Free Thinking

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Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with artists and thinkers in debates and interviews.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with leading artists and thinkers in extended interview and debate.

Free Thinking: Notebooks and new technology

Notebooks and new technology

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Notebooks and new technology

Authors Jonathan Coe, Roland Allen, Lesley Smith and art book maker Gill Partington.

As Radio 3's Late Junction marks the launch in 1963 of the first compact cassette recorder with "Casseptember" programming, we look at writing from the notebook, to computer to AI.

Novelist Jonathan Coe joins book historians Roland Allen, Prof Lesley Smith and Dr Gill Partington and presenter Lisa Mullen.  As Radio 3’s Late Junction devotes episodes this September to the cassette tape and the particular sound and way of recording and assembling music which that technology provided, we look at writing.  At a time when there’s a lot of chat about AI and chatbots creating writing, what does it mean to write on a page of paper which is then printed and assembled into a book. 
The author Jonathan Coe’s many books include The Rotter's Club, What a Carve Up!   Mr Wilder and Me and his latest Bournville is now out in paperback      
Roland Allen has worked in publishing and has now written The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper      
Gill Partington (with Simon Morris and Adam Smyth) is one of the founding editors of Inscription: Journal of Material Text, which brings together artists, book historians, and academic theorists. After editions looking at beginnings, holes and folds, the new issue coming soon looks at touch.    
Lesley Smith is Fellow and Tutor in Politics at Harris Manchester College, Oxford and has chosen a selection of handwritten documents from the collections of the Bodleian Library published as Handwritten: Remarkable People on the Page.

Producer: Ruth Watts

Available to download as an Arts & Ideas podcast and on BBC Sounds are discussions about 
Paper with Adam Smyth, Nicholas Basbanes, Therese Weber and Emily Cockayne
AI and Human creativity: Joy Buolamwini, founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, Anders Sandberg from the Future of the Human Institute at Oxford, artist Anna Ridler and Sheffield Robotics' Michael Szollosy 
Concrete poetry: Matthew Sweet and guests discuss the work of Dom Houédard.
Experimentation in the arts: with the  winners of the Goldsmiths Prize 2022, poet Stephen Sexton and composer Matthew Herbert,  Shahidha Bari reflects on what it means to push boundaries and be experimental

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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Free Thinking

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