Two observations about contemporary culture have become commonplace in recent years. on the one hand, the claim that we are living through a social revolution, driven by technological change, is virtually accepted as a truism. on the other hand, the apparent slowdown of rates of actual innovation in fields such as music and fashion is also widely observed; Simon Reynolds’ diagnosis of ‘retromania’ as the contemporary condition has been widely appreciated, for example. Can we understand both of these phenomena as symptomatic of a world in which the hegemony of Silicon Valley forces certain kinds of innovation while retarding and containing others? And what can we do about it? With Professor Jeremy Gilbert
