
There is nothing to be seen in lastwishes. It deals solely with
the principles of communication. Mailing lists are popular tools for the
exchange of thoughts and opinions: they make multiple (written) dialogues
possible as well as the archiving for future references. In this work the
mailinglist-software “mailman” is modified to allow only one single posting
from a sender. The user is able to subscribe and to receive messages
endlessly but post only once and by this immediately get unsubscribed. The
idea of “exchange” is thereby turned into something absurd: one can listen
but only talk once. Sending a message thus requires meaningful content,
“chatting” becomes impossible. But is communication possible when there is
a quiet, listening mass and no one dares to stand up and speak? The brown
box in the exhibition space is unremittingly rumbling on, at least every
ten minutes and in between from time to time a meaningful message,
maybe.
Carlos Katastrofsky explores alternative ways of distributing and owning
net art, always within the institutional art world logic and always through
a critical, yet playful approach. His projects are mostly conceptual, not
defined by visual effects or sophisticated programming. There are no
“beautiful” or “poetic” things to be seen on the screen, just the critical
use of massified online tools that he masters in order to achieve his own
agenda.