The Smaller Picture

  XX XXX   XX  XX  X
    X  XX  XX  X   X
XXX XXXXX XX   XX X 
X XXX X  XX X XXXX X
XXXX X X   X   XXXXX
 X X   XXX XX XX  XX
 XX XX  X  X XXX XXX
 XX X   XXX       XX
  XX X X XXXXX  X  X
X XX XX   XXX XX   X
 XX XX XXXX XX X    
X XX   XXXXXXX XXXXX
 XXXX  X   X X X X  
XX XXX   XXXXX    X 
   X  XX XX XX X   X
XXX X XXXX XXXX XXXX
X XX XXXXXXXX X X  X
XXXX   XXXX XXXXX XX
X   XX X XXX  X X XX
XX XXX   X XX XXXXX 
The collective consciousness was attempting to create anything.

<< This is frame 901. >>

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 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 902 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.