The Smaller Picture

  XX XXX XXX      X 
 X XXX XXXX    X   X
      XXX XXXXXX   X
      XX X XXXXX XXX
  X XXX XXX  X      
 XXXXXX   XXXX  XXX 
XX  X X XXX XX XX X 
XXX    X    X X  X  
X X  XXX  XXXXXX   X
XXX  X   XXX X      
X    XXXXX XXX     X
 X  X XX XXXXX   X X
X  XX X   X XX      
 XXX X   XXXXX    XX
 X X XX X XXX       
   XX   X X X  X    
  X   XX  XXXX  XX  
X      XX    X  X   
   X  X  XX XXX   XX
   X  X  XX X XX X  
The collective consciousness was attempting to create a question mark.

<< This is frame 601. >>

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 telephone circle spiral stick person letter arrow anything 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 602 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.