Understanding is Overrated with Steven Seidenberg | The Private Lounge

What happens when you stop trying to force "meaning" onto art and just allow yourself to experience it?

In this candid, thought-provoking conversation, poet, philosopher, photographer, and author Steven Seidenberg joins Carmen in The Private Lounge. Together, they strip away the intimidation of "high art" to explore why being confused by a piece of work can actually be its greatest gift.

From finding hidden human stories in abandoned, decaying architecture to the rhythmic "isness" of poetry, Steven and Carmen dive deep into why understanding is overrated—and why leaning into what confuses us is where real growth happens.

📍 In This Episode, We Cover:

• Unlocking High Art: Moving past the fear of feeling "out of place" in museums and poetry.
• Finding Beauty in Decay: How Steven approaches series photography of abandoned structures and industrial appliances.
• The Power of "Isness": Why listening to poetry out loud unlocks an entirely different experience than reading off a page.
• Growth Over Hierarchy: Challenging the idea of "better" in art and stepping into genuine curiosity.

🔗 Connect with Steven Seidenberg:

• Website: stevenseidenberg.com (Find links to his photo series, books, and free audiobook downloads on Spotify and Audible!)

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Music By Geovane Bruno, Moments, 3481
Editing by Team A-J
Host, Carmen Lezeth


DISCLAIMER:  As always, please do your own research and understand that the opinions in this podcast and livestream are meant for entertainment purposes only. States and other areas may have different rules and regulations governing certain aspects discussed in this podcast.  Nothing in our podcast or livestream is meant to be medical or legal advice. Please use common sense, and when in doubt, ask a professional for advice, assistance, help and guidance. 

Transcript

[00:00:18] Steven: when you're in an art museum and you think like, "I don't under- this-- I don't like this. I don't like it at all." It-- or, "It's nothing." That's where you have to pay attention. That's where you have to actually force yourself to think clearly. That's the place where you're really learning something...

[00:00:35] Carmen: so I just wanna say first, welcome to All About the Joy.

[00:00:39] Carmen: I'm so glad you're here, Steven. It's an honor.

[00:00:42] Steven: Yeah.

[00:00:43] Carmen: Yeah, I, I know you've been doing a lot of podcasts 'cause I've been listening to a lot of them. Um, and I'm just gonna be straight up honest with you. Uh, a lot of people ask to be on our little, tiny podcast show, and I usually say no because I can't connect them to us and what we do.

[00:01:02] Carmen: And so I love that your people reached out to me because I feel like, um, you remind me of when I was growing up in Boston and I was forced to go to the Boston Fine Arts Museum, right? I grew up poor, blue collar, you know, the whole, you know the story. And I remember being in front of what was called high art.

[00:01:29] Carmen: A

[00:01:29] Steven: Uhum.

[00:01:30] Carmen: canvas, a white canvas with like a blue line going through it, you know?

[00:01:34] Steven: Okay.

[00:01:35] Carmen: And, and I, I think I was like six or seven years old, and I was so confused and I hated every moment of it. But what it did was it opened up my brain to the idea of art, and I am saying this for, uh, also our audience, but for me as well.

[00:01:52] Carmen: I think, um, what I love about learning about you and about what you do, you are a writer, you're a poet, you're a philosopher. Uh, tell me if I'm wrong, but, uh... And,

[00:02:06] Steven: And a photographer. And

[00:02:07] Carmen: and a photographer. I'm so sorry. I knew I was missing. And that's an... No, no, that's an

[00:02:12] Steven: the art part that you're discussing, that you're mentioning. Yeah,

[00:02:14] Carmen: Yeah, but you're, you're, you're an, you're a true artist.

[00:02:18] Carmen: A true artist. And, I love when I have to elevate my thinking, my feeling, to understand things. And it's not to make people afraid of your work, it's to welcome them into it. So I, I hope you take that as a compliment, me calling it high art

[00:02:40] Steven: Sure. Uh, you know, I, I'm, I'm happy if anybody calls it anything. I don't, I don't care really. They can in-- they could mean it as an insult, and I would be-- whatever they say, and I would take it as a compliment if they're talking about it.

[00:02:53] Carmen: yeah, well can, can we, can we talk about why you, and you can, you know, this is about you, but you know it's gonna be about me, you can already tell.

[00:03:04] Steven: That says, yeah.

[00:03:05] Carmen: I don't know. Well, I want to... Yeah, look it, our show is mostly about a conversation, so, uh, but why do you look at abandoned and decaying areas and make a decision to either photograph it or write about it?

[00:03:22] Carmen: But what is it that you see in these, I don't even know what to call them, 'cause sometimes it's photography, but you also write about it. So what is it that you see that I don't see, and how do you make it a story about human beings?

[00:03:39] Steven: Well, you know, I mean, in, in fact, like in abandonment is, there are different ways in which I'm, you might say that I approach th- this kind of work with in writing and in, in photography and other art practice, visual art practice. There, there is a fetishization of the ruin or of the, of a certain type of decay in some photography and in some popular culture.

[00:04:03] Steven: and I-- It's important for me to try to make a distinction between what I'm doing and what happens in, uh, these, images that seem solely to romanticize decay. So for me, the way to do that is in part by, making sure... So my, my photographic practice happens in series. It happens, within the confines and the context of a conceptual structure always.

[00:04:33] Steven: So I, 

[00:04:34] Carmen: know what? you're you're already talking way above my...

[00:04:37] Steven: Oh, no problem. I, any,

[00:04:38] Carmen: no. So I just want to interpret it in the way that I understand it. So you take a s- so you'll see an ab- an abandoned wall or pipes or something, and you take not just one photograph, you take a series of them. Is that correct?

