The days are those of neo-liberal right-wing rule in Israel, two years after a social protest that, for the first time, shed the armor of cynicism and despair and sparked hope in the hearts of the country’s citizens, especially its young people. Its decline, however, led to even deeper despondency. Prices are soaring, wages are eroding along with social rights, education promotes nationalism, the occupation continues alongside intensive settlement construction, and even the institution of partnership is crumbling; many emigrate, and others contemplate it daily. Human life seems increasingly devalued compared to political ideology and a predatory economy. All of this floods us almost obsessively through social networks. We are “dead inside” and yet somehow keep going.

Adar Aviam will present a poster from his series Conflicts, created after Operation Pillar of Defense. In his colorful and humorous paintings, he speaks of profound despair and disappointment, influenced by the Zionist ethos, his father’s injury in the Yom Kippur War, emotional scars from military service in the occupied territories, and his own emigration to Berlin.

In a similar spirit, Shasha Dothan, in her video installation, immerses her own image inside a German passport. Her photograph sings the immigration song I Love Germany, in which she performs a monologue about her split desire to stay in her beloved, tormented homeland versus the yearning for a new life that begins with a foreign passport and emigration.

Shahar Even-Dar Mandel, John Brown, Avgad Yavor, Dan Cooper, Ido Keinan, Amir Shibi, Itamar Sehaltiel, and Nir Sharabi-Hoffman regularly post statuses and memes on Facebook — critical reactions to current events. For many, these updates have replaced traditional news media, flooding timelines in an intense, sometimes aggressive, stream. In the exhibition, screenshots displaying the posts and their reactions will be printed. This mode of presentation might diverge from the original medium of the works but highlights how artworks are being created within the network, and how exhibiting them in a gallery — aside from fitting the theme of “dead inside” — raises questions about their place in the fields of art and culture.

“Excess Ability” is how Google’s new voice recognition technology mistranslates the word “Accessibility” in YouTube subtitles. By activating subtitles on video clips documenting the launch of the “automatic captions” app, Lior Zalmanson highlights the jarring contrast between technological hubris and the error-ridden results.

Yinon Zinger’s work Primitive Defense Mechanisms addresses the abandonment of humanistic values and principles under survival conditions.

Alma Itzhaki will present the painting Visit — a gathering of friends in a crumbling apartment that resembles more an interrogation cellar than a home.

A messy office featuring artworks by Picasso and Manet is depicted in Hadas Reshef’s digital painting Work Sets You Free, in which a sexist boss, who opposes the occupation, supports Peace Now, and loves his family, throws paperwork into the air to force the short-skirted secretaries to bend down and pick it up, all while dictating outrageous demands.

Ayala Netzer’s drawings are a daily documentation of her relationships with the few people close to her and the world around her — mostly sad or obsessive but filled with humor — with rooms swelling with yearning and anxiety, animals portraying humans, and dreams.