The strange hidden beauty of computer viruses

I have to admit, this guy fascinates me. From his Web site:

Alex Dragulescu is a Romanian visual artist whose practice embraces both traditional and new media. His projects are experiments and explorations of algorithms, computational models, simulations and information visualizations that involve data derived from databases, spam emails, blogs and video game assets.

He's developed a series of computer-generated art works depicting the internal structure of computer viruses, malware, bots, and the like. He calls the collection "Malwarez". They're strangely beautiful in their own way. For example, here's his portrayal of the MyDoom virus (click for a larger view):




The collection has been picked up by MessageLabs for their new marketing campaign. An example from their Web site:




I think it's a brilliant conception. Who'd have imagined taking the binary structure of computer pests and using it to produce art like this? And, having done that, it takes a company with some imagination to think of using the images for advertising! Full marks to both artist and company.

Check out Alex's Web site for a lot of other interesting features, and MessageLabs for the rest of the ads in their campaign. Interesting stuff.

Peter