Of particular interest is the exploration of the relationship between design and science, particularly the approach to scale. One such area is the ever-changing dynamics of the Internet, which along with the vast abundance of digital data has revolutionized how we access and share information while at the same time stretching our minds to adapt to and embrace these changes.

The SDSC image was created by Young Hyun and Bradley Huffaker, researchers with the supercomputer centre's Co-operative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) programme. CAIDA, co-founded in 1998 by K.C. Claffy, an SDSC director and principal investigator, is an independent research group dedicated to investigating both the practical and theoretical aspects of the Internet. While CAIDA has been exploring myriad issues associated with the Internet - from routing and topology to security and privacy issues - the programme has primarily been focusing on understanding how the Internet is evolving, and developing a state-of-the-art infrastructure for data measurement that can be shared with the entire research community.

The SDSC image on display at the MOMA depicts round-trip times of data packets sent from a website in Herndon, Virginia, to hundreds of thousand of nodes on the Internet and back again. It was generated using a visualization tool created by Young Hyun called 'Walrus', which enables researchers to view large data sets using 3D "hyperbolic geometry" - a form of image distortion resembling a view through a fish-eye lens. This allows users to examine a smaller area while always having the whole graph, rendered inside a sphere, available as a frame of reference.

"Our dependence on the Internet as a vital part of our lives has grown much faster than our ability to understand its underlying structure, performance limits, and overall dynamics", stated K.C. Claffy. "The Internet's constant evolution and expansion is fascinating, while at the same time making it perpetually challenging to research, quantify, and analyse."

Design and the Elastic Mindopens February 24 and runs until May 12, 2008 in the International Council of The Museum of Modern Art Exhibition Gallery on the sixth floor.

Both government and industry participate in SDSC's CAIDA programme. Most of CAIDA's support is currently provided by government agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA).