A tour of Internet Yami-ichi, the offline Internet flea market

Internet Yami-ichi / Black Market. Photo by Sebastiaan ter Burg

Jasna VelicÌŒkovic performing live at Internet Yami-ichi / Black Market. Photo by Sebastiaan ter Burg

Internet Yami-ichi (japanese for Black Market) is a flea market where people sell Internet-ish things face to face.

The last edition of the market took place in Amsterdam on 9 and 10 May. More precisely at the Flemish Arts Centre De Brakke Grond, a (vast) space dedicated to promoting and showcasing contemporary art productions from Flanders. Any kind of art and with an emphasis on innovation, cross-over, interdisciplinarity, and artistic guts. Some of their events are in dutch but a big part of their programme caters for the international audience. I’ve only been to De Brakke Grond twice but what i’ve seen so far was critical, witty and resolutely embedded into contemporary culture.

The goods on sale at Yami-ichi were both smart and silly. I bought a little mirror to stick on a phone and observe/photograph scenes and people i wouldn’t normally dare to watch openly (i’m not one to take the metro and ignore fellow travelers), all sorts of things made or baked to the glory of internet memes and a fabric patch with a glue gun sewn on it. And some mystery eggs. One thrown in a plastic container by JODI, the other enclosing the url of a Fresh Unpopular Video. I was also made a member of the institutions of Resolution Disputes, participated in a ‘hate mail writing’ workshop and got myself (fake)photographed in the company of Stefan Simchowitz (whom ignorant me had never heard about before.)

Internet Yami-ichi / Black Market is not just a place to throw your wallet around. I quickly found out that it also offers a great opportunity to meet people who are interested in art&tech, hacking, and contemporary culture in general. Artists, designers, art students and hackers were selling objects, offering food and DIY workshop, participating to hilarious performances (singing a cappella the sound of dial-up internet, for example.) And pretty much anyone who’s someone in art&tech (whatever that means) had made the trip from Eindhoven, Amsterdam, Brussels or Rotterdam to ‘browse’ around. It was internet but in the flesh. I didn’t count the number of visitors but De Brakke Grond did. Apparently, over 1900 visitors turned up over the Yami-ichi weekend! ‘Zeer succesvolle editie’!

All of the above would probably make more sense if i actually showed some images from the event and commented them briefly. There you are:

Internet Yami-ichi / Black Market, 9 & 10 May 2015 at de Brakke Grond, Amsterdam

The IP addresses of the websites were associated with geographical coordinates using an OS database. The closest images associated with the location were then retrieved through Panoramio and turned into postcards. By Julie Boschat Thorez

All you had to do was bring your own food and the lightbox turned it into instagrammable foodporn

Wikilinks, a kit for the conspiration-obsessed

Corrupted files (for your nails)

And i got one of these Radical Perspective Changers by Sander Veenhof

I LOVED those ceramic memes. Internet Yami-ichi / Black Market. Photo by Sebastiaan ter Burg

Tijmen Schep was selling Crypto fries (Patatje Crypto) at the Internet Yami-ichi / Black Market. Photo by Sebastiaan ter Burg

YouCube, a free stage box for live, open mic performances. Internet Yami-ichi / Black Market. Photo by Sebastiaan ter Burg

People reading the CRYPTODESIGN brochure. The publication announced the Crypto Design Challenge, an open call to young designers and artists in the Netherlands and Belgium to submit plans and proposals to make the encryption of digital images and information accessible to all. Internet Yami-ichi / Black Market. Photo by Sebastiaan ter Burg

A 3D print on demand stall. Internet Yami-ichi / Black Market. Photo by Sebastiaan ter Burg

Julie Scheurweghs was selling some vegan Meme Cookies. Internet Yami-ichi / Black Market. Photo by Sebastiaan ter Burg

LINK Center for the Arts of the Information Age was selling some their amazing publications and handing over surprise eggs containing url to overlooked videos

Faithfull Enemy, a Hate Mail workshop led by the brilliant Iffy Iemand and Ksusha Holmes

Visors to change the shape of your face when caught on CCTV. On the bottom right corner are some paper pop ups

Rosa Menkman, institutions of Resolution Disputes [iRD]. Internet Yami-ichi / Black Market. Photo by Sebastiaan ter Burg

Rosa Menkman‘s mother was kindly sewing on my sweatshirt a patch of the institutions of Resolution Disputes [iRD]

iRD Patch, Institutions key, 2015. Image via the creatorsproject

By the way, institutions of Resolution Disputes [iRD] was one of my favourite projects at the market. It’s far brainier than the other pieces sold/exhibited and hopefully i’ll find a moment to come back to it in a later post. But in the meantime (and if i don’t come back to the work on the blog), do check out this interview that Daniel Rourke did with Rosa Menkman for Furtherfield.

Free Safari tours! Internet Yami-ichi / Black Market. Photo by Sebastiaan ter Burg

This one might not look like much but it is a brilliant work and i need to track down the artists (they are there, somewhere in the grubby notes i took down) before i can write a proper post about the piece. Photo by Sebastiaan ter Burg

Internet Yami-ichi / Black Market. Photo by Sebastiaan ter Burg

More photos? Check out the ones taken by Sebastiaan ter Burg and mine.

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