The Smaller Picture


X XXX  X    X XX  XX
  XXX XX X  X X  X  
   X X  XX    XX X  
  XXXX XXXXXXX   X X
  X X  X XXXXXXXXX  
  XXXXXXXX XXX X  XX
XXX X XXXXXXXX  XX  
 XXXX   XXX   XX  XX
   XXX XXX XX X  XX 
   XX  XXX XX X XXXX
   X XX XXXXXXXXXX  
X XXX XX X  X XX   X
   XX XXXXX XX XX  X
XXXXX   XX XX X XXX 
   XXXXXXXXXXXX X XX
   XXXX   X  XX XXXX
   XXXXXXXXXXX X  XX
 XX   X XXXXXXXXXX  
 XX X XX XXX X  XX  
 XXXX  XX X XXXX   X
The collective consciousness was attempting to create a computer.

<< This is frame 1201. >>

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 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 1202 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.