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E23 I propose that through his digital manipulation of the photographed sand table (figures 15a, 15b), Sharabani confers a concrete solidity on the sand relief. Where Ullman's sculptures establish a chromatic kinship between red hamra and rusty iron, Sharabani transforms sand into concrete. A deeply ingrained yearning for firm ground drives both aesthetic projects. A full discussion of the Virtual Territories series requires attending to a third group of manipulated images culled from Google Earth, centering on Tel Aviv, the artist's city of residence. Cistern #1 (2019; figure 16a, see p. 21) and Cistern #2 (2019; figure 16b, see p. 21) are both based on Sharabani's digitally photographed and manipulated sand table, superimposed with Google Earth views of major road junctions in Israel's busy urban centers in and around Tel Aviv. Sharabani has transformed the surface of the sand table into a post-apocalyptic concrete wasteland, scarred by thin lines marking roads that, before the unexplained apocalypse, were once presumably bustling with life. Cistern #1 being the negative image of Cistern #2 , it features the blank expanse in deep black, as looming cavities that threaten to suck in all life. Sharabani regards Cistern #1 as an X-ray, probing into Cistern#2 to reveal traces of former life in the form of minuscule residential buildings clustered around the black holes. The works that comprise Virtual Territories , particularly Cistern #1 and Cistern #2 , render surface textures affectively communicative. These surfaces are digitally manipulated so as to suggest a variety of resonant materialities and textures, from sandstone, through bronze, to rough concrete. In their different ways, these tense surfaces seem to appeal directly to visitors' skins. In Mieke Bal's terminology of migratory aesthetics, Sharabani's images participate in "a new sensate production of surface as skin." 19 It is crucial to recognize the strong haptic appeal and suggestively material presence of the prints and installations discussed here, and the degree to which they arouse somatosensory responses. These aesthetic traits work to counter the core experience of groundlessness and spatiotemporal disorientation. Freely inflecting Bourriaud's concept, I propose to regard this practice as one of "radicant optimism." 19 Bal, Mieke. 2008. "Double Movement". In 2Move: Video Art Migration . Edited by Mieke Bal and Miguel A. Hernández Navarro. Murcia, Spain: CENDEAC, 22. Figure 15a, 15b: Ronen Sharabani, Mountain Outline , plate #1 (a) sand table in process, 90X125 cm, (b) digital mold