NESTA PROJECT: FINE ARTSITS AND INNOVATION

Interpretation, on the other hand, is a process of mutual
understanding arrived at through exploratory conversations
with a variety of collaborators. It is less about solving clearly
defined problems than initiating and guiding conversations.
Others find similar processes to be important in design, with
Verganti (2003) arguing that: “design is the brokering of
languages”.
Ikujoro Nonaka and Hirotake Tekeuchi have looked at the
innovation process in Japanese manufacturing industry,
though their findings have a wider resonance. According to
Nonaka, making personal or tacit knowledge available to
others is the central activity of the ‘knowledge-creating
company’. But this process of converting tacit knowledge
into explicit or codified knowledge resembles creative
practice rather than an analytical approach, where
alternatives are well understood and clearly defined.
“First by linking contradictory things and ideas through
metaphor; then by resolving these contradictions
through analogy; and finally, by crystallizing the
created concepts and embodying them in a model,
which makes the knowledge available to the rest of the
company” (Nonaka 1991:101).
Similarly, attitudes to risk (Bryce et al., 2004) and tolerance of
ambiguity appear to be essential to the interpretative mode
of innovation, whereas a more analytical approach would
proceed by reducing ambiguity and eliminating risk. Lester
and Piore (2004) go so far as to claim that: “ambiguity is the
critical resource out of which new ideas emerge”. It is this
ambiguity that makes ‘the conversation worth having’, not
the actual exchange of information. If the conversation is
narrowed or closed off too soon, and the ambiguity
eliminated, potential innovations can be lost.
This matters for contemporary studies of innovation because
it recognises that innovation is not solely the province of the
firm or the inventor, but is a collective process. Recognising
the scope and potential of cross-sectoral industry learning
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