2015
App with sound
http://lulusuite.ca/lulu-sweet-the-app/
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/lulu-sweet-gold-rush-tale/id952869009?mt=8
Artists’ Statement:
Lulu Sweet: A Gold Rush Tale in 8 Acts (2015) is a location aware walking tour app situated on the Fraser River, re-imagining the life of Gold Rush actress Lulu Sweet, for whom Lulu Island (Richmond, BC) was ostensibly named.Using animations, archival imagery and sound, panoramas, and 19th century newspapers, the artists take viewers on a journey from New York in 1850 through the jungles of Panama, to the mining towns of California and the outposts of colonial England, ending in the footlights of the Gold Rush stages of San Francisco.There are nine gps activated hot-spots, each taking you back to a different moment in time, from 1850 to 1863.Lulu takes the stage at the tender age of ten in the rough mining town of Hildreth’s Diggings, California; shares the stage with the notorious Adah Menken in San Francisco; is managed by desperate swindlers and hot-headed gamblers. All of this is set against the backdrop of the Fraser River itself, upon which she and Colonel Richard Moody (the officer charged with surveying the region) sailed in 1861, the ‘moment’ when the island received its name.
Artists’ Bios
Deanne Achong and Faith Moosang are both artists working in Vancouver, BC. They have been collaborating since 2010. The Lulu Sweet app brings together both of their interests in history, technology, mediated imagery and working with archives. They are currently co-producing an interactive website – Underwater Chinatown – which looks at the heyday of Cantonese Opera in Vancouver in the early 20th century.
Deanne Achong is an artist based in Vancouver, BC. Her practice explores concepts of time, narrative, and archival ‘fictions’ through various new-media projects—net-art, blogs, robots, and apps. She also works with photography, video and installations. She has sat on the board of several artist-run centers, including Other Sights for Artists’ Projects, a collective presenting public art projects. She has exhibited her work in Canada, the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. This past summer she presented a beta version of her app Lusca, at ELO in Bergen, Norway, and The Obsolescence Project at ISEA at the VAG. She has an MFA from UBC, and a BFA from NSCAD.
Faith Moosang is a multimedia artist, curator, writer and researcher who lives and works in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Her work centres around inquiry into spectacle culture, media, mediated imagery and the mechanically reproduced image. She has an MFA from the School for Contemporary Art at Simon Fraser University and has expanded her practice to the realms of public art and curating contemporary art. She has also published books, articles and blogs relating to culture, pop culture, research, history and photography. Her research and writing have garnered awards and her specific passions are things archival, historical and political.