File This Under “Cool”

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At Wired magazine, Tim McKeough has pulled together a fascinating and beautiful slide show he titled "Frame that Spam! Data-Crunching Artists Transform the World of Information" where he displays the works of a new crop of data-crunching "artists" who are using data the same way "Picasso applied paint." The artists used blog posts, traffic patterns, government reports digital video, and email to transform "the world of information into mesmerizing abstractions." 

These pieces of art and graphic design are amazingly beautiful, but they aren’t just "eye candy," as McKeough writes.  The artists used census data, NASA images, and even human emotion samples from the blogosphere to display the information in an interactive and insightful manner.  And it’s only the beginning of what the Web 2.0 revolution will do with information as it evolves.

Check it out.