CURRENT:
GIDEÖN
HOMO-CENTRIC RECORDS — label mgmt and strategic consulting services
LINKS: Instagram SoundCloud Resident Advisor Block9 ADONIS
Artist, curator, creative practitioner, and music producer, Gideön is founder of Gideon Berger Studio, a company established to deliver his solo work. He is also co-founder, director, and musical curator of Block9, a creative partnership established in 2007 annually presenting large scale installations, “temporary alternative realities”, including numerous late-night attractions at Glastonbury, the world’s largest greenfield festival. Recent projects have seen him head up Creative Direction for Dua Lipa’s record breaking Studio 2054, winning the MVA’s Music Video of The Year award. He was production designer for lead artists at Live at Worthy Farm, Glastonbury’s virtual festival livestream. Other collaborations include projects with Banksy, Imperial War Museum, Finnish Opera House, Hercules & Love Affair, Lana Del Ray, Skrillex, Brian Eno, Roisin Murphy, The Blessed Madonna, Honey Dijon, Anohni and Jorja Smith. He is also founder and label boss at Homo-Centric Records, a label set up to showcase his own productions and to amplify the creative contributions of queer artists working in underground dance music. The label aims to highlight the LGBTQ+ heritage of House Music and its manifesto states its intent to “re-establish the lines of queer musical tradition in House Music, lost to the dual crises of the AIDS epidemic and the rampant commercialisation of dance music itself”. He has a background in music spanning 30 years. In addition to his practice as an artist, stage designer and curator, he is a touring DJ and is an avid collector of vinyl records. He has a degree in Music with Visual Practice (BA Hons) and is currently guest Creative Director of Music for London Borough of Culture 2022. Since his first set of turntables in 1990, he has devoted his life to collecting vinyl from the US, Jamaica, Latin America, Africa, and the UK. He specialises in Northern Soul, Latin, Reggae, Gospel and Disco rarities. House Music, above all, is his first and greatest love. As a DJ, he has been actively involved in radio for many years. After cutting his teeth on London’s pirate stations in the late nineties, he now hosts a regular show on Soho Radio. He is frequent guest on London’s Rinse FM and has recently contributed to both BBC Radio One, NTS and BBC6 Music. He curates Block9’s festival nightlife institutions NYC Downlow, Genosys, Maceo’s and IICON and is also resident and co-booker at London’s hottest queer club night Adonis. He is a resident DJ at NYC Downlow and The Blessed Madonna’s “We Still Believe” and is regular at Berghain’s Panorama Bar, Lab.oratory & Garten. He was also often invited to play at Kyiv’s ∄ club before the Russian invasion. As an activist, he has been involved with charitable work and political action for over three decades and is increasingly organising his own hybrid projects primarily partnering music and protest. Under the banner of R3 Soundsystem, alongside Love Music Hate Racism, he has organised major sound-system interventions at many national demonstrations including the Stop Brexit, Stop Trump, and Anti-Fascist protests. He is actively involved with fundraising for several LGBTQ+, human rights and social justice organisations including AllOut, Prepster, Human Dignity Trust and Refugee Community Kitchen. He also sits on the advisory committee of The Right To Dance, part of the NGO Network of War Child.
ANTHONY DE BONO
DIVINE LUST — film premieres, festival screenings, and capsule collection launch
LINKS: Website Instagram DIVINE LUST Project
Anthony de Bono is an Australian-born, Berlin-based artist, working across a range of disciplines including: Performance, Installation and Fashion. Their interdisciplinary practice explores ideas and notions of the body through a constant questioning and deconstruction of societal structures and personal experiences. Through a utilisation of action and gestural response, Anthony responds to perceptions of themselves, notions of intimacy, desire and beauty. Often culminating in durational performance works and ephemeral installations, inviting a further collaborative practice and exchange with other artists, which references and responds to the current social and political climate. Their fashion work sees Anthony de Bono transform once mundane discarded items of clothing into a fierce visual statement. Found and second-hand items as well as their own creations are cut, torn, painted and collaged.