Gabrielle’s work has often used food and the ritual of eating as a recurring theme. From the experimental banquet dinners at Lalalandia’s ComfortZones, to food and ingredients as props in OVNI’s live video performances, to the (FULL) installation at the Quiet show, Gabrielle has always used food as a means to sensorially engage her audience and to embark on a universal social ritual.
With Lalalandia she celebrated culinary experimentation, creating the kitchen as a stage and dinner as performance at ComfortZones. With OVNI she used food as subject material and props for live video projections and performance. WIth OVNI, food and technology were used to create a simultaneous banquet dinner with early video teleconferencing software. She participated in roving pop-up dinner parties with Flying Saucer Friendly FoodFest, where she set-up cooking kiosks for guest to follow how-to videos and prepare their own food. Food was always present at Ongolia, as taste was equal to sound, visuals and tactile in the omnisensorial aesthetic.
Gabrielle received a degree in the Culinary Arts in 2002, and has worked as a culinary professional since 2003.
KITCHEN CAMERAS AT (FULL) QUIET, 1999
Gabrielle and her partner V. Owen Bush created a featured installation at the infamous millennial art installation event “Quiet” produced by Josh Harris of Pseudo.com in December 1999. Gabrielle and Owen had created video installations at many events at Pseudo’s 600 Broadway office space from 1995 and had also done commercial video work for their streaming video platforms.
For QUIET Gabrielle and Owen set up (FULL), a 24-hour dining space in a 2500 sq ft storefront on lower Broadway. The purpose of the (FULL) was to provide 3 meals per day for all participants and artists who had checked into the QUIET installation for the last 2 weeks of 1999. QUIET was a social experiment in capsule living and video surveillance. Josh Harris curated artists to create environments, a capsule hotel, a church, a nightclub, an art gallery, an interrogation room, a firing range, showers, bathrooms and the closed-circuit video system that surveilled and broadcast every part of the installation in 2 adjacent buildings on Lower Broadway in Manhattan.
(FULL) was designed and curated by Gabrielle and Owen. Chefs provided the food at elaborate banquet dinners each night, while performers and DJs entertained the diners. Breakfast in the Cereal Bar and lunch, snacks and drinks, were provided all day. The space featured inflatable walls by members of Lalalandia, a 100 ft table, video cameras and live projections from the kitchen, The space never closed, and everything was free. Every night participants from QUIET would mingle with the arts community, the press, and curious passersby to feast on giant platters of roasted meats accompanied by endless bottles of wine. Jeffrey Deitch from Deitch Projects aptly called it a “social sculpture”. The QUIET installation was shut down by the ATF in the early morning of January 1st, 2000.
A documentary was made about Mr. Harris and the QUIET event called “We Live in Public”. It was screened at MOMA and won the top prize at Sundance Film Festival in 2009. In 2012 Art Forum named the Quiet show as one of the top ten art shows of the 21st century.
Ongolia was a collaboration based out of the Fakeshop space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Ongolia was Gabrielle Latessa Ortiz (video, food, and drinks), Daniel Smith (audio, soundscapes), Fakeshop (computer programming and video), Phong (performance and food), Zero Rez (computer programming and video), MultiPolyOmni (inflatables and installations) and Walter Ego (inflatables) who were former members of Lalalandia, OVNI and other collaborators, known as the Omnisensorialist Federation.
Ongolia hosted themed monthly events featuring inflatables, food, video, music, visuals, movement, technology and games. Each event was a new site-specific installation in the 3000sq ft space open to the street and the public. WinterGames transformed the entire space into a 9-hole mini golf course made with found objects, sonic 3 way ping-pong, a live camera sports bar. Members of Ongolia went on to create major installations at the infamous millennial event “Quiet” featured in the award-winning documentary We Live in Public, as well as recording artists WE™.
eye>>cue productions and OVNI produced and directed music videos for electronic music labels such as Liquid Sky Music, Rawkus Records, and others. These videos were featured on MTV’s late-night electronic music show “AMP” which aired from 1997-99.
OVNI created these music videos was based on techniques used in their live video performances, which was to synchronize certain parts of the music, a baseline or drum beat, to a specific visual clip or loop in the video, creating a kind of abstract video score that visualized the music. This style of music video was intentionally challenged the popular celebrity-focused commercial music videos, as electronic music itself was anti-performer-focused, delivering a more immersive musical experience.
Pseudo.com was a pioneering internet company run by Josh Harris in the 1990s. Pseudo was one of the first companies to see the internet as a video streaming platform and predicted the convergence of broadcast media and the internet. It’s visionary CEO Josh Harris engaged many artists from the Williamsburg and downtown art scene to stage installations and performances at his regular parties. These events were held in his 6000 sq ft office space at 600 Broadway, and attracted the many arts and technology community in downtown Manhattan.
