Awry Signals: A Eulogy for the Stellar [Girls] is code séance performance installation, a device to tap into a starlight WIFI beam in order to receive messages from the three stellar punks now making their way along it to the heavens; they shine up the cathedrals of light in the night sky.

Awry Signals: A Eulogy for the Stellar [Girls] is an homage to the radical lives of three great women who are all recently deceased: Ari Up of the Slits (1962–2010), Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex (1957–2011), and Chrissy Amphlett of the Divinyls (1959–2013).




Luminous virtual stars shine rays down from the ether for our connection with the dead. On these beams of light we talk to Chrissy Amphlett,
Poly Styrene and Ari Up as they make their way to the heavens. In our eyes, these deadgirls were warriors drawn towards horizons & extreme
limits, stepped the boundary of the visible world. Lines of disappearance and appearance, a direct beam of starlight WIFI is now passing back
through the dead girls last days, deaths and afterlives.

A live coding script cycles according to the 7 minute cycle of oscillations from Alpha Centauri,
sending out Awry Signals we ask them such questions: What is it like in the heavens ? What can you tell us of the future? What is the meaning of life?

There will be an automatic script running through the exhibition and a short performance featuring Nancy as a medium :
1. Nancy asks a question
2. connects to the stars (audio & onscreen text 'attempting communication' etc)
3. signal strength read from astro seismology data (which it continually reads all night in background)
4. signal strength determines how many lines of answers are transmitted to dead giril and interspersed via code séance.
attempt communication again/

AWRY SIGNALS: A Eulogy for the Stellar [Girls] - - - - - - - - - Linda Dement & Nancy Mauro-Flude

Ari Up 1962 – 2010

Singer songwriter musician and founding member of the Slits.

At age 14, Ari Up, step daughter of Johnny Rotten, formed the Slits along with drummer Palmolive. They toured with and opened for the Clash. Cut, the Slits 1979 album is now in The Observer’s list of 100 Greatest British albums. They were the first punk group to incorporate reggae. They came across as hardcore, confrontational and reckless, described as “ferocious girls hellbent on setting fire to anything that got in their way”

Ari Up died of cancer 20 Oct 2010

Singer songwriter musician and founding member of the band X-Ray Spex, 1976 to 2008.

Poly Styrene, was one of the few loudly female and non-white faces in early punk. Classically trained in opera, her voice has been described as “powerful enough to drill holes through sheet metal". X-Ray Spex Germfree Adolescents album shot to fame in 1978 and is still considered one of the most influential punk albums of all time.

Poly Styrene died of cancer 25 April 2011

“Some people say little girls should be seen and not heard. I say Oh Bondage up Yours!!!”

IMG: Pitchfork magazine ’Ari Up’ by J Edward Keyes Oct 2010

Poly Styrene 1957 – 2011

Chrissy Amphlett 1959 – 2013

Singer songwriter musician and founding member of the band Divinyls, 1980 – 2009.

Chrissy Amphlett, terrified and fascinated audiences with an aggressive, sexual unpredictable onstage persona who fought with hecklers and fans alike. The band released five studio albums and acheived international success. Chrissy became an Australian rock legend.

Chrissy Amphlett died of cancer 21 April 2013

In some belief systems it is said that dead warriors first disappear beyond all visible horizons and then reappear in multitudinous star clusters...

Awry Signals: A Eulogy for the Stellar [Girls] is code séance performance installation, a device to tap into a starlight WIFI beam in order to receive messages from the three stellar punks now making their way along it to the heavens; they shine up the cathedrals of light in the night sky.

Install Shot - Detail - Bundanon NiteWorks Oct 2013