Cyberpunk Machine​ 
(Febuary 2025)

An interactive gachapon machine that dispenses sculptural toys featuring an embedded videogame​. Patrons can move sliders and press a glowing arcade button to active the machine. 

My gashapon vending machine is in conversation with cyber orientalism and queer/transgender glitch-cyberpunk subcultures. 

My design utilizes play as a medium for education. Cyberpunk Machine is a dialogue piece around the histories of militarized violence and orientalism, and a celebration of the critical lens that cyberpunk and queer transhumanism have provided.

The cyberpunk genre is an aesthetic movement featuring common themes such as governmental and corporate corruption, crime, violence, artificial intelligence, class uprising, and transhumanism. 

Kevin Morley and David Robins coined the term cyber orientalism in 1995 to describe the ways that the cyberpunk genre can perpetuate stereotypes around Asian identity. Cyber orientalism is based on the concept of orientalism coined by Edward Said, a Palestinian-American who studied the origin and development of the term ‘oriental’ in both the Euro-asia continent and the context of the United States. Orientalism refers to the othering of Asian people, Asian governmental bodies and Asian cultures through the creation of fictional cultural narratives created by the West.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first significant enforcement of anti-immigration passed within the United States. In “The Chinese are coming. How can we stop them?”, Erika Lee writes, “Many of the arguments in favor of restricting Chinese immigrants also hinged explicitly on gender and sexuality.”(145) Lee writes, “The almost 900 Chinese prostitutes in California in 1870 came to represent a sexualized danger with the power to subvert both the domestic ideal and the existing relations between white heterosexual men and women.”(145) 

In the context of the rigidity of gender and sexuality systems, the glitch can function as a symbol of being ungovernable.

Building a cyberpunk machine

Fabrication Tools and Programs:
Fusion 360, Blender, 3D printin​g, Lasercutting​, Arduino, Unity.

Materials:
Acrylic sheets, PLA 3D printing filament, Arduino Uno, Nema Stepper Motor, Potentiometers, LEDs, Monitor, Heat Set Threaded Inserts, Screws, Wires and Solder.

Master List of my research to execute this project:
Vending Machine Design Avery Chang Master List - Google Docs