The SMSMS project is a computer-based interactive installation that derives from the author's previous work, Computer sigillati, in which 200 machines have been programmed to produce an endless flow of random images and left to work indefinitely without being connected to a monitor. In SMSMS, one of the Computer sigillati programs is employed to create images that are visible and can be modified by the public using cell phones. SMSMS could be considered as either an exercise in collective intelligence or, in contrast, as a disturbance to the unpredictable working of the machine. Some implications concerning art and new technologies are discussed.