Summary
Are we addicted to novelty? What are the cultural settings that allow innovation to flourish? And are novelty and innovation things we've always valued? Matthew Sweet is joined by writer and entrepreneur Margaret Heffernan, Professor of Innovation Tim Minshall, and historians Agnes Arnold-Forster, and Christina Faraday.
Tim Minshall is the author of Your Life is Manufactured. Margaret Heffernan's most recent book is Embracing Uncertainty Agnes Arnold-Foster has written Nostalgia: A History of a Dangerous Emotion Christina Faraday is the author of The Story of Tudor Art Nick Hilton, presenter of The Ned Ludd Radio Hour podcast
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. |
| 0:05.7 | Hello, you're about to listen to a BBC podcast, and I'm Ed Gamble, host of another BBC podcast, The Traitors Uncloaked. |
| 0:12.7 | But my show is available only on BBC Sounds, just like Ellis and John's Saturday bonus episodes, |
| 0:18.2 | The Pop Top Ten podcast with Scott Mills and Rylan, and comedy specials |
| 0:22.2 | from the likes of Harriet Kemsley, Susie Ruffle and Rommashranganathan. However, and maybe I'm biased, |
| 0:27.9 | it's really all about the traitors uncoaked. So for a whole bunch of exclusive scoops and |
| 0:32.6 | podcasts, listen only on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:40.3 | You're listening to the Arts and Ideas podcast with me, Matthew Sweet. |
| 0:43.8 | New wave, new deal, new order, new world order, new media, new iPhone, new scientists, new statesmen and society, new model army, new romantics, New Avengers. New Hollywood. New Labor. New Britain. New York. New York. It's a wonderful town. What value do you place on novelty? Odd word that. Contains its own diminuendo. Novelty. Well, that's all those plastic toys that go straight from |
| 1:13.1 | the front of kids' comics to landfill. But the new, well, that can sound virtuous, heroic, |
| 1:20.1 | uplifting or alarming. Innovation is our theme tonight. It's morality, its ideology, the circuitry |
| 1:27.4 | of desire or fear. It sets crackling in us. |
| 1:30.9 | We have guests tonight who think about it, practice it, critique it, hunt for it in the historical record. |
| 1:37.5 | And the first one that I'm going to tell you about is Tim Minchall. His latest book is called Your Life is Manufactured, and he is the first, |
| 1:45.8 | the very first, professor of innovation at Cambridge University. Tim, Cambridge University |
| 1:51.7 | did without one of these for 808 years. Why did it change its mind in 2017? I think there |
| 1:59.7 | was quite a lot of innovation going on before I turned up, it's fair to say. |
| 2:03.6 | But one of the things that is, if I may just add to that, the title of my professorship is actually |
| 2:08.8 | the Dr. John C. Taylor Professor of Innovation. Who is a great innovator. Who is a great |
| 2:13.6 | innovator. I actually have some of his technology with me today. Now I know this is the radio, |
| 2:17.9 | so this might not work terribly well. But in my hand here, I have a little bit of black plastic, which I'm just showing to others in the room here. And it has at the top of it a little disc, a little metal disc. And this is, I just want to make this one point to start with if I may. and that little disc does something very important. |
| 2:34.2 | That moves when temperature changes. |
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