[00:04:54] Steven: Well, I will only-- so for instance, I have a, a, a, a project and, um, I'll, I'll give you some examples from a couple of books of mine, books of photographs of mine, right? So one is of this, of a cast iron pipe structure in Berlin that is disused, a, a, a drainage pipe structure, clean-out valve for drainage pipes that are-- It's a strange, looking structure.

[00:05:17] Steven: Uh, it has an almost a, a, a kind of, uh, uh, an animal look to it, a totemic look in some ways. And they're, they are in use, but decaying and being replaced because they're cast iron. It's from, the GDR, the East Germany, and it's a kind of production that was possible in, in, in, East Germany that where the- they're made, they're cast for each particular building, even though they're within this kind of form.

[00:05:49] Steven: Um, and so for me, I, you know, I don't just see a pipe and say, "Oh, I'll photograph that pipe." I, I would only do this if there's a repetition of that structure. So I, I see that and I think that's an interesting valve on this pipe. And, a similar structure though, for instance, that is not decaying that I photographed is in Venice.

[00:06:11] Steven: There's a little-- They have a very particular and, uh, what seemed to me compelling, gas valve structure that is on many of the buildings. See, in Rome, there's a structure that is of, that a little door in the sides of buildings that house that through which you can a-access, plumbing and electrical conduits from the outside of the building.

[00:06:33] Steven: In London, there's a little plastic thing that used to be a part of the pavement, in it to indicate where gas pipes were. No longer does that, but it's stuck in the pavement, and it's a kind of grid, and the grid gets filled in with, different kinds of, uh, uh, uh, flora and fauna. so in each of these cases, uh, a single instance of any of these things is I might like to look at it, but I'm not going to photograph it.

[00:07:02] Steven: I need to find a, a repetition, and a repetition that is voluminous enough to, in a manner of speaking, push this kind of echo through a series so that anyone who's looking at that series is forced to think through the structure of the, say, industrial appliance in this case, that I'm imaging, which changes how they're looking at the piece, right?

[00:07:29] Steven: It's not that people can't look at an individual piece, but the, the conceptual structure allows it to, to have a different, kind of compositional meaning. It is a repetition of structure.

[00:07:43] Carmen: be rhythmic? Is it...

[00:07:46] Steven: kind of rhythmic. It's a kind of rhythm

[00:07:47] Carmen: feel like, but I, I feel like there's a s- you know what? There's, um... And again, I, I, I apologize, but we're gonna go through all of these handwritten notes. So

[00:07:58] Steven: you know, I mean, I, I l- I'll finish with one last, uh, e-example. So another project of mine, which is, uh, maybe more clearly focused on what would be seen as, as the, the ruin is this, it's, uh, a series of mine called "The Architecture of Silence,"

[00:08:15] Carmen: Oh, that's what I was gonna ask.

[00:08:16] Steven: Yeah. There you go.

[00:08:19] Steven: And, uh

[00:08:21] Carmen: like, that's what I... I have it right here. Right. Why do you see beauty in what others would think is ugly, like the crumbling, a crumbling wall, abandoned architecture? Um, it's like a visual song, right?

[00:08:30] Steven: Yes, it is like that. And it-- But in that series, although there are structural relationships, structural rhythms, there's also a big broad conceptual rhythm because it is, within a particular region, and it is all of this abandonment that's associated with a particular, land reform movement, a land reform movement that has, in-- has a strange and, and I think important history in that in Italy but in the world, a history of American, imperialism where you, you-- And this is in Italy, so you see that, post-- in post-war Italy, the Italian, the newly formed Italian Republic, the conservatives are trying to-- or the whatever the, the American liberals are, as it were, trying to, appropriate the ideologies of the communists who are gaining political ground because of the gross wealth inequalities in post-war Italy, just as in pre-war Italy, and in fascist Italy.

[00:09:33] Steven: And,

[00:09:34] Carmen: I wanna make a little note here for my audience, that's what your art is doing. So we may see the, the, the piece that you've photographed and see the series, but it's telling a human story.

[00:09:49] Steven: Yes. Yes, and often with the, the, you know, I have-- I, I work with a collaborator. so in fact, my writing is always separate from my photography. And the, the, the narrative aspects, that, that accompany my photography are always, uh, they can be written by a number of different people, but are primarily in relationship to my collaborator and my life partner, Carolyn White, who is a, an anthropologist and 

[00:10:16] Carmen: Oh, wow. Okay. I missed

[00:10:18] Steven: So yeah, no, no. Well,

[00:10:20] Carmen: makes total sense though. Like, okay, that is awesome

[00:10:24] Steven: Right. So we go-- we work together in these places, and we do these projects together and, and we each have our roles. they're separate roles, they're separate activities. They also come together in these interesting ways, I think. So I think that in with respect to these series, they can be read as visual work with...

[00:10:44] Steven: And the, the, the visual work has, a rhythmic character that maybe is more like poetry. so it doesn't-- So in, in that sense, you know, poetry does often doesn't have a narrative structure like prose does. it's a different-- It, it can move away from narrative. It can move around the rhythms of narrative.

[00:11:05] Steven: It's not necessarily telling a story, so to speak. It may be, it may be evoking, uh, a set of ideas or an, an emotional response, an emotive response

[00:11:16] Carmen: I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna disagree with you, which is kinda hard for me to do because I have such respect and esteem for you. Well, no, no, I've just learned so much about you and, and, and, a- a- and I do get a little giddy when I, um, learn from people. And I say that not to be snooty, but you know, you surround yourself with people who are better than you so you become a better person, you know?

[00:11:40] Carmen: And you are offering something I don't have, and so that's why I'm a little giddy about it. But, um, I love Maya Angelou. There are certain poet- poets that I love that are very narrative and, um, and, and I think, I'll say this for myself, but it was hard for me to read Coda. I'm just gonna be honest. Much easier for me to listen to you, 'cause I saw a couple of your YouTube, and also it's on Spotify, it's on podcast.

[00:12:07] Carmen: You actually read it and it, it's not a narrative, but it's a feeling. It's a, um, an is-ness. I- that's probably not great, but it's an is-ness listening to what you've written. And if you just let yourself go with it, it makes so much more enjoyable, the experience.

[00:12:29] Steven: Thank you. I appreciate that. And I, and actually I, I, I love that neologism isness. I think isness is a, is, is a fantastic way of thinking about it. Um, a very entirely Heideggerian of you. So

[00:12:43] Carmen: I don't know what that means.

[00:12:44] Steven: I know. I, I figured that you're not familiar with that work, but it, it, it would be, you would find it interesting and also confu- it's confusing work anyway to anyone.

[00:12:54] Steven: Um, I, I wanna just go back one s- one moment and say I, I, uh, that I happen to have access to and relationship to, uh, ways of being and, and, and doing that you might find compelling, uh, and compelling to, um, to engage with. Does... You use the word better, and I'm, I'm going to cringe at that, at, at, at a hierarchy.

[00:13:22] Steven: I'm not gonna allow a hierarchy to enter that. I'm not g- I'm not-- There's no better and worse. There's no... That's not a relation- that's not r- the kind of relationship we're setting up or that anybody should be setting up with respect to this kind of thinking. Uh, and so I would say, Ed, to, to speak to, uh, Maya Angelou for, for instance, uh, uh, very much a n- a narrative poet whose work does, but not in the way that someone telling that story as prose would tell it.

[00:13:53] Steven: It's a different way of evoki- and, and, and that's what makes it com- that's what makes her a great poet. She's not a great storyteller, story writer. She's a great poet, and the, because the, because poetry can do something that stories can't do. They can mean in multiple ways. They can leave gaps where often they don't need plot and character.

[00:14:17] Steven: They don't need any of the narrative contrivances of, uh, of, of contemporary prose, which, I mean, uh, uh, haven't always been what prose is. And maybe at a different time where there is, uh, uh, more openness about what prose can be, uh, my work would be seen as prose, not as poetry, for instance. And Maya Angelou might be writing more, uh, in, in a context like that, maybe Maya Angelou would find...

[00:14:45] Steven: Uh, not that there are not great prose writers, there are, of course, who tell stories. But, uh, I happen to find very com- really, uh, uh, important the ways that narrative poets manage to tell stories that are in, that are in very different In very different ways from the way that, that-- ways that, that storytellers do.

[00:15:08] Steven: And this is-- and of course, then there's a lot of poets who aren't narrative poets too, or who go in and out of narrativity. So if we think of, uh, I mean, there are so many examples of this, uh, of, of great, uh, great poets in every language, some of whom are really rather far from any narrativity, and some of whom go in and out of a relationship to narrativity

[00:15:33] Carmen: Huh. Would you consider someone like, um, Kahlil Gibran, like The Prophet, would you consider him a poet?

[00:15:43] Steven: I think he writes in a poetic style. Um, I think there are different ways in which, you know, I'm not that familiar with that work. I'm a little bit familiar with it from-- but it's been many, many

[00:15:54] Carmen: Yeah, I mean, the prophet's been around forever, but yeah

[00:15:56] Steven: right. And it was, uh, you know, it's been, uh, a, a very many decades since 

[00:16:03] Steven: I've, I've, uh, looked at it.

[00:16:05] Steven: But, um, I would say that it probably, it's a kind of, in a manner of speaking, a kind of wisdom literature or wisdom poetry. And it, it-- so it, it, it, it's not quite, uh, it, it's not philosophical. I mean, it's philosophical, but it's not philosophy. And it is, uh, and it has a relationship

[00:16:26] Steven: to 

[00:16:27] Carmen: can you explain? can you like, yeah, mm-mm. I need this for me. Can you explain it's philosophical but it's not philosophy?

[00:16:35] Steven: Well, I mean, it doesn't, uh, really appropriate that-- it, it really is, I think, and even in its title, calling it "The Prophet," it is appropriating and, and, and, and thinking through the tropes of prophetic literature and revelatory or religious literature, right? So I think he thinks of it-- I mean, that's neither a, a praise or criticism.

[00:16:58] Steven: It's just descriptive. And, uh, and, uh, I think then as opposed to when I say it's not philosophy, I mean it doesn't engage with the kinds of questions that are engendered in, in the philosophical traditions, uh, in various philosophical traditions. in the tradition in the West, that starts with, in many respects, in terms of our literary knowledge, it starts with Plato.

[00:17:26] Steven: But in, in China, Japan, India, Africa, many places, there are similar traditions, uh, uh, that, that are, that develop in similar ways, though with their own distinct resonances, that are not interacting with the Western tradition.

[00:17:44] Steven: The Western tradition obviously is, because our-- we are,so inundated with those sources and, a-and, our view of so many other sources, at least in the European West, is so obstructed, uh, or even occluded by colonialism. But

[00:18:05] Carmen: Okay. I, I, I, I wanna hear more about how you became who you are today in this field. But before we do that, I'm gonna go back 'cause you just, like, slapped me in my own podcast about better I just wanna... No, no, it was good. It was good. You're honest. What would you... What would be the right way to say what I was trying to say then?

[00:18:28] Carmen: Because I think you're on point, right? Um, and I, and, and I'm, again, I just wanna learn something different. Yeah. There, there is no doubt there is something you're giving me that I didn't know before, and what I'm trying to share with my audience is that feeling of when you were a k- lookit, one of the best things that happened to me when I was a kid was I was forced to see, and I say forced, um, to see the opera Carmen, okay?

[00:18:56] Carmen: And, uh, my name is Carmen for those who are confused. Um, but also, as a young kid, I was really into dance, and I loved it, so I had to go see Mikhail Baryshnikov, and, and I saw Rudolf Nureyev. These are things that people in my neighborhood would have never had the opportunity to see, but it changes who you are because you learn something you didn't know before.

