Ping Geography (image above, video below), a work by Cristobal Mendoza, is another work which looks at how networks collapse distances (see the last post City Distances).

A developing work that involves the constant translation of current network ping times into geographical distances, creating a map-based visualization that compresses and stretches according to network conditions between the client application and user-specified servers. The basic process involves the geolocation of the servers and the client, and its subsequent plotting on a world map. The map then distorts according to ping times. The visualization is fully navigable, with panning and zooming available.