Tim Hunkin

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Tim Hunkin (born 1950) is an English engineer, cartoonist, writer, and artist living in Suffolk, England. He is best known for creating the Channel Four television series The Secret Life of Machines, in which he explains the workings and history of various household devices. He has also created museum exhibits for institutions across the UK, and designed numerous public engineering works, chiefly for entertainment.

He graduated in engineering from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

Hunkin's works are distinctive, often recognisable by his unique style of papier-mâché sculpture (made from unpainted newsprint), his pen and ink cartoons, and his offbeat sense of humour.

His "Under the Pier Show" at Southwold, England is a penny arcade featuring a number of humorous, coin-operated machines of his creation. Attractions include the "AUTOFRISK" (a device that simulates the experience of being frisked by multiple, inflated rubber gloves); the "THE BATHYSCAPE" (a device that simulates a brief submarine adventure); and a somewhat rude sculptural clock.

Many of his other projects are large-scale and theatrical, including gigantic clocks of unconventional designs, bonfires and pyrotechnic displays. In 1976, he designed the flying pigs and sheep for Pink Floyd's Animals tour.

His displays are also featured in episodes of The Secret Life of Machines and relate to the machine covered by the programs. These included a mountain of flaming televisions; flying vacuum cleaners fitted with rocket motors; a carhenge; a ballet of self-propelled portable radios; and a bizarre "pilgrimage" of an internal combustion engine carried, shoulder high, on a bier into the centre of Carhenge. The Pink Floyd inflatable pig was also featured in the vacuum cleaner episode. Other displays featured in the series were more informative, such as a free-standing hydronic heating system and a "human sewing machine." The programs also include his cartoons in voiced and animated form.

He has published several books in his distinctive cartoon style. In 1988 he published Almost everything there is to know (ISBN 1-871307-43-0), a compilation of his comic strip "The Rudiments of Wisdom," first published in The Observer. He is also the author of the book Hunkin's Experiments, which describes a variety of science-based pranks, games, and curiosities. Much of both books is freely available online.