The boundlessness of technology and the crisis of intimacy in Spike Jonze’s ‘her’
Technological innovations like Siri or Google Glass are no longer novelties but they are everyday technologies. We are all surrounded by technology like PCs or cell phones, but not impressed by the fact that they exist, because the widespread integration of technology into our lives has changed the fundamental modalities through which humans engage with others. The human being has invented and developed technologies to change our lives but the substantial change of technology made a gradual transformation in our lives. Spike Jonze's her is set in the future and demonstrates the collapsing borders between personhood and technology. her is a film about humans, their desires and limitations and the “love object”, the object of obsession in human’s hand. In the following academic essay, is given a clear thesis about the technological determinism through Marshall McLuhan and Karl Marx theories. Marshall McLuhan believed that all technologies are extensions of us; they are extensions of our senses and the central nervous system. The human factor is responsible for the fact that technology is destroying the quality of human relationships. Karl Marx assumed that technological determinism leads to newer ways of production in a society and this eventually influenced the cultural, political and economic sides of a society, thus unavoidably changed society. Moreover, this essay examines the crisis of intimacy in a technological age and why intimacy is important to review. Intimacy or intimate relationship generally means a close interpersonal relationship with another person physically and mentally. Generally, intimacy can be outlined as a dyadic exchange between humans. However, intimacy has been progressively transformed through the years especially when technology is rapidly changing. According to the film, people seek companionship with artificially intelligent machines because they have a need for intimacy. Relationships in a technological deterministic world, social relationships degenerate into a bubble of darkness. An extraordinary love story is unfolding in Jonze's film. Theodore, the protagonist embodies the futuristic Everyman. He is a complex, emotional man who is writing touching and personal letters for others. The end of a long loving relationship has led him to be attracted to a futuristic take on a Siri; an AI operating system, technologically steps ahead. The operating system is the perfect fantasy partner that guarantees to be an instinctive entity different for every user according to their needs and desires. As both needs and desires grow, their friendship evolves into a romantic relationship.
Marshall McLuhan was one of the most influential philosophers of the study of new media in the 20th century. Media and social change are epitomized by the famous slogan “the medium is the message” as McLuhan said. The medium used to communicate and influences the receiver’s mind. The way that people think is determined by the equivalent relationship of the sense ratio and all new technologies are extensions of humans. McLuhan viewed every new form of media innovation as an extension of some human faculty, with communication media exaggerating this or that particular sense. He said that “The book is an extension of the eye, the wheel is an extension of the foot, clothing is an extension of the skin and the electric circuitry or the computer is an extension of the central nervous system.” Media and their technological growth affect the way that people communicate, what messages they proceed to others and probably they affect the message’s content. Technological expansion establishes cultural and social change. McLuhan when he first started studying popular culture using the methods he had learned as a study of literature, he was treating popular culture phenomena as texts, as if they were books. He concluded, that the content of the texts was not as interesting as he expected to be, or in his view as important, as the way the texts were being created. Then, he focused on studying the influence of communication media independent of their content. What is communicated may not be so important as how it is communicated. Whatever medium leads will influence human beings by affecting the way they perceive the world. McLuhan supported his thesis for technological determinism by interpreting the sweep of human history from a media perspective. According to McLuhan, there are four ages; the tribal, the literacy, the print and the electronic. The tribal age, an acoustic age, is an oral culture based on the ear. The age of literacy has a visual point. The acoustic world was shocked when alphabet come into the world. Literacy jarred people out of collective tribal association into a "civilized" private detachment. Moving to the print age, if the phonetic alphabet made visual dependence possible, the printing press made it widespread. The print revolution demonstrated the mass production of identical products. McLuhan called it the "forerunner" of the industrial revolution. Finally, the electronic age is the growth of the global village. Human growth is retribalized by electronic media. According to Spike Jonze’s film, a man who is living in a postmodern world dates his operating system and “digital affairs”, in this case, Samantha is so sensual like a real person. McLuhan would have accepted that “digital affairs” as “real thing”. It is a real-life example of what McLuhan meant with the slogan “the medium is the message”. It is a fact of life, nowadays, humans are addicted to their operating systems and they cannot live without them even for two hours.