[00:19:17] Carmen: So what would be a better way for me to have said what I said that, that you are better than me or something? What would've been a better way to share what I was trying to say?

[00:19:29] Steven: Well, I just, you know, I-- the, the reason why I don't want you to say-- why I don't want people to say that someone is better than someone else because of, say, for instance, access, uh, you know, the fact that I have this kind of the, the sorts of knowledge base that I have and the sorts of references that I have, yeah, a lot of that has to do with my motivation and what I'm drawn to and...

[00:19:51] Steven: But, but I would say more of it has to do with opportunities I've been given that other people haven't been given. You know? Uh, i-it's chance. We are, we-- our, our lives are structured around fortune, right? And we, we, and we, we have material advantage or not, or e- And if we don't, s-some, an opportunity, a sliver of opportunity opens up for us somewhere along the way, and sometimes-- and we, and we accidentally step into it, you know?

[00:20:24] Steven: Or we, or we seize the opportunity and, uh, we like to give ourselves credit for it, but that's absurd. We can't give ourselves credit for it. You know, we, we don't all have, uh... We, we have-- Because we're not all ready at the same-- We're not all made-- We're not all prepared, or we haven't all been prepared to take those opportunities when they present themselves.

[00:20:43] Steven: So it's not ju- It's also that, you know, we-we're here to talk about my work, so of course, we're talking about my work, and we're ta- you know. But there's another context where you're talking about, uh, the, your life experience, your life as a podcaster, your life in a hundred ways that I have no knowledge of and where I'm learning from you.

[00:21:06] Steven: And, and that is, uh, uh, it's, uh, reasonable to assume that those relationships happen in every relationship. There's always... Uh, and it happens to be the case that right now you see me, you know, it, it's the structure of the, of your podcast and your, your

[00:21:23] Carmen: I, I think you're, you're very kind and humble and gracious. I, I think that's awesome. How did you, how did you find yourself becoming, um, the photographer, the writer, the philosopher, the poet?

[00:21:39] Steven: Well, you know, I, I, I, for me, I would say, uh, uh, in many ways, just as an example of this, uh, uh, my, uh, intellectual and creative path began with, uh, a, a kind of what would-- what was and would definitively be seen as mental illness, as, as, as a neurosis, uh, uh, y- as debilitating obsessive compulsive disorder when I was a kid.

[00:22:15] Carmen: Really? This is so fascinating. Okay

[00:22:19] Steven: And then that, uh, I had-- I was in a circumstance where my, my parent, though I was essentially was floundering quite terribly and was failing out of high school and, but my, my parents could say: "Look, you could do so..." We, we... I, I mean, it wasn't easy for them. They were-- They felt like it was a s- you know, at that time, that it would, it would be a stigma for me to go to, to, into therapy to talk to someone, and a stigma on them as they didn't grow up with anything that might s- see that they were not people who, uh, who went to college or, you know, my father didn't graduate from high school.

[00:23:05] Steven: It was a, they, so they came out of a background that, that... And, and I, in my compulsive life, uh, I happened to find, for whatever reason, certain types of literary engagement, uh, as an esc- as, as the only place of some relief, I suppose. Uh, so it was reading those materials. I don't know why that is. I, they weren't presented to me in that way, but somehow that it occurred to...

[00:23:38] Steven: I found tho-those, the, that work and it, uh, and, and it freed me in some way thinking in these ways. So, um, you know, and then through that, that, uh, I, I was able to, through seeing, uh, uh, uh, this psychiatrist and then through, uh, i- a ver- an intervention that allowed me to, again, by virtue of my, where I was and, and, and who my parents were in that context, uh, and, and the, the, uh, the social world that I grew up in, and which, a, a solidly middle-class place, I was able to be seen in the suburbs of, uh, in the Philadelphia suburbs.

[00:24:27] Steven: I was able to 

[00:24:28] Steven: be seen...

[00:24:29] Carmen: Okay 

[00:24:30] Steven: from, from South Jersey, from New Jersey, the New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia, so not Philadelphia itself. Um, and, uh, I could, I could be seen by, and, and ultimately, uh Uh, the, the things I was doing could be seen as valuable even though they were taking me away from school. But, you know, and this is just to, to say other people in other circumstances, they would-- it wouldn't be seen as valuable and they wouldn't find a pathway out.

[00:24:58] Steven: So I found for me it was seen as valuable and then so someone, uh, a- and that, and I was able to go to college before-- without gradu- without finishing high school. So I could leave high school and go to college and, uh, but again, it's luck. It's luck that that happened. I 

[00:25:15] Carmen: I think, you know what I mean?

[00:25:16] Steven: it has to do with your own path, but it's luck

[00:25:18] Carmen: Well, okay, so you and I will disagree on that, and we'll fight about that some other time. I don't know if it's... I, I, I don't wanna believe in luck. I think, I think it's hard for me to believe in luck because I feel like every day I fight for what I learn and what I am, and you know what I mean?

[00:25:36] Carmen: And I think that's part of how I just grew up. And so to throw it all to luck feels not okay for me. I don't know how to explain it

[00:25:45] Steven: Okay. May- maybe, maybe luck is the, is not the exactly right word, but it is-- we are, we-- it's not luck as in fate. I don't mean it that way. I mean luck as in there-- we live in a society and a culture which is so, which is so profoundly inflected by inequity, right? By, 

[00:26:08] Carmen: absolutely true.

[00:26:09] Steven: by, by, uh, by class inequity, by prejudice in various forms, by racism, by, you know, by all of-- by xenophobia,

[00:26:21] Carmen: All

[00:26:21] Steven: all of the things.

