The Smaller Picture

   X      X        ?
     XX XX XX XX  X 
X  X X XX X  X X    
  XXXX XXXXXXX XX   
 XXXXXXX X XXXXXX   
X XX XX  XXXXXXXXXXX
 X  X XX XXXXXXXXX  
 XXXXX XX XXXXX X X 
  XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X
 XXXXXX XXXXX X X X 
 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  
XXXXX   XXXXXXXXX X 
 XXX XXXXXX X XXX  X
 XXXXXX X X X XXXXX 
XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXX X 
 XXXXXX XXXXX XX  X 
 XXXX X XXXXXXXXXX  
 XXX  XXXX  XXXX   X
    X XXXXXXXXX    X
  X  X X  XX   X    
The collective consciousness is attempting to create an apple.

Should the pink pixel be ...

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

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

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 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 24430 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.