One can read a book at length before stopping to wonder whether he sees the words at all; before asking how much he understands, how much he stares, to what extent he takes in or surrenders. Similarly, an entire reality can pass before our eyes, and we will see only a small part of it; we will see that fraction and won’t know what we fail to see.

A book replaces the eyes of a floating figure, and frozen candles drip on her arms, as she delves into the book, not only to see it, but also to see through it. In a sensory reversal, the eyes feel the book, while the hands, outstretched sideways, absorb the light of the candles standing on them, pushing the boundaries of seeing.

What we see and don’t see leads Asaf Elkalai to explore different ways of seeing. Like wandering arms, he sends the computer mouse’s arrows everywhere in search of direction, intention, purpose. They grow and persist, until their virtual trail becomes a ceramic body, asking us to provide equally real, tangible answers regarding place and time.

The constant search continues in never-ending circular motion in a video piece that spins around outdoor sculptures installed in roundabouts throughout Israel. Every turn reveals local aesthetics in the form of sculptures manifesting the remnants of the Israeli fantasy. Sculptures intended to add beauty, stories meant to enrich, confronted by eyes accustomed to ignoring their existence.

Our ability to see is changing. In the general disintegration of reality, we have also lost the ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood. From technological developments to reality itself, words intended to indicate what is real and what is not no longer have value. In a whirlwind of emotions and narratives, vision itself has become more subjective and selective than ever; no longer an objective sense on which to rely, but a tool, based on thoughts and knowledge, opinions and beliefs, that must be learned as a language.

Listening closely to Ruti de Vries’s works, one can hear the music emanating from them. Like a big sigh coming from the bottom of the diaphragm and connecting the internal passages of the body with the external layer, like the lining of a garment embracing the human belly, de Vries’s textile works connect deep feelings with the outer shell. Patterns repeated in a recursive fashion, like arithmetic sequences, emerge from what appears like a blend of colors and shapes, dictating a rhythm. Groups of figures—a duet, a string quartet, and a sextet of bell ringers—are sewn to and lean on one another, forming a musical instrument of sorts: the sounding board hangs above them, the pieces of fabric become strings. In the series of orchestra paintings, the number of singing figures increases from an individual to a duet, from a trio to a quartet, all the way to a choir of thirty. The voices intertwine, generating a visual canon, which evolves into a joint work. De Vries explores the inner voice and the aesthetic dynamics of sound. She follows the logic of the body’s resonant movement and tries to synchronize and regulate the jumble of voices. The three figures making up the room divider at the entrance to the gallery also confront the tension between order and chaos, between liberation and control. One side of the divider is laden with hinges and handles, locks and bolts. Its other side suggests looking at the absence. The load of contours is also made from the void: from the hidden patterns surrounding us and their potential space. For de Vries, clothes are not only a protection and a buffer; they are also an array of signs and symbols, a way to communicate with the universe. Layers upon layers of weaves and buckles, zippers and paintings, myths and legends come together to form ensembles of figures for whom fashion is not only a social dictate, but also a statement which allows individuals to set themselves apart from the group and rejoin it.

Uri Zamir puts the viewer in the detective position, facing a long clothes rack typically found backstage, on which a mirror and a sword, winged feet and a mask hang side by side, waiting for a hand to grab them and bring them to life, for a story to envelop them and us. For Zamir, whose background is in theater, the gallery functions as a stage, and the viewer is much more than a mere audience member; he is also the actor himself, deliberating in front of the character’s props, just before going on stage, or shortly after playing his role and stepping off it. Nothing in Zamir’s works is quite as it seems. The “Don Quixote” sword is made of an ear of corn, and it is doubtful whether it can protect anyone. The flying feet, identified with the winged sandals of Hermes, the messenger of the Olympian gods, are equipped with bat wings, as if they had given up the possibility of bearing good news. The ostensibly soft, hairy face mask is made of sharp, spiky plaster, and the wooden mirror does not reflect our image, but the prophecy it carries. Between the pathos of theater and the despair of reality, a new character takes shape, assuming and removing costumes and wigs, hopes and disappointments, equally ridiculous and threatening. A requisit is a stage prop; a required theatrical accessory, indispensable for advancement of the plot. Unlike the set, which provides a background for the story, the prop is activated by the actor, who redeems it from its status as yet another object, making it a significant part of the story itself: the gun in the first act, the cloak of disappearance, the sword covered in blood. In a world that seems to stand still, Zamir’s props insist on trying to advance the plot. At times when the absurd has left the confines of the theater, they allow us to imagine, if only momentarily, that we, too, can control the end of the play.

