From Posthuman to Postcinema: Crises of Subjecthood and Representation in Her

Abstract: This article posits a connection between questions of materiality, embodiment, and gender at the center of the love affair between a man and his computer operating system in Her (Spike Jonze, 2013) and the relationship between the technologies of traditional filmmaking and those of digital film production. As the film’s lovers attempt to strategically deny and forestall the collapse of the traditional gendered subjecthood on which their relationship rests, so too does the film engage with the possibility of a future wherein digital film departs from the ontologies of its celluloid predecessor toward the creation of new, uncertain forms.