Gabrielle created video installations at these events, performing as Vapor Action, OVNI, and Re:name, and collaborated with former members of Lalalandia and others. At the intersection of the burgeoning tech industry in Silicon Alley (Lower Broadway), and the New York arts community, these events epitomized the decadence of the internet bubble of 1990s. Gabrielle also produced video content for Pseudo’s multiple streaming services with eye>>cue productions. She also documented several of these events and traveled with Mr. Harris to Japan and Ethiopia as a video documentarian.
From these interactions, Gabrielle became involved in Josh Harris’s infamous Quiet show at the end of the millennium.
eye>>cue productions was a video production company established by Gabrielle Latessa Ortiz and V. Owen Bush in 1997 to encompass commercial work such as music videos, streaming content, motion graphics and animation work. As the art, technology and music industry was exposed to the aesthetic of Lalalandia and OVNI through events and performances, Gabrielle was often offered commercial work reflecting this style of visuals.
eye>> cue created original work for MTV Networks, Global Japan TV, Pseudo.com, and produced music videos for Rawkus Records, Liquid Sky Music.
Re:name was Gabrielle Latessa Ortiz’s pseudonym as a solo video artist during the period she was collaborating with Vapor Action, OVNI, Ongolia and afterward. As Re:name Gabrielle created original video content, installations and performances as a live video projectionist and collaborator at events at the Cooler, Tonic, and Roulette. She also travelled to San Juan, Miami, and New Orleans to create site specific video installations with inflatable structures at the Miami Music Conference and Mardi-Gras
MUSIC: U-ZIQ
MUSIC: U-ZIQ
Gabrielle Latessa Ortiz co-founded OVNI with partners V. Owen Bush and Kurt Przybilla in 1995. OVNI created live projected video environments using prepared footage, live cameras, video mixers and video projectors at music, dance, fashion, and arts events in New York City.
OVNI created a style of VJing that was uniquely performance oriented which is why they often collaborated with dancers and live musicians. OVNI also created it’s own “stage”, using cameras to shoot elaborate miniatures landscapes made with found material, organic matter, food and props, creating a real-time video cinema. OVNI hosted several events to showcase live video projections and create site-specific video installations.
OVNI also directed several music videos shown on the MTV late night electronic music series AMP, where this new language of music video was showcased.
OVNI performed visuals at The Kitchen, Summerstage, the Brooklyn Anchorage, Harvestworks, with performers such as Grace Jones, Arto Lindsay, Christian Marclay and others.
Vapor Action was founded in 1995 when Gabrielle Latessa Ortiz teamed up with V. Owen Bush to produce events, after the disbanding of Lalalandia. Vapor Action staged several events in Manhattan, notably the first event on The Frying Pan, the legendary boat docked in the Hudson River. Vapor Action brought together a collaboration of performance artists, video artists, chefs, DJs, dancers, and computer programmers to create unique site-specific multi-media events.
Gabrielle Latessa Ortiz was a founding member of Lalalandia Entertainment Research Corporation, a collaborative project based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn starting in 1992 with Mariano Airaldi, Alejandra Guidicci, Ignacio Platas, Gregor Asch, and Kurt Przybilla.
Lalalandia created site specific environments in storefronts and warehouses, and activated them by hosting public events. The aesthetic was technorganic, futuristic and homemade. Lalalandia used visuals, audio, taste, smells and tactile environments to stimulate an omnisensorial experience. These subversive and immersive events existed on the frontier of art and entertainment, and challenged the notion of individual creative personalities for the idea of collectivism and collaboration.
Lalalandia ran several spaces that hosted regular events including Comfort Zones, weekly experimental futuristic banquet dinners; The Game Room, a techno-fluffy after-hours lounge; El Sensorium, monthly futuristic omnisensorial sweepouts; Translounge, a weekly ambient DJ lounge. Lalalandia’s signatures materials were water walls and fountains, inflatable architecture, looping tape soundtracks, and everything painted silver.
Considered pioneers of the “New Bohemia” in Williamsburg, they were also sought after to collaborate on events in Manhattan, at venues such as the Ritz, Roseland Ballroom and Limelight, as well at underground parties at Pseudo.com and Liquid Sky NYC. Lalandia Entertainment Research Corporation was covered in the press by New York Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Domus Magazine.
Lalalandia disbanded in 1995 but members continued to collaborate and form other entities such as Lalalandia 2077 Buenos Aires, Multipolyomni, OVNI, and Ongolia.
An assortment of articles and press from Lalalandia to the Quiet Show. Gabrielle’s work and collaborations have been covered in the New York Times, Domus, The New Yorker, The Wall St Journal, The Village Voice, Art Forum, and others.
