This media studies project examines the advertisement gaze through Japanese consumer electronics advertisement imagery from the 1980s to the 2000s, with attention to the constructive perspective, representation of the advertised futures, and the contextual backdrop.

The project deconstructs and materially slices four selected exemplary advertisements, by mobilizing emerging technologies alongside classical modes of observation, displacing the advertising gaze and inviting new ways of seeing.

Through depth mapping and photogrammetry-based point clouds, these two-dimensional imagery is rendered volumetric, then materially sliced into sectional layers and UV-printed on transparent films. Once aligned and installed, the stack effectively functions as a physical volumetric rendering of the advertisement. This layered configuration releases the image from planar constraint and the mediated gaze.

Stacks of disassembled films are also presented within the installation. To be handled and interrogated as a set of cards, the stacks allow close examination of each slice, positioning a way of dissection as a way of seeing.

Lastly, a camera obscura is installed for the audience to view a physical Sony camcorder through the apparatus. In doing so, volumetric reality is framed into planar imagery under an orchestrated gaze. As a viewing apparatus which requires sustained attention, the camera obscura produce a more intimate and immersive mode of viewing. The device cues a classical way of seeing structured around a fixed perspective, one that is conditioned upon adjustment and anticipation, under which the operation of the advertising gaze is more readily perceptible.