Heads up, Millennials. Things are about to get meta. The Internet Yami-Ichi Market hits NYC this Saturday and the theme, “internet-ish,” may just be enough to draw away from your current Netflix binge habit. Color us intrigued.
With over 120 vendors, the market’s debut, which will specifically unfold at Knockdown Center (52-19 Flushing Ave, Maspeth — only about a mile from the Jefferson L train stop), promises to be a brilliant parody of itself, ripe with 404 errors, quirky products (apps rejected by Apple, anyone?) and real world renditions of things you love and hate online.
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to virtually step into your Tumblr account, this is probably going to be pretty close: “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,” says the market’s cosmic 90s-tastic website. That reminds us… we kind of hope there’s a Geocities booth.
Vendors will be hawking wears that are environmentally friendly and perhaps raise some questions about the boundaries between your internet existence and your waking life. What does digital food taste like? What if the digital world could be finger painted on or tossed across the room? Organizers exonemo, Chris Romero and Eri Takane are the geniuses offering up this IRL forum of whimsical commerce where you can be diagnosed with a social illness by face and emotion recognition software or pick up an Edward Snowden snow globe.
Whether you grew up in the digital revolution or just misusing the word “cyber”, you won’t want to miss this.
The Internet Yami-Ichi in New York: Saturday, September 12 (12pm – 8pm), Knockdown Center, 52-19 Flushing Ave, Maspeth. RSVP on Facebook.