wHiTe nOIsE
An irrational, thought-provoking artistic project using the Internet as a tool.
Active from 1997-2002, then I developed it more sporadically until 2011. White Noise then remained in cyberspace for some years, until html ceased to dominate.
The Internet in its beginnings and for my part around 1997 was pure ”Wild West”, people borrowed wildly, images were shown openly without restrictions and they were easy to download on one’s own computer. You could easily find nude pictures, pornographic pictures, but even worse which I discovered, pictures of injured people, corpses, corpse parts, disgusting pictures. Discussion forums had no logins and you could follow the most absurd discussions. Later I discovered that codes were open to the most exciting experiments with javascript etc, which could make the browser jump, generate images that ran across the entire screen. That is, very annoying coding. I absorbed all this, completely fascinated, and created White Noise.
just so you know wHiTe nOIsE is a thief, an irrational receiver of impulses from the net.
Happy Sisters
1997 – The first thing I did on the White Noise site was ”Happy Sisters” with a pornographic background image I found of two busty girls, where I also put their breasts over their faces. There were buttons to press – to see more! wow.. nah … sorry … The buttons led to new pages, but everything was just a round trip that didn’t show anything. The only thing that was revealed was the viewer’s/visitor’s curiosity and scandal-seeking. (remember this was 1997, in the childhood of Internet ..)
Happy Sisters became very popular, people had a good laugh and I got loads of emails (where are these now?) and this was my introduction to White Noise.
ONLINE
I was engulfed by all the voices heard on the net, people screamed, cried, hated, loved – completely publicly, in discussion forums, email threads, posts etc. So I created ONLINE – A VOICE FROM THE NET FOR ONE WEEK. Every week between 1998 – 2002 I let someone’s voice be highlighted and be ”public” (to those who visited my website) for a week.
Now more than 20 years later, in my opinion, this ONLINE is one of the most interesting things about White Noise. This flow of voices that went on for 5 years says so much about us humans. If you have time READ THEM, 9 pdf pages. They are so interesting!!!
» Online 24 April – 11 October 1998, as Pdf
» Online 11 October – 28 December 1998, as Pdf
» Online 28 December 1998 – 2 May 1999, as Pdf
» Online 2 May – 19 September 1999, as Pdf
» Online 19 September 1999 – 10 January 2000, as Pdf
» Online 10 January – 17 June 2000, as Pdf
» Online 17 June 2000 – 15 January 2001, as Pdf
» Online 15 January – 16 September 2001, as Pdf
» Online 16 September 2001 – 15 October 2002, as Pdf
Note! do not click on any link. We don’t know where these lead now, may infect your hard drive or…
But of course … if I write this, many of you will do exactly this 😉
Springer’s TVTalkShow
Springer’s TVTalkShow discussion forum was also interesting. It’s both funny – and scary – how people just freak out when they’re behind a computer. But if you look at the pictures, they seem to have attacked each other IRL too 😉
» TVTalkShows Topic JESUS 1, as Pdf
» TVTalkShows Topic JESUS 2, as Pdf
» TVTalkShows Topic JESUS 3, as Pdf
» TVTalkShows Topic JESUS 4, as Pdf
Below pictures from ”Letters”. (but not the cat picture …)
And more …
I was like a plaster, a fascinated vacuum cleaner, sucking up everything that showed human behavior in all its ways and wrongs. White Noise developed into a site that, depending on which link you clicked on, could last for hours. Here was ”No Comment” with terrible pictures, pictures so nasty that today I don’t understand how I could post them. But I wanted to portray man in all his forms, even the incredibly dark ones.
Here were ”Web cams”, guys who posted their picture on dating sites and to whom I commented very meanly / or vice versa. ”Web tennis” was a meditative page where you clicked your way through the words ”I AM”, ”YOU ARE”, ”WE ARE” back and forth…
and more …
After that I started experimenting with javascript and Flash files and White Noise became more and more absurd, pages jumped or texts scrolled, pages with about 5 frames were replaced at a furious pace – and not in order. Suddenly a squirrel could sing or a question could be asked. Or suddenly you read meditative night thoughts, which still touch me today.
White noise ceased in about 2002 but was updated sparingly until 2011. I created this website based on my own fashination, but the knowledge I gained in html coding I transferred to the extensive site Primate Society and to my collaboration with Gerhard Mantz and DIAN – Digital Interactive Artists Network.
In this changing time of ours with technology that is updated at an incredible speed, it is no longer possible to show White Noise in its entirety. I was able to see parts of the site the other day on my old Emac, but I couldn’t see the full structure of the pages I built. Still, from what I see, White Noise is something I’m very proud to have created.
During the years the page was active, I had email contact with people from all over the world, who saw my website and were completely absorbed. Unfortunately, I never saved this communication or it ended up on some hard drive that is no longer readable.
Wondering if there is an Internet Museum? White Noise should belong there 🙂
Gunilla Leander
May 2024