The Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas

Take three top academics, some dangerous ideas, add one comedian and it’s the force of nature that is the Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas (CODI). Hosted by comedian Susan Morrison, and now in its eleventh year, CODI is ninety minutes of rapid-fire research from some of the finest minds in the country.

You can’t search Google for poetry

It’s true! Every word you search for on Google is auctioned to the highest bidder, but it’s the commercial rather than poetic value of the word that determines the results you see. Artist and researcher Dr Pip Thornton (The University of Edinburgh) explores what words are worth to Google, to you, and why it matters.

Everyone lies to us

Politicians, advertisers, social media: everyone is lying to us. Worse, sometimes they're not exactly lying, but they’re misleading us and we'd really like to explain how. Linguistics, for once in its miserable existence, can help. Dr Chris Cummins (The University of Edinburgh) explains how we can use ideas about communication to measure how misleading a statement is, and how trusting, or suspicious, we need to be in order to get a clear picture of what’s actually going on.

Stop Being Disciplined!

How can we respond to an increasingly complex and challenging world? Can we stop playing by the rules? We need playful, messy, and unpredictable spaces where new approaches can be developed. Dr David Overend (The University of Edinburgh) explores a series of wild and weird experiments with artists, scientists and geographers; then asks some difficult questions about how we should work together, share ideas and respond to the big challenges facing our world today. Can we all become a bit less disciplined?

CODI is curated by the University of Edinburgh as part of Beltane Public Engagement Network and produced by Fair Pley.