I'll admit - this one was a little dense. However, I somehow managed to take something, or a few things, away from it. The first being: Codecs vs Actual Film: One thing that Cubitt mentioned was that as film today, we rely more compression and digital file types. When using these however, and through multiple compressions and transfers, little bits are perpetually lost from the image. When this happens with digital media, our brain "fills in the gaps" and we may not even be conscious of it. But he says that with actual film (and he references "The Story of the Kelly Gang" film,) that everything is caught - light, nature, movement. Everything appears more raw and natural because it is naturally impressed upon the physical film. This makes a lot of sense, but I found it interesting especially because it is something that I just often forget. The second thing I took from the reading was the topic of mediation. Naturally as a film student, and an aspiring director, mediation should be at the forefront of every project - how am I going to perpetuate this story? He mentions that everything that mediates is a medium. Again, one of those common sense things that is nice to be reminded of. The third: "The assertion that the world is composed of things is based on a rejection of this connectedness." While inspecting eco-mediation, he delves into how when ecology is being broken up and parceled out, it disconnects and remains in a state of separation. However ecology as a whole is more a concept of a everything is actually one whole as opposed to pieces of it; it is a fluid thing that changes as a whole, that shifts and grows and morphs as a whole. This actually ties in quite nicely to my previous post regarding Cinema as an encapsulation, or post-cinema not necessarily being defined (in my opinion) as something that has happened "after" Cinema, but rather it is a morphing of. It doesn't mark the end of Cinema - rather the point at which a shift was recognized. The fourth: I felt a sense of irony when the idea was brought up that as artists we create work that asks audiences to look at nature, at the environment, to make an effort to preserve planet earth. But, through our creation of these things we must destroy part of nature to create - trees for paper, plants for dye, etc. The fifth: Cubitt uses "The Story of the Kelly Gang" as an example of the film itself showing a different way of life at the same time as the physical film strip (and the degradation of it) does this too. This echoing of the past isn't just presented to us through an image or portrayal - but it goes one step further by our ability of seeing a physical artifact.
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