Title • signifier and referent

This image puzzled me; not the photograph, the image itself, and it's been kicking around on my hard drive since last September. But I didn't delete it. I have thought about it though – what it might mean, who might have created it, how it might be perceived – so I finally decided to do some research. And the net result of that search for an 'explanation', and the thoughts behind it, is that I decided to post it. Semiotics is an interesting subject and its relevance to this image is to exemplify that the interpretation of a visual image requires an understanding of context and purpose, both of which are difficult to fathom in this image.