The Smaller Picture

XXXXX XXX  XXX XXXX 
 X  XXXXXXXXXXX XXXX
X XX XX   XXXX    XX
X X  X  XX   XXXXX  
  XX X X X XXX X X X
  X XXX X XXX   XX  
 XXX   X XX X     XX
XX XX XXXXXXXXXXX  X
XXXXX XX X XXX XXXXX
X XXXXXXXX XXXX  X  
XXX  X XX X      XX 
  X X XX   X XXXX   
X  XXXXXXXXX  XXXXXX
XXX X XX   XXX X    
X X X  XX XX  X  XX 
   XXXXXX XX    XXXX
 X XX XX XXXX       
XX  XXXX XXXX XX X  
   XXXX X XX    X  X
X XX  X XXXXXXXX?  X
The collective consciousness was attempting to create anything.

This picture is now closed.

You can browse the history of this picture, or view it as an animation.

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

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

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 15384 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.