In As You See, Farocki searches for those instances and facts in the history of technology that have been overlooked or ignored, also exploring the ambivalent relationship between technologies developed for civil use and those designed for military purposes.
Thus the film for instance describes how in the 1970's workers at the British arms factory Lucas Aerospace attempted to develop socially useful products to replace the company's military output.
Rather than following a linear argument, this essay-film juxtaposes disparate images and weaves them into a mosaic-like structure which makes it possible for the viewers to make their own connections between the different images as well as between the images and the commentary.

According to Harun Farocki, today's photographers working in advertising are, in a way, continuing the tradition of 17th century Flemish painters in that they depict objects from everyday life - the "still life". The filmmaker illustrates this intriguing hypothesis with three documentary sequences which show the photographers at work creating a contemporary "still life": a cheese-board, beer glasses and an expensive watch.
This remarkable film by Harun Farocki is a powerful essay and commentary on contemporary life. It compares the still-lifes of the Dutch painters with the still-lifes of today: Photographs for advertisements for cheese, beer and watches. Farocki's film is about objects because, according to the director, "Gods and heroes are no longer imaginable." Using behind-the-scenes glimpses of modern advertising offices, where employees toil at the proper placement of objects for maximum sales effect, Farocki presents a vision of our reality in which objects bear witness to their producers. In these objects is a new image of man.