FYI #52
Perhaps a better place to begin a defence of human creativity might be in the process of creation itself. Because when we make something, the end product isn’t the only thing that matters. In fact it may not even be the thing that matters most. There is also value in the act of making, in the craft and care of it. This value doesn’t inhere in the things we make, but in the creative labour of making them. The interplay between our minds and our bodies and the thing we are making is what brings something new – some understanding or presence – into the world. But the act of making changes us as well. That can be joyous, and at other times it can be frustrating or even painful. Nonetheless it enriches us in ways that simply prompting a machine to generate something for us never will.
From an edited version of James Bradley’s Australian Society of Authors 2024 Colin Simpson Memorial Keynote lecture, ‘Creative Futures: Imagining a place for creativity in a world of artificial intelligence’, via the Guardian
Against Autofiction: Two Paths for the Internet Novel, by Conor Truax, via Spike magazine
Ann Patchett on Annotating Her Award-Winning Novel Bel Canto Twenty Years Later, via LitHub
How Gilmore Girls Helped Me Understand My Mother, by Joanna Rakoff, via Cup of Jo
Samantha Harvey wins the Booker Prize 2024 with Orbital | The Booker Prize. A lovely acceptance speech (video).
When Midnight Oil stopped New York City, from the documentary ‘Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line’, via the ABC
Look within. Reach across. Anchor down, speech (from 2017) by Anand Giridharadas
How it went, by John Gruber, via Daring Fireball (h/t John Naughton)
The Perfect Art Deco Sydney Apartment With Iconic Views, via the Design Files. The apartment features a lovely painting by Sally Anderson.
Podcast listening highlights:
Nigel Slater: the food writer opens the door to his fascinating home life, via the Modern House’s Homing In
The Value—and Limits—of Seeking Comfort in Art, on Critics at Large | The New Yorker
Ta-Nehisi Coates, with Daniel Sokatch, on City Arts & Lectures
Patrick Radden Keefe on Taking "Say Nothing" From Book to Show, on the New York Times Book Review
Filmmaker Ken Burns (with collaborators Sarah Burns and David McMahon) on Design Matters with Debbie Millman.