Author(s)
Maciej Piaskowski, University of Łódź, Poland
Journal: Polish Journal of English Studies
Issue: 11.2 (2025)
Date: 15/12/2025
Page: 71
Quote As: Piaskowski, Maciej. Posthuman Love in Her and Ex Machina, Polish Journal of English Studies 11.2 (2025): 71-82
DOI: doi.org/10.64867/pjes.25435981.25.112.0235
Abstract
This article explores how contemporary cinema, such as Her (2013) by Spike Jonze and Ex Machina (2014) by Alex Garland reimagine love and intimacy within the framework of posthuman theory. Drawing on previously established and discussed concept of the posthuman condition, the study argues that both films challenge the humanist idea of autonomous subjectivity by presenting relationships in which affect, technology, and embodiment co-produce emotional experience. The analysis in the article situates these film narratives within a broader cultural context shaped by technological mediation, where communication, sexuality, and emotional expression increasingly depend on digital interfaces and entities. Through the figures of Samantha, a disembodied operating system, and Ava, a humanoid artificial intelligence, the films demonstrate how non-human entities can evoke human emotions, desires, and vulnerabilities while also exposing the limitations of humanist definitions of love. The article discusses how Ava’s strive for autonomy and Samantha’s distributed consciousness exemplify posthuman relationality, blurring boundaries between simulation and authenticity, body and code, human and machine. Both films use posthuman intimacy to discuss issues of gender, power, and emotional dependence, revealing how technological beings both mirror and transcend human expectations of companionship. Ultimately, Her and Ex Machina are read as cultural experiments that reflect on the ethical, emotional, and ontological implications of human–technology entanglement. Rather than portraying love with machines as purely dystopian, not feasible or impossible, they invite readers to reconsider intimacy as a shared, dynamic process between human and non-human agents, as well as to encourage the discussion on possible consequences of such actions.
Keywords: posthuman, film, zoe, intimacy, relationality
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© by the author, licensee Polish Journal of English Studies. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Received: 2025-11-11; reviewed 2025-11-30; accepted 2025-11-02