Shannon Lynn Harris: Concept + Video, Teresa Connors: Soundscape Composition  

  Terroir, which comes from the French word terre (“land”) and loosely translates as “a sense of place,” is an abstract portrait of personal geography as well as a formal investigation of digital media. Captured entirely on an old cell phone, the raw data used to create Terroir was collected by Canadian filmmaker Shannon Harris over a two-year period while commuting across Canada for various jobs. The camera records a landscape in constant motion, but due to the rudimentary technology the image fractures and oscillates between figurative and abstraction. Married to the painterly visuals is a sonic composition generated solely from the personal voice messages left during this time period. From this data, an allegory emerges based on the notion of communication and distance, technology and intimacy, an innate human need for community and love, and the contemporary means by which it is achieved. It is a personal journey and geography of modern life, in which people seem to be constantly ‘on the move’, filtered through the technology of the cell phone.