ is heretic to many "Alien" fans that love Giger work. BTW, I love Giger art also, and my take here is not geared to denigrate his work; I´m just asking for scientific coherence in a science-based setting for the "Alien" saga. Peace!

Good question. I´m unconfortable with this use of the term also. All life is, in a sense, mechanical (in the sense that macroscopically we are mechanisms, and microscopically, our chemical bonds and reactions are also "mechanical" in some level). Bio-mechanical suggests something like a "cyborg", a cyber organism, something that the Alien quite clearly is not _ it is not a hybrid. Having an exoskeleton, on the other hand, make it so "biomechanical" as the next cockroach. I propose the erradication of the term. :)

Bio-mechanoid/Bio-mechanical=biological aspects mixed with mechanical aspects. Bio-biological=muscles, goo, organic look, exo-skeleton (all over the xeno alien). Mechanoid=mechanical, ribbed tubes, smaller tubes, chrome teeth, inner mouth is very mechanical and "claw-machine-like". I've built 2 alien costumes. One "soldier" and one "queen". Both to scale. The soldier was about 7 feet and the queen was about 12 feet. Most of my budget was spent on ribbed and smooth tubing.

Hello everyone! Happy to be making my very first post on this great, thought-provoking fan-site... There are two theories to consider for the 'Bio-Mech' look for the Alien: 1) The alien embryo "borrows" physical traits from whatever life-form it happens to be growing in. 2) The original SJ is observed by Dallas as looking as if it's growing directly out of the chair. Therefore, the SJ chair-technology that was "growing" into the pilot would have also been siphoned off by the alien embryo inside the infected SJ itself. One need look no further than the 'pipes' growing out of the adult Alien's back. They are VERY similar to the tubes/pipes that we see decorating the outside of the SJ chair itself. When viewed in total, the fossilized SJ chair is a virtual template for the miscellaneous details we see on the adult Alien itself.

Nice catch about the back tubes. Yes. the art direction for the original "Alien" set and creatures being Giger-inspired/created, may have just "accidentally" given the xeno species the continuity of looking like everything else. In other words, what was simply Giger's style (apparent in his sketches too), now allows us (and Ridley for that matter), to expand and make sense of the bio-machanical influences that would've given the fictional species its classic look.

there are in nature some insects ...that look much more biomechanoid than Alien 's xenomorph . So to me it dont look biomechanic ...much less than the SJ for sure .

I think the magic will be in the bioform liquid...................

I can let ya have 40 ounces of it for $1400.

DB would you post a couple of pics of your costumes I for one would like to see them

Thanks Hukerlover. They're posted in another thread at: http://www.prometheus-movie.com/community/forums/topic/1403 I'll be adding more pics this weekend as I finish the head and hands.

I think I have some growing in my basement....been there for quiet sometime.

Db said: "Bio-mechanoid/Bio-mechanical=biological aspects mixed with mechanical aspects." My take is that actually all life booming around us is just that. Or, more specifically, "bio" is just a special case of "mechanical". In fact, all life is just a kind of nanoimplementation of physical principles. Repulsion, atraction, etc; the building blocks of life are mechanichally arranged. Besides that, I think we have a problem here concerning the lack of familiarity of most people with how strange life can be here on Earth. Look at these pictures; they were done with an electron microscope. These are ordinary beings that lives in dust, for the most part _ and by the standards people are proposing here, they should be considered "biomechanoids" _ but they are as biomechanoid as the ordinary xenomorph you can find in stormy planetesimals around the galaxy: [img]http://slices-of-life.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/electron-microscopestrange-creature09.jpg[/img] [img]http://slices-of-life.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/electron-microscopestrange-creature05.jpg[/img] [img]http://slices-of-life.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/electron-microscopestrange-creature22.jpg[/img]

I should add, "life is a nanoimplementation of physics principles to elements that process information". The only distinctive thing about the xenomorph is that they are, possibly, made of other sort of materials than earth-based life ordinarily is. In "Alien", the chestbuster clearly hasn´t grow to full xenomorph size eating people or people´s food (or cat´s food). They probably thrive eating...well, everything, but probably, metal, plastics, etc. So their "flesh" probably isn´t carbon-based, or at least don´t use carbon as it´s main structurant substance. But they are alive, and as far as we can see, develops biological processes. This, of course, brings the interesting question of why in the hell they need us for reproduction after all. But asking this is going too far in the direction of disassembling our cherisched "suspension of disbelief".

