a project proposed for Paul Badger's DmBodyElectric course, in DmCoursesSpring 2006

The world through David Brent's eyes

also know as the Retarded Tingles De-Tendencifier

David Brent is the main character of The Office (the British Version, not the crap US knockoff). He thinks he is the coolest, but he is merely innefectual, and when he thinks he is being funny he is usually just making people feel uncomfortable. While I am not as pathetic as he is, I do realise I have the tendency to give my friends such a cringe-fest that they get, as the Hockey and Human Skin Rockstar Rachelle Beaudoin puts it, "The Retarded Tingles."

So, every time I watch the office, I take it as a form of therapy, helping me stay aware of my David Brentian tendencies.

The David Brent Viewer is a low-tech sensory augmentation/ VR device that allows me to see the world through David Brent's eyes. Actually, it allows me to see the world as if it were reflected in David Brent's eyes, which is all the more approriate. In the illustration, a fish-eye lens taken from a door peephole viewer is inserted into a cardboard tube, which becomes a telescope that allows me to see any scene unfolding before my eyes through David Brent's.

Hopefully this technological therapy will allow me to remind myself of my Retarded Tingle Tendencies, and make the world a less cringleful place for those around me.