About the Author
This website represents the culmination of my time at the University of Texas at Austin receiving my Masters in Media Studies.
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I first began to take an interest in machine-human interactions and relationships in Dr. Sharon Strover's "Communication, Technology, and Culture" class, where I was first introduced to the digital influencer Lil Miquela. Miquela was the start of my thinking about the ways that we integrate machines and technology into our daily lives. In following this line of enquiry, I found myself contemplating the way that in taking a recuperative stance toward technology, and in looking at our images of machines and tech through a queer lens, can reveal new modes of being in the world. I found myself transfixed by the ways that these creations are frequently the backdrop that allow humans a way to imagine a different world and a different self. More often than not, these imaginings take on a distinctly counter-hegemonic sensibility.
Halfway through “Communication, Technology, and Culture” (Spring 2020), the COVID-19 pandemic forced us into remote online courses. I’m writing this section on the one-year anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring a worldwide pandemic. Since then, I’ve completed the majority of my Masters remotely.
A Body without Organs
Striving towards an unreachable goal
Her is a 2013 film by Spike Jonze about the relationship between a man, Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) and an artificially intelligent operating system, Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson). Due to Samantha’s lack of a body, Her is an exercise in exploring corporeality and its linkages to desire and modes of connection. I engage with the portrayal of Samantha and Theodore’s relationship
through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the “Body without Organs.” I use this framework to explore Theodore and Samantha’s coupling. In doing so, I also address how Her acts as a text by which the audience experiences the growth of desire between a human and technology housed on a networked machine
An Overview of a Body without Organs
Within their co-authored book, A Thousand Plateaus (1980), Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari explore the theory of the Body without Organs. In short, the concept of a Body without Organs (BwO) pushes for a complete destructuring of the societal and self-imposed constructions of the body. They argue that the BwO is “opposed not to the organs but to that organization of the organs called the organism” (158). Once something becomes an “organism” it is immediately societally classified. Once classified, societal expectations are placed upon it, ultimately defining and restricting expression of the self. Deleuze and Guattari state, “You will be organized, you will be an organism, you will articulate your body—otherwise you’re just depraved” (159). Deleuze and Guattari are adamant in their assertion that the Body without Organs is an unreachable limit but that one is forever attempting to reach it (150). They argue for the subversion and breaking down of these expectations so that one can explore one’s self on his or her own terms.
In shifting the concept of a Body without Organs to the film Her, Theodore and Samantha exemplify the piecemeal and elected destruction of the social separation of humans and machines in the film. It is imperative to understand that the concept of the Body without Organs doesn’t relate to one’s physical form. Rather, the Body without Organs is the rebellion against the control and classification of one’s form and self. It demands a push towards a form that isn’t governed by societal formations. Because of this Samantha is still beholden to the negotiations of a Body without Organs even though she doesn’t have a body—a fact that is consistently brought up throughout the film.
Click here to learn more on the importance of Samantha's voice
Within this section I focus on two moments where the concept of BwO is best exemplified in the film; the first sex scene between Theodore and Samantha and when Samantha and the other AIs leave the human plane. Within both of these sections the audience is made aware of social formations, i.e. the separation of humans and machine and then is able to observe these assemblages “tip…[passing] over to the side of the plane of consistency”— creating a new normal (161). It is in this way that not only is the concept of Deleuze and Guattari’s BwO is exemplified, but it inextricably ties into my recuperative stance towards technology and humans.
Image by Ayala Tal from their illustrated and manual dictionary. Click here for the website.
 The BwO and Physical Intimacy |  The BwO and Samantha's Departure |
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 Back to Her Entrance Page |