the white noise
the white noise

"the white noise" is a result of the 15 years lasting project "yes, i have an answer". in physics "the white noise" means the simultanous noise of all frequencies - in the installations of the same name it refers to the huge number of different handwritings, languages and answers.
(2008)

city galery in the elbeforum, brunsbüttel
© roswitha steinkopf
(2008)

exibition in elbeform, brunsbüttel
© roswitha steinkopf

installation (detail) of the installation in williamsburg art and historical center, new york, 2001
© roswitha steinkopf
(2002)

"...no artist today could be driven to carry out such an "art is..." survey on a daily basis for weeks in the hope of finding a new, perhaps even a final answer to the old question, especially not with the heavy load of dozens of unwieldy wooden panels in her hand luggage. nor did roswitha steinkopf set out as a sociologist to evaluate the empirically collected data statistically and interpret it. steinkopf is a painter, an artist, a producer of pictures. the panels obtained and hoped for by her represent the flood of possible pictures, the endless variations of which have been recorded in the collective memory of our society and thus represent the "pictures in our heads", as she says herself.
however individual and varied each of the contacts between artist and respondent may have been, the aim of steinkopf´s artistic project was not the singularity of the individual panels. art and its reception take place in the plural today. the uniqueness of the individual, whether of the individual panels or the individual volunteers who were persuaded to write down their thoughts, assumes relative value considering the interchangeability of the individual experienced in a city of millions of people. so it is consistent for roswitha steinkopf to aim for large, unlimited, actually infinite numbers of items in her project, as she did in her expo project "greetings". the conflict between interpersonal contact and its resolution in the anonymity of modern globality is reflected in the duality of artistic production (personal questioning as an artistic act) and the reception of the limitless number of apparently serial panels produced by it. the actual contours of this work appear only in the mass presentation of the work, in the visualisation of the irresolvable basic conflict of modern western civilisation, between the insistence on the supremacy of the uniqueness and self-realisation of the individual and the actual levelling out of the individual in a society moving increasingly towards standardisation, the law of the masses, the ability to put a monetary value to everything and permanent availability. between the heroism of individual masterworks, the cornerstones of the history of art, and the thousandfold derivatives of the pictures made available in the media, in books and magazines, on the screen and finally, above all, in our heads..."

martin henatsch: art? no answer possible, 2003, translated by peter bowen


the following media for example reportet about the action:
in shanghai:
oriental morning post
xinhua news agency
china trade news
sh.sina.com.cn
bund
xiamin weekly
youth daily
quo (englisch magazin)

tv - interviews/reports / radio
ard (foreign correspondent)
shanhgai tv station (news channel)
city beat (englisch tv in shanghai)
today´s impression (tv)

in new york:
n.y.greenpoint gazette

in germany:
kunstforum international 173
kunstforum international 177
kieler nachrichten (several times)

in nepal
the kathmandu post
the himalayan

in lamu, kenia
the east african
sunday nation
business daily
© roswitha steinkopf

impression of different languages and writings, 2011
© roswitha steinkopf