This abstract from the curatorial text of: "The Light Seeker" - solo show, curated by Eran Ehrlich does the best job explaining Uri Shapira's work.

The Light Seeker project by Uri Shapira's is a refined purification of a world where opposites such as real and virtual, nature and culture, fact and image, completely lose context. It's a project that mixes mediums, work techniques and knowledge taken from disciplines ranging from chemistry to contemporary photographic techniques, via them it destroys trivial certainties of time, space and representation and undermines our understanding of appearances. The installation includes a 3D object and an image stretched along the whole gallery space. Just as the viewer might see the 3D work as an image at first glance, he might see the 2D image as a photograph, i.e. a documentation of an actual space or time, though in practice what he sees is neither that not that. The 3D purifies to its overall material essence, whereas the photograph, i.e. representation, is nothing but the object itself. Even though the work does not include manipulative Photoshop techniques, the reality seen exists in practice only in the image itself, and from this aspect regardless of its visual resemblance to the photographic medium, it isn't such in its accepted sense. On the other hand, behind the image's uniqueness hides a dimension of time converted into physical space which never really existed the way it reveals here to our eyes, just as if a full length film was compressed into one frame. This is a world in which the only certainty we can tell about is that it is visual, and as such, it leaves its mark upon us and invites the experience to be our compass and tour guide.

[This comment was removed]

I think it's both. And more.