The Smaller Picture


 X X             X  
X X                 
                    
XXXXX XXXXXXX  XXXXX
XXX X XXXXXX XXXXXXX
XXX    X  X X XX    
 XXXXX XXXX XXXXX XX
XXX XXXX    XXXXXXXX
XXX  XX XX XXX X XXX
X XX XX XXXXX XX XXX
 XXXXX XXXX XXX  XXX
 X X X XXX XXXXX XXX
XXXX XXX XXXXXXXX XX
X  XXXX    X XXXXXXX
  X XXX XXX  XXXX X 
XXXX  XXXXXXXXX XXXX
 X XXXXXXXXX XXXXX  
                    
            X       
                    
The collective consciousness was attempting to create a flag.

<< This is frame 3001. >>

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

Previous pictures :
Great Britain face star bucket 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 television 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 3002 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.