Gal Nissim
Gal Nissim is a multidisciplinary ScienArtist from Israel, based in New York. She creates at the intersection of art, science, and technology. Gal received a CAF grant for the creation of “The Synanthrope Preserve,” an immersive spatial, sound, and augmented reality experience through an interactive urban tour of nature. She worked with Jessica Scott-Dutcher to investigate the non-domesticated animals who live with us. Their first Synanthrope Preserve project explored how pigeons, once highly valued, became “rats with wings,” and consisted of an audio tour of Washington Square Park. The second, “Washing Bear,” focused on that ultimate scavenger and city perennial, the raccoon; and the third, “The First to Cross” was a 35-minute interactive experience that takes participants on a winding tour through Tompkins Square Park and the East Village at night to reveal the intertwined story of humans and that first immigrant to New York, the rat.
Gal has worked on a variety of other projects exploring the ways science and art can intersect—including SurveillAnts, a collaborative installation with Leslie Ruckman. SurveillAnts tracks the movements of a colony of ants, visualizing the patterns over time. The installation is a visual exploration of collective intelligence and connections that can be drawn between the guiding instincts of life at all levels.
Gal’s artistic practice is in conversation with Yiou Wang’s interdisciplinary and immersive video game Batopia which explores bats’ umwelt.
You can find articles about Gal’s work in the NYU Alumni Magazine, as well as a more in-depth profile at Art Spiel. Her latest Synanthrope Preserve is “Golden Howls,” where visitors are invited to discover the urban wildlife of Yarkon Park, Tel Aviv. Through a multimedia experience of sounds, narration, and augmented reality, visitors are able to interact with the Golden Jackal, and pick into the historical, Egyptian mythological, and biblical past, as well as to the speculative future, of this much-maligned animal.
You can read an article about Gal from CAF Navab fellow Vivian Qiu here. The work of Gal and her frequent collaborator Leslie Ruckman are featured in this video.
