Singular

The spaces in which we inhabit the interconnected world online are lonelier than one would assume. In Juliet Escoria's "In The Woods: A Moving Picture Book," the framework of a typical picture book is skewed to moving images of a woman exploring the woods, leaving one to be a part of extremely dark and isolating places. Escoria uses existing gifs to showcase the vastness and the loneliness online culture can provide. The narrative turns into a love story between the woman who meets a man in the woods. Ultimately, the moving picture book ends up referring to the idiom of going "out of the woods," meaning to be out of the unknown and into the familiar. As we stare at our screens every day, the screens stare back at us with all the information at just a type and a click away. We are a singular unit of the internet system. The woods of the web are frightening to enter sometimes. However, they can allow one to encounter friends, family, and the love of their lives in the dense and endless woods of the Internet. By utilizing the web through a productive and thoughtful lens, the singularity of ourselves does not then have to be cast in the shadow of loneliness.