Retina Sounds is a one night video installation as part of the Melbourne Music Video Festival curated by Internet heroes Silo Arts. The night showcases the visual work of independent musicians like Friendships, Twerps, Rainbow Chan and a ton of other buddies. Misha, the visual half of visual/musical project Friendships, gave us the lowdown on treating your eyeballs and your ears.THUMP: From the sounds of things you're chipping away in the studio today?Misha: Yeah I'm working on a new Friendships video so I've been making my own hours. Last night I was up until 5AM doing things. I'm not a big sleeper anyway to be honest, so it's totally fine.When will we get to see Friendships' new stuff?It's kind of a as-soon-as-possible deal at the moment. We're trying to get it all absolutely perfect. We're in the redeveloping stage at the moment, we took a break for a little while and we're coming back with some new ideas and projects. We're just trying to get it all perfect I guess.Are you guys usually perfectionists?It's kind of a new role. We started working with Andre our manager—he's the guy who made Paradise Festival. He's an absolute gun but he's definitely teaching Nic and me a few things about organisation and business in a way, real life and stuff. He's definitely helping us with all of that.Are you excited about working with other artists visually on Retina Sounds?Yeah I'm super excited. It's about showcasing a whole bunch of video clips from local Melbourne town, which is super-awesome. And we're working with these two artists Emma and Chérie, who I'd never met until now. We've got to install a big mass viewing arena for these videos so you don't walk in to this exhibition and there're just a few projectors on a wall and nothingness between them. That's so often the case with exhibitions, it's all this space and energy and people don't know what to do.So it's about filling that negative gallery space?Yeah totally, my work is kind of always about deleting that space. In this arena it'll be through a few projections, lots of fabric hanging, and Emma and Cherie—their work consists of a lot of interactive stuff. We're still developing at the moment, but it's going to be big and comfortable.In terms of your work for Friendships you're the visual side, do you get involved in the music?It's a complete 50/50 split. I don't do any music, and Nic doesn't do any visuals. When we're working on something we're always in contact and showing each other updates. We'll give advice here and there, but it's definitely 50/50 down the middle. It's super separate but we're always keeping each other in mind.The art scene is arguably still built around an older system—is music more organic?Totally. In the music scene where you've got the Internet where there's this world of work being given out for free. Comparing that to the art world, the music scene became a lot more enticing and a lot warmer. That's kind of how and why we started working together I guess. We were both uncomfortable with areas in our chosen field and when we worked together it kind of made it all ok.Retina Sounds is happening on the 1st of March. The lineup really is killer, check it out here.
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