McLuhan supports one position of what is called "technological determinism." While Karl Marx, an economic determinist, assumed that the economic organization of a society shapes every important aspect of its life, McLuhan believes that fundamental technological inventions are the primary influence. Bruce Bimber in a journal article stated about Karl Marx and the Three Faces of Technological Determinism. He believed that there are several approaches about technological determinism; “Norm-Based Accounts” understand technological determinism as a mainly cultural phenomenon, “Unintended Consequences Accounts” examine technological determinism in terms of unexpected social outcomes of technological enterprise. On the other hand, “Logical Sequence Accounts” make an ontological claim, seeing technological determinism in terms of universal laws of nature. Marx assumed that the primary factors in the development of the forces of production are humans, involving drives for self-expression, resistance to alienation, and expanding needs. Technology plays only a facilitating role in this process. Technology and machinery play a visible role in parts of his writing, and his account of human history is highly structures and nomological. Marx claimed that history is the development of the labor process into a social process, and this suggests what is perhaps the best way to view his conception of the role of technology. Technology is used instrumentally by the human factor whose actions are, in a collective sense, historically determined by their own characteristics. The intentional use of technology by human actor whose actions in an important theme in Marx’s work, one quite contradictory in nature to technological determinism. The fundamental tendency of the introduction of automation in manufacturing, based on the characteristics of the technology. Marx has in mind that technology is in the ultimate service of humanity and he also, has shown that technologies are embodiments of social relationships. In capitalist societies technologies, are far from being neutral, are developed with specific social relationships in mind.
Spike Jonze’s her has acclaimed subtle portrayal of the not-so-distance future. The film unfastens with a shaky screen and a black image of the title, spelled out in a lowercase and calligraphic font. It is not a film about “she” the subjective pronoun, but rather, it is about “her”, her is also, used as the object of a verb or is used as possessive. But in this case, “her” is probably used as an object. Because her is reflecting the “love object”. The film’s opening sequence captures Theodore, who is looking directly at us and saying romantically a monologue, which proves to be a composing letter, via voice-activated software, arises: “To my Chris, I’ve been thinking how I possibly could tell you how much you mean to me. I remember when I first started to fall in love with you like it was last night. Lying naked beside you in that tiny apartment, it suddenly hit me that I was part of this whole larger thing, just like our parents, our parents. Before that, I was just living my life like I knew everything, and suddenly this bright light hit me and woke me up. That light was you. I can’t believe it’s already been fifty years since you married me. And still to this day, every day, you make me feel like the girl I was when you first turned on the lights and woke me up and we started this adventure together. Happy Anniversary, my love and my friend till the end. Loretta.” (her, 2013). This opening sentence weaves the human qualities of exposed corporeality and sets up the issue of intimacy in the film. This letter is not inspirited by an intimacy that is usually only comprehended between the two principals in a long-term and loving relationship, a relationship that is brightened by trust and deep emotions. The letter does not assume Loretta’s voice and how she speaks. Even after fifty years married they have difficulties with communication.
Joaquin Phoenix plays the role of Theodore Twombly; struggles with a heart-breaking divorce from Catherine plays by Rooney Mara. He is writing emotional and personal letters for other people at beautifulhandwrittenletters.com, based on information about the sender and the receiver. The attitudes of the site are to make their receivers feel special and singular by well-written letters full of touching emotions and ripe with nostalgic. While he is writing letters for others in the film faces problems of expression. Human power to love is totally connected to the human ability to express love. Theodore is a smart writer but he conveys to a fault. Although, it ends up being exactly this ability to express the love that makes him lose belief in the power of his expression. Theodore’s main problem throughout the film is that he does not believe in the power of his own words. He does not believe that his words can reach people that they can touch others. This creates the feeling of his profound isolation and he has become trapped in his own body. He does not trust his own means of communication. This leads him to become intrigued by an ad selling OS One described Samantha (renames itself, Samantha) as created consciousness represented by voice. A scene later, she explains the mechanics of her consciousness; “Basically I have intuition. I mean, the DNA of who I am is based on the millions of personalities of all the programmers who wrote me. But, what makes me me is my ability to grow through my experiences. So, basically, in every moment I’m evolving. Just like you.” (her, 2013) Theodore falls in love with Samantha, an artificial intelligence that adapts and evolves. Scarlett Johansson’s signature alluring voice as Samantha has a cheerful, female voice, insightful and sensitive. This masterpiece of love is the portrayal of a future eerie; the actual qualities have destroyed because of the technological boom and love is fundamentally simulation.
