In The Geographic Flow of Music (arxiv), researchers Conrad Lee and Pádraig Cunningham propose a method to use data from the last.fm API to track the world's listening habits by location and time, showing where shifts in musical tastes have originated and subsequently migrated. Results show music trends originating in smaller cities and flowing outward in unexpected ways, contradicting some assumptions in social science about larger cities being more efficient engines of (cultural) invention.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Apr 26, 2012 - 13 comments

Artist and film-maker, Hito Steyerl, asks us to stand shoulder to shoulder with our digital equivalents. Digital images are Things (like you and me) - a plethora of compressed, corrupted representations pushed and pulled through increasingly policed and capitalised information networks. If 80% of all internet traffic^* is SPAM - a liberated excess withdrawn^** from accepted channels of communication - perhaps it is in The Poor Image we find our closest kin? [more inside]
posted by 0bvious on Feb 16, 2012 - 5 comments

JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit (JIT) - providing tools for creating interactive data visualizations for the web
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Feb 12, 2012 - 14 comments

InForm: Turning Data into Meaning. An exhibit at the Adobe Museum of Digital Media.
posted by OmieWise on Sep 19, 2011 - 10 comments

“If you display information the right way, anybody can be an analyst,” Tufte once told me. “Anybody can be an investigator.” - The Washington Monthly interviews informaticist Edward Tufte [via]
posted by Blazecock Pileon on May 17, 2011 - 45 comments

"databending is, in essence, the artistic misuse of digital information." [more inside]
posted by codacorolla on Aug 16, 2010 - 13 comments

Universe is the newest project from Jonathan Harris, who was also behind the amazing WeFeelFine, and the Yahoo Time Capsule. Here's a talk he gave about his projects at TED 2007.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken on Jul 25, 2007 - 20 comments

Being and Seeming: the Technology of Representation an essay by novelist Richard Powers
posted by MetaMonkey on Sep 24, 2006 - 11 comments

desktop subversibles ... a collection of background subversions and awareness applications for the desktop.
posted by crunchland on Oct 30, 2003 - 5 comments