COUNCIL OF EVERYDAY PEOPLE: Micro Internet Yami-Ichi

In 2015, BUREAU popped up in the neutral ground of the New Orleans’ St. Claude gallery district to hawk our internet-ish things. Organized and produced with Caroline Sinders, we staged a “micro” version of the Internet Yami-Ichi, a global underground art event created by IDPW. Liana Patch reviewed the 2015 Micro Ichi: “The Internet IRL—a New Orleans Yami-Ichi” for artblog.

BUREAU of CHANGE at Yami NY 2 at the Knockdown Center, Queens, NY, 2016

In 2016, BUREAU traveled to the Knockdown Center for the biggest meetup of Internet Yami-Ichi venders from New York and around the world.  We crafted a black cloud interface embellished in glitter, silver and gold to vend a selection of items from our 2015 event in New Orleans plus new items by Reggie Nickerson, Hannah North, Steven Pedeaux, Ulay Deux and InfraRedd. Hannah North reflected on the BUREAU krewe’s experience with the crowds at the Knockdown Center: “BUREAU stormed Internet Yami-Ichi in NY 2 with our cloud interface performance.”

Detail of Black Cloud Interface: Hannah North’s “How to Break America Online” invited buyers to smash her counterfeit AOL disks and seal the shards in evidence baggies with instructions on data and storage destruction practices clipped from U.S. government documents. At Yami NY 2, Knockdown Center, Queens, New York, 2016.

Micro Ichi New Orleans, Oct 10, 2015, the first “micro” version of the Internet Yami-Ichi, a global underground art event created by IDPW

MICRO ICHI NEW ORLEANS VENDORS BROUGHT OUR LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE INTERNET TO LIFE

2015 vendors: BUREAU of CHANGE (ft. Amanda Bourgeois, Ulay Duex, Jack Hazard, Kareem Henry, Margot Herster, K.G., Steven Pedeaux), Caroline Sinders,  Tameka Norris as Meka Jean & Minka Stoyanova.

2015 vendor items: A hashtag talking stick for a real-life activist debate? A retweetheart for your sweetheart? A reddit comment crop top? Why do Afghan rugs have drones on them? An official CIA intelligence report on training cats? A meme painting? Selfies with someone famous? Internet fortunes? Hand calligraphy email signatures?

2016 vendors: BUREAU of CHANGE (Hannah North, Ulay Duex, Reggie Nickerson, Margot Herster, Jack Hazard, InfraRedd, Steven Pedeaux)

2016 vendor items: Make a wish?! Things?? Amazing!? Click here for me to give a f–k! OK buttons? A retweetheart for your sweetheart?  Internet fortunes? Popup block IRL with your hands and feet? Why do Afghan rugs have drones on them? Artists should sue by Ulay Duex?

ABOUT INTERNET YAMI-ICHI***

S*%t happens. Didn’t used to. Like when some small off-handed private comment turns into an SNS flame war. Or worrying about not getting enough “Likes”. The Youtube videos you can’t watch anymore because somebody complained. Or the apps you can’t play because they were rejected by Apple. Once upon a time, the Internet was supposed to be a place for “liberty”. Nowadays it’s so uptight.

So let’s turn off, log-out, and drop in, on the real world. The Internet Yami-Ichi is a flea market for “browsing” face-to-face.

Take your own Internet liberties* here, with us.

* But no dangerous or illegal goods, please! This black market wants to remain free and useful!

Online secret society IDPW organized the first Internet Yami-Ichi in Tokyo in 2012. Since then it has travelled to Berlin, Sapporo, Brussels, Amsterdam and New York. Past vendor items include glitch­-embroidered clothing, Edward Snowden snow globes, and apps rejected by Apple. The New Orleans gathering was the second ever in the United States.

Flea markets and the Internet are both fanatical and chaotic mixes of the amazing and the useless. In the Internet Yami-­Ichi the wills and desires which brought us online are salvaged into a social exchange celebrating the Internet, in the real world.

***The Japanese word “Yami-Ichi” translates directly into the English “black market”, though due to an emphasis created by mixing different Japanese writing systems the word “yami” takes on double meaning of “sick for” / “addicted to” etc., so a more accurate translation might be “Internet Obsessive Market”.

The 2015 Micro Internet Yami-Ichi New Orleans was organized and produced by Caroline Sinders and BUREAU of CHANGE in collaboration with the IDPW.org collective. The 2016 Micro Ichi was created by BUREAU of CHANGE for Yami NY 2 at the Knockdown Center.

About BUREAU of CHANGE

BUREAU of CHANGE is an education-centric digital media laboratory that creates, curates and exhibits socially engaged projects. Using an atelier-style model that employs student-apprentices and young professionals, we bring together artists and non-artists to create community engaged projects while expanding skills in technology, creative communication and civic entrepreneurship.

About Caroline Sinders

Caroline Sinders is an Interaction Designer and User Researcher at IBM Watson, photographer, digital anthropologist and game designer from New Orleans. She is co-creator and main organizer of FACETS, an interdisciplinary creative coding, interactive art, and videogames un-conference. She is also a member of the Code Liberation, a foundation that teaches women and self identifying women how to program by making video games.

About IDPW

IDPW.org is a secret society on the internet that goes back more than 100 years.