Biography

Eyal Gever is a contemporary artist born in 1970 in Haifa, Israel, living and working in Tel Aviv. His practice operates at the intersection of art, technology, and physical systems, using advanced simulation, computational design, and fabrication to transform invisible forces (energy, motion, and emotion) into sculptural form, light-based installation, and immersive environments.

Gever's work is focused on making the unseen visible. Through custom-built physics simulations, he explores tension, turbulence, release, and transformation at the instant of their highest intensity, translating extreme or sublime moments (tsunamis, collisions, combustion, the waveform of human laughter) into three-dimensional printed sculpture or monumental projection installation. His practice engages questions of human perception, collective feeling, ecology, and the relationship between technological systems and emotional life.

This trajectory finds its most direct expression in FORCES: The Physics of Feeling, a major new body of work and exhibition at The Disruptive Gallery in London, where emotion is approached not as illustration but as a physical event, shaped through pressure, gravity, friction, containment, and release.

Selected projects include Cosmic Portals, developed in conjunction with the Beresheet 2 lunar mission, in which live deep-space data is transformed into generative sculptural experience; hy·per·re·ac·tive, two years in development as a real-time audiovisual platform merging real-time 3D simulation and sound-responsive 3D environments; HyperScape, an immersive sound and vision installation at Club Chinois, Ibiza; and Plastivore, an ongoing impact art project using recycled ocean plastic to address pollution through sculptural form.

Earlier works include Uncanny State: Notion of Acceptance, which translated the choreography of Sharon Eyal and music by Rosey Chan into computational digital sculpture; Water Dancer and Fire Dancer, public commissions during Eurovision 2019 in Tel Aviv; #Laugh (2017), the first artwork ever created in space, produced aboard the International Space Station in collaboration with NASA and Made In Space; and CLEANSING, a 400-meter façade projection commissioned by ZKM | Center for Art and Media for Karlsruhe Palace. His work has been presented alongside J.M.W. Turner and Gerhard Richter in Turner and the Tradition of the Sublime, and at the Lichtsicht 5 Projection Biennale curated by Peter Weibel, alongside William Kentridge, Robert Wilson, and Random International.

His projects have been exhibited and commissioned by institutions including ZKM | Center for Art and Media and the Rijksmuseum, and received coverage in Wired, Financial Times, CNN, Ars Electronica, IEEE Potentials, and Art in Orbit: Art Objects and Spaceflight (Bloomsbury, 2024). He is the recipient of the Technarte Bilbao International Art and Technology Award (Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, 2017), a finalist in the World Technology Awards (2018), and a laureate of Beyond Bauhaus (The Bauhaus Association, 2019).

This inquiry extends into his ongoing development of the Empathic Art movement, which integrates biometric feedback, emotional AI, and live responsive installation into a new paradigm for human-machine empathy, harnessing the scientifically validated power of movement, sound, and sensory rhythm to make the unseen felt and the unspoken heard.

Before dedicating himself fully to art, Gever founded and led several technology ventures, including Zapa Digital Arts (later Gizmoz), one of the world's earliest virtual worlds and real-time 3D avatar platforms, and served as President of DAZ 3D. He holds eight patents in 3D computer graphics, computer vision, and data transmission. That technological foundation remains inseparable from his artistic practice and continues to shape the systems he builds and the questions he asks about human perception, emotion, and the future relationship between art and technology.

Education

Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, Israel
Fine Art

Exhibitions and Major Commissions

2026

FORCES: The Physics of Feeling, The Disruptive Gallery, London, United Kingdom
7 May 2026

2026 (ongoing)

Cosmic Portals, in conjunction with the Beresheet 2 lunar mission — live deep-space data transformed into generative sculptural experience, Israel

2024

hy·per·re·ac·tive, real-time audiovisual experiential artwork, immersive installation, international venues

2022 (ongoing)

HyperScape, immersive sound and vision installation, Club Chinois, Ibiza, Spain

2021

L'Après-midi d'un Faune, commission in cooperation with the Paris Opera, Ballet and Contemporary Dance, holographic volumetric 3D projection with live contemporary dance, Paris, France

2020 (ongoing)

Plastivore, an impact art project addressing plastic pollution — 3D-printed sculptures from ocean-collected recycled plastic waste filament, international venues

2019

Uncanny State: Notion of Acceptance (solo), Alon Segev Gallery, 7 HaManoa Street, Tel Aviv, Israel
5 September – 18 October 2019
Works translating choreography by Sharon Eyal and music by Rosey Chan into computational digital sculpture.

Water Dancer and Fire Dancer, Eurovision 2019 public commission, Tel Aviv–Jaffa Municipality, Tel Aviv, Israel
Seen by tens of thousands of visitors during Eurovision week.

2017

#Laugh, first artwork ever created in space, fabricated aboard the International Space Station in collaboration with NASA and Made In Space, International Space Station / Earth orbit

CLEANSING, 400-meter façade projection mapping installation, Karlsruhe Palace, commission by ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany
Seen by hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.