[00:26:22] Steven: And, uh, and sexism and, and homophobia and transphobia and everything else that we've, we are experiencing so radically now. And so people who are, uh, you know, uh, are... So when I say luck, I mean, uh, y- you know, uh, I'm happy to say that, uh, I think that, y- you know, when I was growing up in where I grew up, even a fairly progressive place, and I went to a very, really progressive college, and, uh, y- people could be out, but it wasn't without stigma, right?

[00:26:55] Steven: And, uh, and I had a very, uh, as an example, a very close friend who, uh, was trans, we would call it now, but at then we didn't, that wasn't

[00:27:07] Carmen: We didn't have those words. Right. People don't realize that, yeah

[00:27:09] Steven: And, and, uh, he, he couldn't find a path to be-- to express that. And, and, uh, I mean, I report this with enormous, still enormous sadness, uh, that, that he, he took his own life.

[00:27:24] Steven: He was a victim of suicide ultimately because he was so, uh, so, so, uh, oppressed by this cultural milieu that we were in at that time. That wouldn't happen now. So in a sense, he had the bad luck of being... I- if he were born now, that would've been better luck than... So that's the kind of luck I'm talking about.

[00:27:46] Steven: It's not really the luck of

[00:27:47] Carmen: more like, um... So I think we're kind of on the same page. I believe in chaos theory, right? So I love the idea that we don't understand, um, what we think is chaos, but if you look at it closely, there are patterns, and those patterns have consequences to them, right? So it's kind of what you're saying in a roundabout way, I think, that it's societal and, um, we don't all have the same possibilities.

[00:28:18] Carmen: Um, I, yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:21] Steven: Designed that way. I mean, this is, it's

[00:28:22] Carmen: It's design, though. Oh, that's great.

[00:28:25] Steven: that way from the beginning. It's, it's, it's suppo- that's what they want. This is what they... It's what, uh, we, we, insofar as, uh, in, in one of the interesting things about how capitalism devel- develops is that it seems to have an agency of its own. It, of course, it doesn't.

[00:28:42] Steven: But, so it, as in the way in which it, it, it requires and asks of us to accept that the greatest possible equity in the society is through these monstrous mechanisms of ineq- inequity, And, 

[00:28:59] Carmen: right

[00:29:00] Steven: and because it assumes that any attempt to, I mean, this is what a conservative would tell you, that any attempt to change that inequity would be filled with so much corruption and, and malfeasance that it would, it would, uh, it would create other forms of inequity.

[00:29:17] Steven: Of course, most of those people, uh, are not, ha- have, have not been on the side of those inequities. 

[00:29:25] Carmen: To know any better. And we can see the, the evidence with what's happening in New York with Mayor Mumtahi . I mean,

[00:29:31] Steven: Yeah

[00:29:32] Carmen: like, it's so weird. 

[00:29:34] Steven: Yeah 

[00:29:35] Carmen: okay, this is, this is not how I thought this interview was gonna go. Thank you so much for indulging me. This is so much fun for me. I hope it's working for you, too.

[00:29:45] Carmen: I have kind of maybe an odd question, but I'm gonna ask it.

[00:29:48] Carmen: You travel around the world. You've been to Japan, Italy. You've, you've done all this work, all this art. Is the decay and the abandonment and kind of the, the ugliness different in different places? Or is there something that's fundamentally the same about them?

[00:30:08] Steven: Uh, both, I would say. And I would, I, I would not say ugliness in any of these cases. Uh, the-- it's interesting, it's, uh, a discomfort. The, uh... So for instance, in the case of the, um, the, the work in, in Basilicata and Puglia in Italy, in Southern Italy, the, these, this work in these abandoned houses of this, this post-war land reform movement.

[00:30:32] Steven: Um, uh, the-- So, you know, part of the reason people are drawn to imaging abandonment

[00:30:41] Carmen: Uhum

[00:30:41] Steven: is that, uh, there is a way in which, I mean, obviously there is a kind of popular term that references how, uh, in Japanese art there's a value to natural decay, and then people say wabi-sabi, which is kind of a silly thing.

[00:31:00] Steven: But it, it essentially means, uh, what people are trying to suggest and what is true about a, a certain tradition within Japanese aesthetics, which we see they, they've just vocalized it as opposed to, uh, 

[00:31:13] Carmen: So this is 

[00:31:14] Steven: in other words. 

[00:31:14] Carmen: decay?

[00:31:15] Steven: Yeah. So it, 

[00:31:16] Steven: it, it, it, does. So you might see in Japanese ceramics might often, uh, like some of the most, uh, interesting and, and greatest, uh, uh, uh, uh, potters in, uh, the Japanese ceramics tradition are, uh, wi- will, will in a manner of speaking, uh, use glazes and other things and even manipulations of the form of the, of the vessel that they're making to, uh, approximate a kind of, uh, of decaying matter in a natural setting.

[00:31:52] Steven: And so, and it's seen as qui- that's-- and part of that and, in, in Eastern traditions in general, there's a much more profound appreciation or earlier appreciation of, of art that refuses symmetry so early in, in... And so symmetry, is of course a very basic mode of composition and one which we all 

[00:32:18] Carmen: being equal

[00:32:19] Steven: everything being equal and, uh, in very particular ways.

[00:32:22] Steven: And, and so, uh, not really, finding negative space in that sort of way and even in, the ways in which, uh, those arts traditionally do not attempt to reproduce spatial relations or relationships within what they're representing accurately. So they are, they, they are abstract from the beginning and they remain abstract.

[00:32:50] Steven: And we see that. So there's a way in which people want to think that, that the Renaissance, for instance, is this great leap forward. It's a leap forward in Western, uh, in Western art and it's-- is it a we leap forward? Is w- when we look back at, at, at medieval art, for instance, and its flatness characterized by this flatness, that is a kind, of course, it's a kind of abstraction from...

