Sisi

System

Model

Image

Semantic Drift

Expertise: Publication | Methology | Photography
Design: April 2025

This publication consolidates a series of visual studies on how images can operate as language—not by illustrating, but by structuring meaning. It explores where meaning begins to drift between what is seen and what is said.



I used five categories from language—words, tone, syntax, borrowed words, accent—to build a structural grammar for images.

Working under these titled sections helped me focus the direction of the project, while also offering the audience a clearer entry into my structural thinking. This framework is not just a method of classification, but a way to design pathways for seeing and interpreting images.

word

tone

syntax

borrowed words

accent

Each spread pairs an image (or a group of images) with a short line of text. In the early sequences of Semantic Drift, image and text remain aligned: “This is an egg.” But as the text begins to shift—“This is an apple” or “This is not an egg”—the image itself remains unchanged. What drifts is not the image, but the way we read it.

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Tone corresponds to tone in language, highlighting how the relationship between object and environment shapes meaning. Different lighting, backgrounds, and angles do not alter the egg itself, but shift the tone—some appear urgent or intense, others quiet and restrained.

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Syntax corresponds to the spatial relationship between objects. Meaning arises not from what is shown, but from how it is structured—and how the viewer learns to read it.

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