The Smaller Picture

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

<< This is frame 4201. >>

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 television computer tree goat spider boat 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 4202 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.