The Scrap Merchant

"A visual meditation on the pauses between decisions, the silence before answers, and the weight carried by girls who exist in the 'not yet'." (Una meditación visual sobre las pausas entre decisiones, el silencio antes de las respuestas y el peso que cargan las niñas que existen en el 'todavía no'.)

Here, everything has a price.

Here you find everything and if you don't find it, give them time: someone will make it.

It was in this place that a sales robot, more rusty than functional, offered a defective kidney implant to Mrs. Ibarra. She needed it for her fourteen-year-old daughter, a girl who clung to life with tooth and nail. The implant worked just enough to get her out of the hospital, but not much more. It failed days later, leaving the girl's body in an even worse state. Now her prognosis is clear: she will not survive.

But I am not here for the Ibarra family. I was not sent for the tragedy of a desperate mother or for the girl who is dying on a metal bed. I was sent to investigate the implant, because, according to my superiors, there is something more valuable than life in this world: patents. If the creator of that defective piece stole design, technology or even an idea from large corporations, my duty is to discover it and report it. And, of course, to ensure that the harmed company gets its compensation… and a promotion. For my superiors of course.

Here I am, an agent of the Patent Department, digging through ruins and technological garbage, not to save lives, but to preserve the monopoly of those who run this game. The irony is almost comical: in a city that claims to be the pinnacle of progress, its base is made of waste and desolation. And I am just another one of this rotten place.

Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction that shows us a near future, dark and full of contrasts, where technology has advanced to incredible levels, but the quality of life for most people has only gotten worse. Here, cybernetic implants, virtual reality, hackers, and powerful megacorporations coexist with dirty streets, neon lights, and a population barely surviving on the edge of social collapse.

The main problem cyberpunk explores is extreme inequality and the loss of control by citizens over forces that seem untouchable. Corporations act like modern feudal lords, managing resources, information, and human lives with total indifference. No matter how advanced brain implants or bionic prosthetics are, ordinary people are still crushed by the machinery of power.

The architecture in cyberpunk reflects this tension: massive corporate skyscrapers rise above miserable neighborhoods, streets are crammed with glowing advertisements and piles of tech waste. The environment is hostile, overcrowded, often polluted, and the lines between public and private spaces are blurred.

Governments are reduced to symbolic figures or puppets of the corporations. What rules the world is the law of the strongest, the smartest, or the most ruthless.

Within science fiction, “punk worlds” are a family of subgenres that grow out of steampunk and cyberpunk. They extend the idea into other styles, technologies, and social contexts, pushing it to extremes. These extremes often show up in struggles over power, economic inequalities, and cultural resistance.

Each “punk” subgenre starts from a specific technological or aesthetic reference.

Although “punk worlds” are usually fictional settings, their goal is not just to impress. They often make us think about structures of power, inequality, the tension between tradition and progress, and issues of control and individuality.

Many of these subgenres begin from a historical turning point: an event that never happened in our timeline, or developed in a different way.

Each subgenre comes with its own clear visual, architectural, and cultural identity.