In the language of corporate advertising, the hand model is universal. Lifeless objects are caressed between his disembodied fingers. Product functions are demonstrated by his knowing grip. Objects slide through his fingers. Charged. Flattened. Multiplied across advertising surfaces.

 

His function is shamanic: inert materials become charged with lifeforce, sexuality, lust. In his immaculate palms, cold forms become emotional gateways. His hands speak in primitive, pleasurable gestures. Product attachment is physically performed. This performance is a possession ritual of stroking, snatching, clutching, gripping. We understand it implicitly. 

 

But in the fiction of the advertisement, the hand model's relationship to the object is ambiguous. Who do we suppose him to be: the producer of the object, or the consumer of it? Does he invest the object with meaning, or vice versa? Regardless, he provides a haptic bridge. Crossing the threshold of the magazine page or television screen, we the consumers are able to feel the consumable. Through an impossible sleight of hand, we are offered a moment of pure product pleasure.