Data mining ‘(the analysis step of the “Knowledge Discovery in Databases” process, or KDD),[1] is a field at the intersection of computer science and statistics is the process that attempts to discover patterns in large data sets’ (wiki, 2012).
Lynn and Neal used data mining in their work using the satellite tracking data gathered published by The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).
In order to create the work they needed some custom software and programming languages Obective C and Open GL. Many programming languages can be used but in 2010, the open source R language became the most popular tool used by 43% of data miners surveyed in a well known annual survey (wiki, 2012).
Go to about.com for a useful introduction to Data Mining and later visit some of pages in this wiki that focus on artists using data mining in their work.
The Sigmund Carl and Alfred blog has a readable article that uses the sport film Moneyball as an entry point to the importance of data mining – read Science Needs More Moneyball: Baseball’s data-mining methods are starting a similar revolution in research (June 2012)