I remember it mentioned (either in the original film or the sequels) that the xeno's were "silicon-based". Like we're "carbon-based". Therefore, they are able to adapt to things we can't. Like going from breathing LV-426's atmosphere to breathing oxygen on the Nostromo to surviving in space (not imploding like we would), to (in later films) adapting to underwater, etc... Does anyone else remember that?

I agree with centrosphere. The more we discover about our own "life" on a microscopic level, the more aware we become of our own bio-electrical-mechanical ties.

@Spartacus; will it get through customs???

yea, I can just fit it all into the Blue Resin Rock bag Ruhiyana sent me with my Alien Rovoltech Series 001 Sculpture!!!

I once remember a doctor saying ‘A pair of tits are only a pair of tits if they are on my wife.’ While we are on the subject of silicon based life-forms, what am I looking for? In answer to the original point, am I looking at a xeno from an artistic point of view or a scientific perspective. If its artistic then I have two viewpoints. From a Japanese sc-fi point of view, I would agree entirely with the flacnvinyl. From the viewpoint of Gigers artistic interpretations then the xeno is a biomechanoid entirely. From a scientific view I would refer to osseointegration (manufactured metal structures fusing with living tissue, e.g. bone) and spend my time looking for an android. As far as I’m concerned it is all down to interpretation and the artistic possibilities of the mind. So who is right?

[1] biomechanics could be tautological as mentioned elsewhere, Look at the [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPC1MZ-xAu4]drew berry animations[/url] visualizing cell machinery. I found these mind blowing. [2] but following the singularity ideas - improving AI augmenting our own intelligence, allowing us to reverse engineer biology and start manipulating it to a far greater extent ... then it might be appropriate to use the term Biomechanical to suggest biological machinery that has been deliberately engineered by intelligent design. [3] I think its' just fine to use biomechanical to refer to the geiger art style.

The term"bio-mechanical" or bio-mechanoid" as it refers to the universe of 'Alien' comes directly from Giger himself and from Ridley Scott. Giger, in 'The Alien Saga' documentary (I mentioned in Spartacus' "I noticed that" thread) refers to his own style of art as "Bio-mechanical Art"....as Ridley has put it, "Where does technology end and biology begin?"...i.e....where do they meet?....it's all in the abiguity of what you're looking at. @Batchpool has it right to an extent..."am I looking at a xeno from an artistic point of view or a scientific perspective?" Giger's art is not necessarily relatable to what you would classicly call cyborg technology...it's less about cyborg grafting in that classic sense and more about a state where both aspects become a new, third fused function; something wholely new and different...in this understanding, you have the biological, the mechanical, and the bio-mechanical...something of a mechanical design and function that operates at a biological level...that's what I think we're meant to see in the disturbing ambiguity of Giger's work and every aspect of the alien race to whom the derelict and xeno belong. Ridley, in the DVD commentary for the 20th anniversary release, refers to the xeno as being, "a form of bio-mechanoid warfare." That's in part where that term comes from as it relates to 'Alien'. The term is meant as a description of the ambiguity that is the alien world we experience in the film. Scott apparently sees the xeno as an example where a biologically mechanical creation is designed as, in his words, "a biological stroke, a form of bio-mechanical warfare." The traditional cyborg idea isn't in play here...in other words, the grafting of mechanical technology with biological, living tissue...it's something entirely new...

@Db....the xeno is not actually a silicone based lifeform....the following exchange between Ash and Ripley bears that out: Ripley: And, uh, our guest? Ash: Umm. Ripley: Hmm? Ash: Well, as I said, I'm still... collating, actually, but uh, I have confirmed that he's got an outer layer of protein polysaccharides. Has a funny habit of shedding his cells and replacing them with polarized silicon, which gives him a prolonged resistance to adverse environmental conditions. Is that enough? Ripley: That's plenty. What does it mean? Ash: Please don't do that. Thank you. Ripley: I'm sorry. Ash: Well, it's an interesting combination of elements making him... a tough little son-of-a-bitch. That tough little son-of-a-bitch replaces its own cells with silicone to adapt to its surroundings. It isn't born of silicone the way we are of oxygen.

