Holy Motors: law & technology

Leos Carax’s 2012 film Holy Motors suggests new images for thinking of the citizen and, consequentially, is suggestive of how we might reimagine our sense of what law is (and does). At the core of Holy Motors is a question about the transformations brought about by changes in technology – from energetic and visible motors and machines to informational and invisible networks of communication. Does such a change leave our image of the law and its subjects intact? In this chapter, I will argue that it does not. Such a change requires the subject itself to become a source of information, to become transformable and combinable in ways which move faster than contractual agreement and exchange. Presciently, Deleuze made this point when he noted that we were moving from the individual to the “dividual”. If so, Carax’s film offers us the means for reimagining what law is and what we dividuals might become.