“Semantic Drift [Ein Sof]” is a generative moving-image work built from Wikimedia Commons. The process begins with a set of elemental words such as window, dust, stone, shadow that call up images from the archive. The textual metadata attached to those images is then recycled as fresh search terms. This recursive loop produces a visual analogue of semantic drift, the linguistic process in which the meanings of words slowly change over time as they are reused in new contexts and associations.In the piece, this drift is mirrored as images veer away from the original lexicon, unfolding into unpredictable and unstable visual territories. The algorithm pauses periodically between searches, a small coding hiccup that has become part of the work’s rhythm, as if pausing to reflect before moving onward through a river of images.

The subtitle Ein Sof refers to the Kabbalistic concept of the Infinite, the boundless aspect of divinity that precedes all creation. In this context, it points to the archive itself: a seemingly boundless space where images and meanings scatter, recombine, and remain perpetually unstable. The work exposes both the promise and the failure of digital memory: it maps the shifting edges of categorization, where words and pictures endlessly reshape one another.