Fungi: An Alien Encounter
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 30 January 2020
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Are fungi out to get us or here to help? Neither animal nor vegetable, they are both amongst us and within us, shaping or lives in ways it is difficult to imagine. They can also be very tasty. An exhibition of mushrooms at Somerset House in London prompts Matthew Sweet to look at what we can learn from them, the way they grow and depictions of them in the arts. Francesca Gavin is curator of Mushrooms: The Art, Design and Future of the Fungi, which runs at Somerset House in London from Jan 31st to April 26th 2020. It features the work of 40 artists, musicians and designers from Cy Twombly to Beatrix Potter, John Cage to Hannah Collins. Author and mycologist Merlin Sheldrake's forthcoming book Entangled Life is published 7th May 2020 by Penguin Random House. Sam Gandy is an ecologist, writer and researcher who has collaborated with the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College. And Begoña Aguirre-Hudson is Curator and Mycologist at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. She helps look after the Kew Fungarium - the largest collection of fungi in the world. https://www.kew.org/science/our-science/people/begona-aguirre-hudson Producer: Alex Mansfield
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right? |
| 0:23.3 | It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream. |
| 0:28.8 | Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:33.2 | BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. |
| 0:39.0 | Hello, I'm chopping mushrooms, and this is the Arts and Ideas podcast. |
| 0:43.3 | We're the podcast that fills your ears with the spores of thought. |
| 0:47.4 | We are, we really are. |
| 0:48.8 | I'm Matthew Sweet, and I can tell you a whole load of them are about to hit you after these messages. |
| 0:57.0 | Music and I can tell you a whole load of them are about to hit you after these messages. Music that stops you in your tracks. |
| 1:03.0 | And a man who became a hero. |
| 1:08.0 | A composer who inspired the world. |
| 1:14.4 | I'm Donald Bacloud. |
| 1:17.6 | Join me as I make an epic podcast journey through the life, music and ideas |
| 1:19.5 | of Ludwig van Beethoven. |
| 1:22.2 | I'll be telling his story |
| 1:23.5 | in unprecedented detail throughout 2020. |
| 1:38.3 | The Secret Love Affair. in unprecedented detail throughout 2020. The secret love affairs, his tragic hearing loss, disasters and triumphs, struggle and transcendence. It's a story to inspire with music that just might change your life. |
| 1:50.2 | In 20 years of presenting Composer of the Week, |
| 1:53.0 | I've never attempted anything this ambitious before. |
| 1:56.2 | I'd love you to join me. |
| 1:59.4 | Just search for Composer of the Week in BBC Sounds and press subscribe. |
| 2:01.1 | What can mushrooms give us? |
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