A quote for November 2024.

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.

—James Bradley

From the Australian Society of Authors 2024 Colin Simpson Memorial Keynote lecture, ‘Creative futures: Imagining a place for creativity in a world of artificial intelligence’.

Photography by Kelly Sikkema.