The Smaller Picture

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

<< This is frame 7201. >>

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 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 7202 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.