Tim McKeough posted an interactive piece on the Feb 29th edition of Wired magazine showcasing artists who muse on new media (from his intro):
Blog posts, traffic patterns, government reports, digital video, email—a new crop of data-crunching artists are using data in much the same way Picasso applied paint to transform the world of information into mesmerizing abstractions.
Their tools are programs like Processing, an open-source electronic sketchbook (flickr pool), and VVVV, which can merge audio, video, and 3-D models (flicker pool).
The results are sweet, but they’re not just eye candy: They deliver a fresh perspective on the digital detritus we hums shed–or acquire–as we inhabit the virtual world.
You might find some cool desktop pictures in the flickr pools linked above. Here are a couple to get you started: Image 1. Image 2. Image 3. Image 4. Thanks Laris.
Image below: Jason Salavon for the US Census Bureau, “US Population by County, 1790-2000”
