We look up at the starry sky and we sense a fear of not comprehending and being engulfed, a fear of the unknown, and simultaneously we experience a longing for the inaccessible, impenetrable darkness.
— Lisa Jevbratt. The Prospect of the Sublime in Data Visualization. 2004.
Visualize This: The FlowingData Guide to Design, Visualization, and Statistics (2nd Edition)

Hi Nathan,
You may have seen it already, but Warren Sack’s essay “Aesthetics of Information Visualization” discusses the sublime (and uncanny) in infovis as well.
Cheers,
-mike