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Phoenix666 writes:

An artist has written an algorithm to represent UN refugee data as sound, along with a visual accompaniment to show migration patterns as they have evolved over the past 40 years.

The song composition is entirely algorithmic and is composed of the following building blocks:

1. Each year between 1975 and 2012 correlates to a 4-second segment in the song.
2. The annual global aggregate volume of refugee migration controls the quantity of instruments playing. The higher the volume of refugee migration, the more instruments are added to the song.
3. The annual average distance of refugee migration controls the duration and pitch of the instruments. Longer distances yield instruments that play longer and lower-pitch notes.
4. The annual amount of countries with 1000+ refugees control the variety of instruments playing, where the more countries with 1000+ refugees, the more variety of instruments are playing in the song.

Interesting project, but it probably demonstrates why people who want to make sense of big data sets work on data visualization.