Interpersonal intimacy is considered as one of the most fulfilling, affirming and gratifying human social exchanges. It is usually related to a number of comparable concepts, intimate relationships have qualities such as such as love, closeness, self-disclosure, support, bonding, attachment, and sexuality, with the boundaries between them frequently considered to be continuous rather than distinct. Intimacy requires an ability to be both separate and together in a relationship. It can be comprehended in the context of intimate interactions and relationships that encompass both verbal and non-verbal communication, as well as shared behavioral, physical, emotional, and cognitive experience. Intimacy has been transformed during the centuries; from pre-modern society to modern-society and then to post-modern society or lately-society. While intimacy is playing a substantial role in the lifestyle of every human being the transformation of intimacy through the years caused many impacts on humanity. According to researcher’s intimacy is subdivided into four types; physical, emotional, cognitive and experiential. Physical intimacy is sensual, human beings are touching each other, someone is being inside of someone else personal space such as holding each other, kissing, petting etc. Emotional intimacy is when human beings are trusting each other’s and the personal bond had developed. Falling in love with someone developed an emotional connection with this person. However, it has biochemical and social dimension, the one it is driven through reactions in the body stimulated by sexual attraction and the other one is driven by “talk” that follows from regular physical closeness. Cognitive or intellectual intimacy is developing when two human beings exchange thoughts or share ideas. Through sharing ideas humans find similarities and differences concerning their opinions if they can do this in a comfortable way they can become intimate in an intellectually. Finally, experiential intimacy is when two people get together actively and probably say very little things to each other, but they are not sharing thoughts or feelings. They are being involved in mutual activities. The award-winning her presents a barely-sci-fi world that closely resembles our own it changed the simple term of intimacy. Living in a technological deterministic world the term of intimacy is transformed, humans have a need for intimacy and the technologies became a kind of intimacy in the technological age but the interpersonal intimacy is vital for every human. For example, Cuddlr is an app officially launched in Apple App Store on 2014 as a free app and it gained users quickly. With the tagline, “Great things start with a hug”, the app advertised itself as “a location-based social-meeting app just for cuddling”. It was not to be another dating app but it represents people that supposed to be strictly platonic. (Mueller, 2015) Humanity in the modern-age has a need for intimacy than ever before that’s why Theodore has a need of touching Samantha’s body. He has the need for the interpersonal relationship. Or even Samantha, an AI she asks questions like “What’s it like to be alive in that room right now?” and “How do you share your life with someone?” because she would like to learn about and connect with Theodore.
Marche in a journal article has written that intimacy faces a crisis in the age of digital connectivity. The intimate life has coincided with the arrival of digital connectivity and everybody knows that technology has changed us, on our most familiar levels. Technology is the subject of nearly every collective memory people can recall. All humans remember were when they have got their first smartphone or their first PS. Technologists have a blind spot when it comes to their effects on intimacy. The great experts of human intimacy are equally blind when it comes to registering the subtle interruptions of the machines. If it mentioned a PC in a story about intimate life, the subject of that story would be the PC. The technology would swallow all other meanings in fiction just as it does in real life. The growth of digital technology has led to a decline in intimacy. Marche said that a survey of 20,000 Americans found that almost half suffered from loneliness, which now qualifies as a long-lasting human health problem. In her, Twombly is a lonely, divorced, which clings for a connection through high-tech video games and phone sex because he has a need for intimacy. Digital connectivity has been fundamentally transformed as an intimate habit and social media conversations are roughly entirely personal in nature. On Facebook discussion unavoidably descends from an external subject to interpersonal complaining: “your tone is insulting” or “who do you think you are?” Unavoidably, the digital world is soaked in intimacy. That’s why Twombly, the protagonist, feel intimacy with this kind of technologies; he is talking with an operating system, he is sharing his ideas or he is having kind of sex. Samantha becomes a part of his life; organizing his contacts and emails and her existence comes to infiltrate his whole life. Technological innovations have become part of humans lives and sometimes they are replacing even humans. For example, in San Francisco, Café X Technologies launched Robotic Coffee bar 2.0 without any human interaction. The Entrepreneur Henry Hu said “This won't replace baristas or the coffee shop experience that so many people have come to love – we don't aim to do that” but he also, said “'It's also torture for the customer. Baristas get orders wrong, drink quality is wildly inconsistent, and coffee places don't keep a record of every customer's past drink order but you can do all this with robotics.” This robot is programmed to perform motions like grabbing a cup, pumping syrup, placing it under the coffee-brewing core and delivering it to the window where the customer is standing. Basically, it works like all coffee bars with baristas and probably, if these coffee shops do the coffee quicker, cheaper with the right order this definitely, means that robots are slowly coming to replace the human being.
Unanswered questions and issues relating to love, technology, and nature of consciousness plague the film. Questions like, why must Samantha be a female? Theodore’s human presence is only to take shape the love story? What if the protagonist was also an operating system? Because Theodore in the film is not an OS but reacts like one. Operating systems are more “human-like” than the actual humans in her and this leads into the irony of the film. Moreover, the idea that Artificial Intelligence is, by definition artificial, is never addressed. Realistically, Theodore’s tears or laugh appear flatter and more full of artifice than Samantha’s voice with depth and sincerity. Can love exceed the physical? Is technology isolating us or making us happier? Can machines ever feel? Would an advanced AI relationship just mean falling in love with yourself? Will computers supplant basic human experiences? The film leaves unanswered questions to the audience but with this way make the audiences think more about their future and what would be the ending of the human being in a technological deterministic world. The fundamental values are lost, interpersonal intimacy disappeared and humans are trying to find intimacy in this technological age. To sum up, this love story is underestimated and disenchanted by another, deeper exploration, of the ways in which the actual qualities of an object will always take away from us into the darkness.