Shalom Gorewitz frames Empathy and Abstraction with a quotation from Wilhelm Worringer's book of the same name, which observes that the urge to abstraction stems from a sense of unease with the world as it is. Gorewitz turns his camera on the city: construction, the homeless, and milling crowds. A rally to end police brutality brings text to the screen; the image begins to rupture with unnatural colors and effects, and the soundtrack comes in fits and starts. Gorewitz's signature use of intense video processing casts footage of paratroopers and helicopters against the electronic signs of Times Square. Ultimately the image-processing reaches a high pitch, which is sustained through the second half of the tape, in which a montage of scenes from nature is set to a soothing electronic score.