This lateral shift on a 2x2 grid is equal to rotation. In each iteration tiles are shifted/rotated but its content is not. So the content is split into smaller

This lateral shift on a 2x2 grid is equal to rotation. In each iteration tiles are shifted/rotated but its content is not. So the content is split into smaller tiles which are rotated but the content is not, so it is split and so on until you reach pixel level.