This backst_age interview is generated from artist Silvia Zayas’ episode “ruido ê (the film)”, 2023. It is the result of an epistolary interview between Zayas and Vicki Kirby, an academic specialising in many of the issues that informed the artist’s research. Zayas prepared the questions, which were then presented to Kirby, and this text is the outcome of that fascinating exchange. 

Vicki Kirby is Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Anthropology in the School of Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, and Visiting Professorial Fellow at the Institute for Art and Architecture in the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.

Drawing on a rich interdisciplinary tradition in Australian feminisms and critical theory more generally, Kirby explores the sometimes hidden politics of everyday life. Her particular interests lie in embodiment and matter, and she brings feminism and deconstruction into the conversation in order to shift the terms of these inquiries. We know that cultural meanings are biologically registered, producing symptoms and signs, but what “language” enables these interior communications and how do they differ from a conventional notion of language? Kirby sees the separation of body from mind, and nature from culture, as informing many political problems, such as climate change and gender-specific oppression.