Visual Complexity

'VisualComplexity.com intends to be a unified resource space for anyone interested in the visualization of complex networks. The project's main goal is to leverage a critical understanding of different visualization methods, across a series of disciplines, as diverse as Biology, Social Networks or the World Wide Web. I truly hope this space can inspire, motivate and enlighten any person doing research on this field.'

Mostly over my head but they look pretty!

Eno Henze is a generative artist, based in Berlin, who has produced a great array of outstanding projects. What's so interesting about Henze's work is the strangely organic and painterly outcome based on code. The images shown here are from a commissioned piece for Aurora - Norwich International Animation Festival, part of an ongoing series of computer drawings entitled "The Human Factor", which Eno Henze started in 2006. As he explains: "In this series I try to stress the idea of a drawing that is the result of a collaborative process between me and the machine".

"This project was created to make a visual representation of a space that is very much one-dimensional, a metaphysical universe. The data represented and collected here serves a multitude of purposes: Modeling the Internet, analyzing wasted IP space, IP space distribution, detecting the result of natural disasters, weather, war, and esthetics/art.

The goal is to use a single computer and a single Internet connection to map the location of every single class C network on the Internet. It is obvious that the Internet is not routed as a bunch of class-c networks, but it is easy to see that by treating the Internet IP space as a bunch of class C networks, it will be possible to make a detailed map of the entire Internet. In reality, the address space has been allocated in fairly large contiguous blocks, which renders strictly optimal utilization difficult. The smallest block that is logically routed via BGP or allocated by ARIN is a class C network (CIDR /24.)"