The premise of Twist, Microsoft’s new “photo conversation” app, is relatively simple: sometimes, a picture is worth all the words.

Stealing a page from Instagram and other photo-based apps, the Twist app is the latest from Microsoft Garage, an experimental app development shop within Microsoft. With Twist, users exchange photos in a fleeting, casual conversation, letting the photos (with a few snippets of embedded text) tell the story.

But Microsoft deliberately laid out Twist so that one picture runs into another, creating either a flow of images, an ironic juxtaposition, a mashup, or more. Microsoft researchers said they were inspired by how some people are now not only using image memes as commentary, but to communicate as well.