In her three-channel video installation, Tal Alperstein blurs the lines between reality and virtuality. Using the perspective of a protagonist in First Person Shooter video games, she transforms familiar landscapes into unfamiliar territories as the character navigates toward an unknown destination. In computer Quest games, players try to survive in violent, 3D animated worlds, constantly on the lookout for enemies, money, and weapons. Walking towards the unknown, among the multiple opponents they will fight, they encounter NPCs (Non-Player Characters) who, like extras, have no impact on what is going on, and the ongoings have no impact on them. Their movements, predetermined and repetitive, translate into the ideal images and never-ending loop of Zionism: struggle and rehabilitation, draining swamps and war. The actions are repeated, neither progressing nor developing; the body keeps moving, but the purpose is lost. Amid online conspiracy theories suggesting that our entire world is one big simulation, where we are mere NPCs, Alperstein explores the possibility that even though we exist, our world is shaped by the digital experience; a world in which wandering on screen is the predominant experience, an existence where the representation of reality feels more real to us than reality itself. The game is filmed in a transitional urban landscape—on the city’s outskirts, between desolation and habitation, in an intermediate moment between the greenery of a rainy season and the yellowing of summer, in the interstice between Israel as a fantasy and Israel as a reality. We may not know what the shooter in Alperstein’s game is looking for, but we do know what he finds—sun-scorched fields, absurd actions alongside futile attempts to act, piles of dust alongside the remains of Zionism and the dream that initiated it.

Moshe Roas’s works are held together in a delicate, seemingly impossible balance, leaving us in constant suspense, in anticipation of an imminent collapse. More than just hanging by a thread, the works presented in NonFinito evoke a sense that they must be restrained. They try to erupt — forcefully and impulsively — as if attempting to break out of the material itself, challenging their stabilizing point. The metal — which usually becomes brittle, crumbling and disintegrating in Roas’s hands — returns to its source of strength and stands naked and raw, black and burnt where it was bent, sharp and dangerous at the edges. It is a work tool and a weapon, a sickle and a sword, masculine and hurtful. Amid the bent metal and curved glass, body parts that have lost their softness are revealed, giving rise to new possibilities — a different kind of delicacy. The works target our soft spot. For many animals, the back — exposed to the world — serves as a form of protective armor. We, humans, who stand upright on two feet, face the world with our backs turned and our internal organs exposed to the jagged edges of metal, gazing out and hoping. Roas’s found wooden rod rises from the floor and sticks up — swallowing, penetrating, bearing sin. The silver wooden pole, placed on the leg of a deer, does not invite us to lean on it, just as the nocturnal moth hanging on the wall does not invite us to take pleasure in the flapping of its wings. The image of the moth was created from work scraps — pieces of wood and metal — that were projected and scorched onto the canvas. Known as the beast of darkness or the soul butterfly, which is believed to carry the soul of the deceased and should not be harmed, it embodies the spirit of the studio. From its delicate body parts, the metal bends erupt, revealing all the passions and dreams that hold it together, that hold everything together.

Ester Schneider’s paintings are based on a yearning for forms and their hidden laws: the center of the circle, the symmetry of the square, the endless movement of the spiral, the logic of the mandala. Abstract ideas that assume a real presence. Yearning is also a central concept in Jungian psychology. Carl Jung regarded the mandala as part of a group of symbols and archetypes nourishing the unconscious underpinning the psyche, and used mandalas as a therapeutic tool. He discussed life as a yearning for a primordial state of wholeness, which he also found in the mandala. Similar symbols are prevalent across cultures and religions—from Shamanic healing circles through Muslim amulets to Hebrew Kabbalah. The ancient forms recurring in the layers of Schneider’s works allow the introduction of unconscious symbols into an orderly, balanced structure, and the reorganization of the psyche through the creation of a new center. Schneider’s coded symbols come together and break apart from the paintings into three-dimensionality and back. The rods rising from one vase become legs in another; body parts are hidden and revealed amid the canvases. Schneider constructs and deconstructs the works from elements at her disposal, creating new combinations with each layer of paint. The Tabernacle’s showbread table becomes a table of maternal nourishment. The table’s legs are made from old chairs which were carved and joined together, like a broken body, whose bones are used to create a new one. The legs become small vases, whose roundness results from the many waters that flowed over them, trickling down from one painting to another, from one consciousness to another. Schneider invites the viewers to observe the forms and colors, the wishes and desires, the flow of water, the disintegration and reconnection; to take one set of symbols and identify in it the structure and logic relevant for their lives.