The Smaller Picture

     XX   XX X     X
 XXX X X  XX X   X X
X  XX X XX  XX XXXX 
X  XXXX XXXXXXX XXXX
XX  X  XX     X X XX
X XX XX  XXX  XXX X 
 XXXXX XXXXX   XX XX
 XXX X  X X   XXX   
XX   X  X   XXXXXX X
X XXXX  XX X XXXXX  
XXXXX   XX  XXXX XXX
X    XX XX  X    XXX
XX XXXX      X XX  X
 XXXXXXXXXX  X XX   
XX   XX    X        
XXXXX XXX X XXXX  X 
    XXXX XXX X X  X 
    XXX    XXXXXX X 
  XX XX XX XX  XXXX 
X XXXXX  XXX X XX   
The collective consciousness was attempting to create a television.

<< This is frame 12001. >>

New pictures being created :
bird sword cat human head sofa castle apple

Previous pictures :
Great Britain face star bucket flag banana map of the world umbrella question mark telephone circle spiral stick person letter arrow anything bee car wineglass cup landscape word heart fish lamp monster computer tree goat spider boat chair flower house anything

Created by Kevan Davis in July 2002, based on Kevin Kelly's account of hive-mind audience emergence.
Each picture starts from a randomised grid. There have been 12002 flips to this one, so far.
See also: the official Typophile Font spinoff and Tom Rankin's filtering of it.

Other people have built much better emergent art projects
since this went live in 2002, most notably Swarm Sketch, Pixelfest and TheBroth.