Mem1: Visiting Hours II  | 2012 Visiting Hours II is a site-specific audiovisual installation created by Mark and Laura Cetilia for SoundFjord (London, UK) during their residency in January 2012. The piece documents Mark and Laura's experience of visiting the gallery and the borough of Haringey where the gallery resides. Visiting Hours II makes use of location recordings, captured radio spectra and recordings made in the space with their musical instruments (cello, voice, and analogue electronics, as well as custom software/hardware that allow for real-time manipulation of these sound sources), along with locally recorded video that is subtly manipulated during playback in reaction to the soundscapes constructed by Mem1. Since the video is manipulated in real time based on the incoming audio signal, and the sound and video components are of different lengths, the piece is never the same from one viewing to the next.

Visiting Hours II is the second work in a series that began as part of the Laptopia #5 exhibition at the Museums of Bat Yam (Israel) in 2009. Since 2003, Mark and Laura have collaborated on numerous performances and fixed media works in their electro-acoustic ensemble Mem1. Their process generally involves a number of improvisational sessions in which they find new techniques that they can then weave into a loose narrative structure. The duo then create unique interpretations of this narrative each time a given piece is performed. In Visiting Hours II, Mem1 challenges this methodology by each alternating solo recording sessions in the exhibition space and gathering sound and video recordings of the immediate vicinity over the course of the residency. This process ultimately led to the creation of a densely layered audio-visual composition that explores Mem1’s understanding of the environment they experienced during their residency at SoundFjord.