A few weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, an FBI agent called the Whitney Museum of American Art and asked to see a drawing on exhibit there. The piece was by Mark Lombardi, an artist who had committed suicide the year before. Using just a pencil and a huge sheet of paper, Lombardi had created an intricate pattern of curves and arcs to illustrate the links between global finance and international terrorism.

Something to listen to while you look through the year in graphs.

NPR : The 'Conspiracy' Art of Mark Lombardi

The new year is often time for reflection on where we have been and where we are going. Sometimes that reflection happens over a beer. Sometimes that reflection happens with a gun to your head. In fact, both occurred here at Industrial Memetics when Decius and Rattle forced us, their loyal employees, to look back on 2004 and consider the events that have shaped our lives.

MemeStreams - Year in Graphs 2004