[00:33:18] Steven: And it-- And as an abstraction, it's not a pr- it's not something that is, an inability. It's a different mode of-- a different expressive mode. And in, Japanese arts, in, in Chinese arts, in Indian arts, that flatness was sought. It wasn't, it, it wasn't that it was, So when the Jesuits, for instance, first showed up in Japan and proposed, the, ways, recently discovered ways of, drawing perspective and of representing perspective, the Japanese said, "You know, why would we wanna do that?

[00:33:55] Steven: We're making art. We're not making-- I'm, I'm not just trying to, you know, this is-- I don't need it to be accurate. I need it to be expressive."

[00:34:04] Carmen: Expressive. Okay

[00:34:06] Steven: And so, uh, you know, and of course, obviously in Western art we have moved past, uh, representational and figurative art as we have in many other, a-as many other arts have and did at the beginning.

[00:34:19] Steven: Of course, many of the early, people working in abstraction in the West took great, influence from and appropriated a lot of the tropes of art practices and art traditions that were not Western, of African traditions, of Asian traditions. Uh, and, and the ways in which those abstractions were already, uh, a well-established part of those traditions.

[00:34:43] Steven: Um, that's of course, uh, uh, in fact, it's always framed as Picasso loved primitive... It's not always framed. It used to be always framed as, as Picasso liking... I mean, the, a-and they're all horribly colonialist and racist

[00:34:58] Carmen: Right.

[00:35:00] Steven: but ha-happily, art historians are not so now, I think, uh, for, to a large extent. Um, or I hope that's true.

[00:35:09] Steven: Um, 

[00:35:11] Steven: there are n- there are many 

[00:35:12] Steven: that aren't. 

[00:35:12] Carmen: it's true too, but

[00:35:13] Steven: Yeah, there are many who are, but, this is all to say that, uh, in, in my work representing those abandoned spaces, 

[00:35:23] Steven: right? Those, those a- those abandoned spaces represent, they're difficult for people to look at, not be, I mean, people, uh, I hope often, I, I think an interesting thing is to take something that people find perhaps on some level ugly in the way that you're saying, and make it beautiful and find it so that the image is beautiful, although the thing was seen as ugly, and it's often seen as ugly because of the ways in which it, the, the history that it evokes.

[00:35:52] Steven: So, uh, it's an interesting, uh, one of the interesting relationships with people in the communities where these houses in that series, uh, reside or are in the, they're basically in the fields. the people sort of, uh, who, who directly remember living in those homes or their parents or grandparents living in those homes, the ones who experienced those places and experienced them as sites of tragedy, they don't, they, they don't wanna see those photos.

[00:36:22] Steven: They don't wanna see

[00:36:23] Carmen: they don't wanna see them at all

[00:36:25] Steven: No, they don't. They, "Why are you doing this? Why-- This is an ugly thing and an ugly period, and this is a, this is painful." 

[00:36:32] Carmen: Oh, I thought it was the opposite.

[00:36:34] Steven: Yeah ... and it's the younger generation who be-- And part of that is that, y- and this is often the case, is that people who, it, it is easy for people, it's easy for people who are vic- who are victimized by policy, by whatever, to understand it and to even frame it as a personal failing.

[00:36:54] Steven: And it's not, uh, uh, they, they, they'll a- they'll say, "Well, I'm ashamed of having, of this having happened here," as though it had something to do with them, and it has nothing to do... It was a, this, in this case, it was a program that was designed to fail, that it couldn't have succeeded. 

[00:37:10] Steven: And it- 

[00:37:11] Carmen: but I think, I, I, I think just to give it a different framing, um... Wow, you just, I, th- that just totally threw my, my whole idea because, like, when I think back on where I grew up and I remember my home where my mom was or whatever, and there's a lot of tragedy that happened and a lot of stuff, I act- So y- you would think I'd be like those people, right?

[00:37:35] Carmen: Like, you'd be like... But actually the opposite happens where I'm like, I remember the good parts. I don't have to remember. But what you're saying is, well, like you, what you're alluding to is that a lot of the people that grew up there, that these homes were theirs, they see the ugliness, they don't see the good parts, and they almost, I don't wanna say blame themselves, but you must feel something of some sort of responsibility, right?

[00:38:03] Carmen: Of, to have, to evoke that feeling.

[00:38:05] Steven: I think that they do blame themselves, and it's a, it's that they weren't able to succeed, that the program didn't succeed for them. So this was a program that was supposed to lead them to have their own land, their-- to farm and so on, but it was structured so that they, they really couldn't... The best they could do was subsistence.

[00:38:26] Steven: They weren't given

[00:38:26] Carmen: philosophy part of this that you're, that you kind of hang onto is that it wasn't there, th- th- it, this is the luck thing you're talking about

[00:38:36] Steven: It was definitively not their fault. They couldn't have succeeded. They couldn't have succeeded. And so they, they, they end up often only in those houses, unlike perhaps the house you grew up in, they're only in those houses for a couple of years before they have to move on. And so they've lost their old lives.

[00:38:51] Steven: The communities they came from are gone because they've all been moved to these houses all over the place. So the next thing they can do, they abandon those houses, and then they're, you know... And, and those houses and the land associated with them revert back to government ownership and then get sold to large agribusiness in the post-war era.

[00:39:12] Steven: So it's this conversion of kind of feudal agriculture, small or large estate with, with, uh, with essentially tenant farmers, uh, into, uh, into corporate agriculture in a generation. And those people h- are-- they're, they're, they look for work elsewhere. They go nor- to the northern Italy, uh, factories that are developing post-war.

[00:39:37] Steven: They go to Germany. They come to the United States. It's a, it-- They're, they end up having... But they, with this sense like, "Oh, there was this program, it was for me, and I couldn't make it work."

[00:39:49] Carmen: And I failed or I whatever and,

[00:39:52] Steven: Or people think that, or people, that's what

[00:39:54] Carmen: Or people believe that or whatever. And that's what your art evokes. That's what, that's the story behind everything that you kinda do. And that's kind of what I wanna share with people is kinda how I started with that story going to the art museum as a kid, just feeling first overwhelmed because it was new to me, and then being able to take it in and wow, that was just so fascinating.

[00:40:18] Carmen: What, what do you want people who may have never read your books or have never seen any of your art, what, what would you like people to take from this conversation?

[00:40:35] Steven: You know, I, interestingly, I don't know that I ever go into a conversation with some notion, but it's a conversation. So we're, we-- I'm learning about you and about your life experience, and I, I think, uh, this, this, this child- uh, childhood experience that you're describing, uh, of going to the art museum, of going to the MFA, and the, the ways in which...

[00:40:57] Steven: And this is something I, I tell people all the time who, uh, you know, friends or family or what have you, who are not perhaps particularly interested in art and who haven't had that much experience or haven't had spent time thinking about it or learning it, uh, learning about it and, and, and crawling into it, as it were.

[00:41:19] Steven: Um, and, and is when, when you, when you see a piece, when you're in an art museum and you think like, "I don't under- this-- I don't like this. I don't like it at all." It-- or, "It's nothing." That's where you have to pay attention. That's where you have to actually force yourself to think clearly. That's the place where you're really learning something, is when you're thinking, "Well, what..."

[00:41:43] Steven: You know, s- there's, there's some kind of discursive context. It's not to say you're gonna come away with a different feeling. Maybe you still hate the piece, right? But you hate it for a different reason. You, you ask yourself, "Okay," let's say, "I don't know what's going on here. Why?" You know, "I hate this," but obviously somebody doesn't.

[00:42:04] Steven: Somebody thinks it's, it-- Somebody's willing to, you know, devote a huge amount of resources to, not just to making it, but obviously to purchasing it, to hanging it, to having it in a museum, the space in the museum, which is diff- which i- is, i- there's a, a lot of art competing to be in that space, right? So somebody, somebody is thinking...

[00:42:23] Steven: Okay, so you, you ask yourself, "What are they thinking? And how do I figure out what they were thinking?" Right? And, and, and that in itself is a journey because the journey through the discursive practices of art and the way that art relates to other art, and the way in which it's talking to other art. And the same thing is true with, with literature.

[00:42:44] Steven: When you find work that is, that, that troubles you, that bothers you, and that where, where you think, "I don't understand this," you don't have to ultimately understand it. You don't have to ultimately like it. But I guarantee you, a lot of the things that you think you hate and don't understand are the thing, are things that you will most love when you find, when you get to the bottom of it.

[00:43:08] Carmen: I l- that is, I love that. That is exactly true. I think, I think you said something that's really important. I lean in when I don't know, and I wish more people would lean in. So if something scares you or something you don't understand it, why don't you... Like, instead of pushing it away, why don't you embrace it?

[00:43:30] Carmen: And it's because I, I, to this day, it is a white canvas with a blue line through it. I'll never forget it. I don't know who the artist is. I don't wanna know 'cause I don't wanna mess up the memory. But here's the thing. I felt stupid. I felt dumb.

[00:43:45] Steven: うん、う

[00:43:45] Carmen: I felt poor. I felt Blacker and more Latina, like, because that, you know, it had its own ideas to it, right?

[00:43:55] Carmen: 'Cause I wasn't smart enough, and that's what that was about

[00:44:00] Steven: Right. And, you know, that can often be the case that people, when they feel... I, I, you know, I guarantee you that the painter making that painting didn't think, "I really hope people see this and feel dumb."

[00:44:11] Carmen: No, of course

[00:44:15] Carmen: not. Of course not 

[00:44:15] Steven: and, and I understand why you-- but that's because you were not there, there... It's, it's wonderful that you were put in front of it. You don't have to, you know, but when you, when you're put in front of work that you're not prepared to see, that can be a revelation for exactly the reason. You say, "I feel dumb," but you think, "Well, what?

[00:44:33] Steven: You know, I just don't understand this. That doesn't mean I'm dumb." It means that a lot of people will respond to that with anger. And if they don't understand something, they mean, they think it means that it's not, that it's not meaningful, that it doesn't have meaning if they can't find the meaning in- initially, that it's not

[00:44:52] Carmen: they make it about the other person and not themselves. They make it about the artist instead of themself.

[00:44:56] Steven: That's right. And, you know, again, they could come to the bo- there's plenty of art that I think, you know, I, I really don't like that piece. I don't like that work. I don't like that direction. I don't like the way that that person writes. I don't like what they're writing. I don't like their style.

[00:45:11] Steven: I don't like this, uh, I don't like this practice of painters, but, uh, of a particular painter or what have you. Uh, and then, uh, it happens all the time.

[00:45:23] Carmen: Ja

[00:45:23] Steven: know, as you know more about what people are doing, of course, you, you don't have fewer opinions. But I'll tell you, I don't hate it because I don't feel repulsed.

[00:45:35] Steven: I don't feel-- There, you, you see this often that, th- that people will, people who are looking, who, whose idea of art is essentially a kind of painted photograph. They want representation. They just want accurate representation on a certain way. A- and they don't know, they, they're, they're not, they're not even distinguishing between those forms of representation.

[00:45:55] Steven: Okay? Th- those, those ways of rep- that representation can be, uh, can, ca- are expressive.

[00:46:02] Carmen: They're expressed. Right, right, right

[00:46:04] Steven: and so they, uh, and that's, you know, they haven't thought about it that much. They haven't been exposed to it that much. They haven't, they haven't had the opportunity to, to think about it and to be exposed to it. And, and, uh, and so for them, abstraction in particular ends up seeming like a form of repulsive nonsense.

[00:46:27] Steven: And, what I think is so compelling, and I, I'll say this about, about my own work, you know, I, I have people who will say, "I don't understand why you photograph that. I don't, I just don't understand. It's a pipe. I don't get that." And I'll be like, "Well, okay. That's fine. I don't, I don't need you to get it.