2015–2016

Gevaar and Schoonheid: Turner and the Tradition of the Sublime, Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle, Netherlands
6 September 2015 – 3 January 2016

Gevaar and Schoonheid: Turner and the Tradition of the Sublime, Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede, Netherlands
6 September 2015 – 3 January 2016
Exhibited alongside J.M.W. Turner and Gerhard Richter.

Lichtsicht 5 Projection Biennale, curated by Peter Weibel (Director, ZKM | Center for Art and Media), Bad Rothenfelde, Germany
18 September 2015 – 7 February 2016
Presented alongside William Kentridge, Robert Wilson, and Random International.

2012

Sublime Moments (solo), Alon Segev Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel
30 May – 6 July 2012
Ongoing series — international exhibition and acquisition

Public Collections

Works held in private and public collections internationally. Full collection list available upon request.

Awards and Recognition

2019

Jury Member, Beyond Bauhaus: Prototyping the Future, international competition organized by the German Bauhaus Association on the occasion of the Bauhaus centenary, Germany

2018

Finalist, Art Category, World Technology Awards (The World Technology Network)

2017

First Prize, Technarte Bilbao International Art and Technology Conference, Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain

Technology Patents

Gever holds eight registered patents for innovations spanning 3D computer graphics animation technologies, computer vision, and data transmission and propagation of rich media over networks. These include foundational work in programmable computer-generated objects and viral media distribution — among them US Patent 6,329,994, "Programmable Computer Graphic Objects" — as well as patents in 3D animation engines, interactive object modeling, and media propagation systems that underpinned the technologies adopted by global technology firms.

View all patents on Google Patents

Press and Publications

Books and Catalogues
Brownie, Barbara. Art in Orbit: Art Objects and Spaceflight. Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2024.
Weibel, Peter. "Water Dancer." Lichtsicht 5 Biennale Exhibition Catalogue, Bad Rothenfelde, 2015.
Van Lieverloo, Karin. "Fucking Nature (Turner en de traditie van het sublieme)." Exhibition catalogue, Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede, 2016.
Gever, Eyal. The Empathic Art Manifesto. 2025.
Gever, Eyal. The Conceptual Groundwork of Empathic Art. 2025.

Academic Publications
"The Interrelationship and Correlation of Technology and Art." IEEE Potentials, vol. 35, no. 1, 2015.
Ferrier, Michael. "De la Catastrophe considérée comme un des Beaux-Arts." Communications, no. 96, 2015.

Selected Media
"Turn Your Giggle into 3D-Printed Art." Wired, 2017.
"Artwork of the Month: #Laugh." Ars Electronica, 2017.
"Laughter to be 3D Printed and Launched into Space." CNN, 2016.
"After 9/11, High-Tech Whiz Kid Turns Disasters into Art." Haaretz, 2012.
Financial Times, 2015.
Wall Street Journal, BBC — selected coverage.

Prior Technology Career

Before devoting himself to art full-time in 2010, Gever founded and led several pioneering technology companies over nearly two decades.

Zapa Digital Arts (later Gizmoz), Tel Aviv — Founded while Gever was still a student at Bezalel, Zapa became a pioneer in virtual worlds, avatars, and patented real-time animation technology. Its technologies were adopted by global firms including Apple, IBM, News Corp, and Brøderbund, and integrated into Microsoft Windows 98's original Plus! pack (Newsweek, ZDNet). Zapa and Gever were profiled on the cover of Red Herring magazine as a landmark innovator. In 1997, John Sculley (former CEO of Apple and Pepsi) joined as chairman and investor, calling the company "one of those rare inflection points when a new platform is born" (New York Times). Zapa evolved into Gizmoz, focusing on embeddable widgets and online digital avatars. Zapa Digital Arts also served as the foundational incubation ground for ICQ, as the core team of developers famously met while working there and used the company as their very first beta-testing site.

DAZ 3D, Utah, USA — Gever served as President following the Gizmoz–DAZ 3D merger; the leading publisher of personalized 3D digital characters and software for creative professionals and game developers.

Zapa Digital Arts, and later Gizmoz, attracted some of the brightest creative and technical minds of the era. The company's culture, grounded in multidisciplinary innovation, is widely recognized as a wellspring for Israeli tech leadership and is frequently cited as a key catalyst in the rise of the Startup Nation (Haaretz, The Guardian). Its structure fostered the advancement of technologists, academics, engineers, and designers whose later work helped shape global developments in animation, academic research, artificial intelligence, and digital entrepreneurship (Newsweek). Zapa/Gizmoz became a historic force in digital media, referenced in global technology histories and recognized as central to Israel's Startup Nation story (Wikipedia, Gizmoz).

Throughout his technology career, Gever registered eight patents for innovations in 3D animation, graphics, media propagation, and interactive object modeling.

CV current as of 2026. Full exhibition history, press archive, and video documentation available at eyalgever.com.