@centrosphere...why would you want to eradicate the one term that universally defines the artistic vision of H.R. Giger and Ridley Scott as it refers to the derelict, the Sj and the xeno in 'Alien'? It's the essence of the thing...the fundamental definition of what 'Alien' is.

I think it's simply an artistic term. I think we have read into too much, and probably considerably more than Scott. I like the idea of a third life form: 1) Biological/Organic 2)silicone/robot/metallic 3)Pure Cyborg Hybrid So you baiscally get a half DNA organic, half computer chip machine based thing able to reproduce itself by some untold hybrid method.

"@centrosphere...why would you want to eradicate the one term that universally defines the artistic vision of H.R. Giger and Ridley Scott as it refers to the derelict, the Sj and the xeno in 'Alien'? It's the essence of the thing...the fundamental definition of what 'Alien' is." As I said before _ in the thread about interestellar scenes _ my personal sense of esthetics asks for some degree of realism. That´s why I´m pursuing a more rigorous definition of "bio-mechanical". To me, "bio-mechanical" is a term that or defines some kind of "cyborg", a mix of biology (self-organing matter) and hardware (some sort of assembly), or is a tautological term. As the xenomorph clearly isn´t a cyborg, to me it´s only an organism, albeit a very singular one. Besides, I would dispute what is the "essence of the thing" here. You must remember that a movie is a complex, collective product. The original O´Bannon idea for the movie, that I would consider as the "core" of Alien properly, is silent about the nature of the xenomorph. Actually, he was inspired by the behaviour of some species of wasps that put their eggs inside living beens. Also, Giger is not a science person, he is an artist. His influences are from Salvador Dali and Ernst Fuchs _ look at this: [img]http://lila.info/wp-content/fuchs.jpg[/img] Artistic freedom can, and must, go wherever it wants to. But if we are talking sci-fi here, and not fantasy, then we should ask what kind of being the xeno is. I think the internal coherence of the "Alien" universe, where Scott brought to sci-fi the realities of an industrial society ("truck drivers in space", etc.), deserves that we develops a science-based understanding of the xeno. Of course, some persons will like this approach, some will not. As ArchEtech just said, every approach can be accused of "reading too much" into the movie. I can see that my initial proposal _ erradicate the term "biomechanical" _ is heretic to many "Alien" fans that love Giger work. BTW, I love Giger art also, and my take here is not geared to denigrate his work; I´m just asking for scientific coherence in a science-based setting for the "Alien" saga. Peace!

Just for the record: when I say that the xeno is "only an organism", it´s not depreciative. On the contrary, to me biological organisms ARE wonderful machines, and our beloved xeno shines in this pantheon.

Thanks Craigamore. I thought there was another reference to the xenos being silicon-based, but... I may have dreamed it?

No problem @Db, no prob...

I undrestand you're points @centrosphere, I do, but we'll just have to agree to disagree. As to your O'Bannon comment, let's not forget that Giger's work was the Yin to the biological Yang, you mentioned, as inspiration for his script. Not only was it a instrumental in guiding O'bannon's imagination to begin with, he's the one who showed Ridley Giger's work and made the point of saying, in so many words, this is where we must go with this. I'm sorry if my response to you was strong, but I was getting at a point.......that Giger's work played an irreplaceable formative role in the writing, conception and direction of 'Alien'. So when the artist calls his own work 'Bio-mechanical Art', it's not a term you can just throw away, because [b]you're[/b] not fond of it. As to my interpretation 'bio-mechanical', it [b]is[/b] my own critical reading, but I come at it that way, because if we simplify what this xeno is, what bio-mechanical is, in terms we can so easily understand, such as cyborg tech, because that terminology is recognizable, it then becomes too familiar, less alien and less frightening. At that point, why even watch? Why bother? All of the fun is in that tantilizingly disturbing mystery. I imagine it as something entirely new, because it's clearly meant to be....the exact details may be different....but that's beside the point. You want to understand it becuase [b]you[/b] need to rationalize it in "scientific" terms. As you yourself said, "we are talking sci-fi here". Science [b]Fiction[/b] exists to allow for what we cannot explain or understand and yet imagine, wonder at and enjoy......maybe you're not meant to know, understand or comprehend....maybe that's the point.....