[00:46:44] Steven: I don't care." Or with my, with my writing, it's difficult. I know it's difficult work. And people will say, "I don't understand." And it's like, "Okay." Uh, that's, that's, that's,

[00:46:54] Carmen: I know, but it, but it

[00:46:54] Steven: that's okay, you know?

[00:46:56] Carmen: I know, but I actually want people to... I did not understand your... So your, your, your people sent me the PDF, 

[00:47:05] Carmen: um, and I started reading it, and I was like, and I knew four pages in, I'm like, "I, I, I, it, I'm not feeling it. I'm not feeling it." But then I was like, " Well, let me go to his website," um, which is Steven Seidenberg.

[00:47:20] Carmen: Am I saying it right, your name right, sir? Yeah. Seidenberg.com. You can find all of his work there. It, it's also on Amazon, but go to his website first and find the links there. Um, I went and then I saw Spotify, and I saw that you had the links to the audio, and I saw that you had, uh, you had done some readings, just a few chapters at different bookstores or whatever.

[00:47:43] Carmen: And so I watched those to get a vibe of who you are, which really helped for me. And then, um, and I don't know if aphantasia works in my favor, but it, I think it does in this sense. I have... You know what aphantasia is, right?

[00:47:55] Steven: No, I don't know what that is

[00:47:56] Carmen: Oh, oh, for people who don't know what aphantasia is, um, so aphantasia is the inability to form images.

[00:48:04] Carmen: I don't have photographs that come in my head, right? So most people, a lot of people don't know this, but most people when they think of things, they think, "Oh, let me think of Steven," they see a picture of Steven in his head. I don't. I would s- I would remember the feeling I have of you. And so sometimes I think it works in my favor, and in this case, the audio version of, and then reading along with it, because it's not a linear story.

[00:48:33] Carmen: And for me, it was really about feeling, and that's where it, it clicked for me, and I stopped trying to... I'm like, "Who is telling this story? Who is telling?" And the, the, it's, it's not. It's, it's not a known narrator, uh, narrator. So I think, and, and I, I haven't finished it, uh, but I'm, but I am going to, like, 'cause I'm excited by it, you know?

[00:48:56] Carmen: So I hope that's what people get from this, um, episode. I'm so glad you're, you're here and that you chose to come on here. I know you're, you're, you're doing the, the gamut of it, but, um, I just feel really honored, and I don't care how you feel about that.

[00:49:12] Steven: No, I feel good about that. I feel honored too to talk to you. So I can say we can, we-- it can be in both directions. That's

[00:49:18] Steven: fine. Uh, a-and yeah,

[00:49:20] Carmen: go ahead. I'm sorry.

[00:49:21] Steven: I was going to say just apropos of what you were just saying, that, uh, uh, uh, one of the... Understanding is overrated. Being in a place of misunder- or of, of, of confusion is extraordinarily valuable, and allowing yourself to just be confused and see what happens.

[00:49:40] Steven: What's the problem? You know, and for, for with respect to, to say Coda or other, uh, literary work of mine, as you say-- So I'll, I'll say also to plug that the last three books of mine are available as audiobooks for free. You can download them and find them on all the Spotify and Audible and all those places, uh, or on my website you can, you can find links to all of that and, you can read along or you can just listen to the complete works of those, those last three books of mine.

[00:50:11] Steven: Uh, and uh, and there you can allow yourself to not understand, but to hear the, hear the work, to hear the musicality of the work, to appreciate and to, to allow yourself to be, uh, um, transported by the rhythm of the work and the way in which it moves in that respect. And you understand a bit here, and then you don't, and then you do, and then you don't, and the humor of the work and all of that stuff, 

[00:50:41] Carmen: Yeah, you're a little, you're a little wacky and absurd in some of your

[00:50:45] Carmen: stuff. 

[00:50:46] Steven: yes indeed.

[00:50:47] Carmen: I found myself, I f- look at you, like, "Thank you." I was like, "Wait a minute, let me go back again. What?" Like, so, um, I, you know, look, I, I say this all the time, and I really mean it. I hope you'll come back again. I'd like to get to know you better, um, and I feel like, um, listening to your work...

[00:51:07] Carmen: Again, people should go to stevenseitenberg.com to check out all of it. Uh, but I, I find you fascinating. I love people who, I'm gonna say it, make me a better person. I know what you mean. But I like to grow. I, I wanna grow, and so is that better? Grow.

[00:51:24] Carmen: It's grow. So, um, so I hope you'll come back, and either

[00:51:27] Steven: Sure, 

[00:51:27] Carmen: you so much for being here.

[00:51:29] Steven: No, my pleasure. My pleasure

[00:51:31] Carmen: everyone, thank you so much for hanging out with us in the private lounge at All About the Joy. Uh, remember, you can get all of his works, at stevenseitenberg.com. and you have three of your books that you read on, um, all of the audio podcasts, right?

[00:51:49] Steven: Yeah, that you can read, that you can find in on Spotify or wherever else you get

[00:51:54] Carmen: I thought Coda was one of your most recent works

[00:51:56] Steven: Yeah, it's my most recent work.

[00:51:58] Carmen: Yeah, 'cause that's what I was read, um, that's what I was listening to and

[00:52:00] Steven: work that came out most recently. So "CODA" and then the one before that, "Anon," and the one before that, "Plain Sight," all three of those books, you, if you look me up on Spotify, they'll, it'll, uh, it may look like, uh, you know, a th- a three-hour podcast or a four-hour podcast or something, but it's really me reading the book,

[00:52:19] Carmen: Yeah, it's you reading the book, which is actually really cool. For me, it's really cool. So, um, but yeah. Thank you everyone, and remember at the end of the day, it really is all about the joy. Thank you everyone. Bye.