The Human Fax Machine Experiment,
Brogan Bunt and Lucas Ihlein, 2011-13


A pedagogical project developed within the Media Arts programme at University of Wollongong.

The activity encourages small groups to work together to transmit an image using only simple sound signals. Allocated a wooden rattle, a container of shells, two forks (or similar rudimentary sound-making devices) participants must somehow devise a code to communicate a non-verbal message.

The Human Fax Machine is fundamentally social: solutions emerge from what makes sense within the small group itself, and depend on the ability to work together. Code systems that students invent will thus necessarily involve poetic idiosyncrasies and artful flourishes which effectively model the development of human culture on a small scale.

More info on The Human Fax Machine Experiment:

This experiment was cooked up by Brogan Bunt while teaching MEDA102, Computational Media in the Faculty of Creative Arts at UOW. The activity has also been facilitated by Media Arts Lecturers Bettina Frankham and Jo Law.

In 2011, Lucas Ihlein refined the activity and codified the instructions for Convergence Lab at the University of Tasmania, Hobart.

In 2012, Brogan Bunt and Lucas Ihlein ran a workshop and presented a paper about the Human Fax Machine Experiment at the CODE conference, Swinburne University, Melbourne. The paper was subsequently published in SCAN Journal, Vol. 10, No. 2., 2013.

The instructions for the Human Fax Machine Experiment are included in the book 72 Assignments: The Foundation Course in Art and Design Today, edited by Chloe Briggs, published by Paris College of Art and Design Press, 2013.

Human Fax Machine - in action at the CODE conference, Melbourne, Swinburne University, 2012.
Gameplay. Short video showing the sonic interaction between the ENCODERS and a single DECODER. A coin rattling in a jar, and tapping on the table are the two basic sounds used by this group.



Human Fax Machine - in action at the CODE conference, Melbourne, Swinburne University, 2012.
Gameplay. Short video showing the difficulty of the task of decoding and reconstituting the image. Something has clearly gone awry in the transmission of the image here (a simple line drawing of a house).


The Human Fax Machine is mentioned in Golan Levin and Tega Brain, Code as Creative Medium: A Handbook for Computational Art and Design, MIT Press, 2021, page 151. Brain and Levin use the Human Fax Machine as an activity to start students learning about computational media at New York University.



Human Fax Machine from Jaap de Maat on Vimeo.

This video was sent to us by Jaap de Maat, digital subject leader at the graphics department at Central Saint Martins in London. Jaap writes, "I wanted to let you know that I use your Human Fax Machine workshop with my BA year one students as an introduction to signs and signals. The students then create some variations on this. They absolutely love this workshop. Thanks for sharing the instructions online."


Dufva T.S. (2021) "Creative Coding as Compost(ing)". In: Tavin K., Kolb G., Tervo J. (eds) Post-Digital, Post-Internet Art and Education. Palgrave Studies in Educational Futures. Palgrave Macmillan.

From Dufva's article:

"The experiment aims to raise awareness on how code is social, political, and cultural; different groups come up with entirely different solutions. Whereas some students create logical matrix kind systems of drawing, some create improvisational languages based on the feeling of the voice. The human fax machine works as an introduction; it takes into account multiple aspects of the digital, presenting clear ways the code takes place and is used. It aims to give the idea of the social assemblages inherent in many post-digital processes. It works as the soil of the compost; the dirt, the humus, that makes the invisible digital processes visible, and somewhat graspable. Programming languages are composed within the limitations of the technology available, but within these boundaries they are questions of collective choice, culture, politics, and economy. Moreover, the assignment presents code from a broader perspective than any actual coding framework could do; one does not have to start from the binary logic of digital. As such, it empowers students in thinking that code—and digital processes could be greatly altered."