Portugal is finally making itself heard these days as a powerful voice in live art and performance, as we've understood from recent visits from key groups such as Bomba Suicida. This intriguing programme at East London's SPACE Triangle Gallery compiles work by four lesser-known groups, and is a chance to get intimate; the pieces seem united by an attempt to involve the public and absorb their reactions into the work. For example Cantinho and Romao's moments of being depend on us filling in a questionnaire, which is subsequently analysed by a computer to determine "a moment of a singular experience that embodies a maximum revelation of our existence". Perhaps rather less complicated, Teatro Praga's production of Noel Coward's Private Lives requires the audience to decide which actors should play which roles. But perhaps the most instantly appealing is Rogerio Nuno Costa's I'm coming to your Place. From this page here you have all you need to bring him over to your own "place", whereupon he will perform in your living room. The connotations of the Yellow Pages dial-a-magician are too wonderful to resist -- book now to avoid disappointment!

It's often said that if you'd heard Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) speak, then you'd know where he came from; he never lost his regional accent. A trained philosopher, yet revered by sociologists, this show at the Photographer's Gallery is classic Bourdieu. Though trained as a philosopher under Louis Althusser, it was in the social sciences that the author of Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste found his milieu. Like many French intellectuals before him -- Zola (Emile not Gianfranco), Sartre, and probably to his horror, Foucault -- Bourdieu believed that intellectuals should take part in public, political life. Critics to the Left of the Socialist party were referred to as "la gauche Bourdieusienne". While teaching in '60s Algeria, Bourdieu instigated the notion that a critique could only take place through the study of the economic and social structures of society. Quite possibly sociology's most sexy moment. This talk, in sync with an archive of Bourdieu's photographs from the period, with postcolonial scholar and theorist Robert JC Young speaking, as well as Bourdieu scholar Derek Robbins and finally, chaired by Lisa Le Feuvre, will act as an introduction both to the outspoken critic of globalisation and the show itself. Sociology is a Martial Art, the documentary about Bourdieu was a surprise Parisian hit -- expect Bruce Lee chops with words!

NB: both exhibitions at the Photographers' Gallery, Pierre Bourdieu: In Algeria and Hashem El Madani run till 28/11.

Autumn can kick ya -- it rains, Guardian-job-section subscriptions are in line for the post-uni of you, and career/life/sexual health re-assessment for the rest of you as you realise that indeed this year will end too! And to really put the boot in, little buggers run round London blowing fireworks up outside your windows. But don't forget, you are special, special people have special needs, and what you need to kick back is tech-shpunk label Shitkatapult and their special music. Anniversary celebrations are due and to mark the occasion these kooky, house rocking, techno bods have released a DVD/LP thingy, and have invited you all to its launch at East End staple 93 Feet East. Founding fathers T.Raumschmiere and Apparat are presiding with Das Bierbeben, gwEm, Motor, Phon.o and Alex Paterson (The Orb), live and on das decks -- the place is gonna be packed. This DVD/LP Strike 50: V.A. / Special Musick for Special People is not a chocolate-box affair, though it is a treat. Think long term: it's more of a full spice rack, you need one. Random pickings include Elastic Heads, Richard Devine, Sami Koivikko and Hakan Libdo + docu-style extras -- give your autumn a slap, have beats all the way to Xmas.

Giveaway: we have one copy of the DVD to give away. It'll go to one randomly picked Flasher who can tell us where T.Raumschmiere got his name from.

Advertising and art have been bedfellows ever since the early Catholic Church started using imagery to manipulate the sensibilities of its often illiterate flock. Gathering around a vacant shopfront on Monmouth Street this week will be the sometimes illiterate denizens of Soho's ad agencies, stroking their beards before the weirdest commercial to have hit London since a 40ft statue of Michael Jackson was towed down the Thames. What you'll find if you make it there is a thought-provoking installation designed to leave the viewer with a Lynchian sense of dislocation. A clue to who's behind the stunt appears in anagram form within the installation. We know who it is already, but we're not telling... It's well worth checking out and there's not a bleached paedo in sight.

"For an architect of today to read and research purely within the established domain of their profession is futile." This quote, from the essay The Eclectic Fractured Future for Architecture (published in the architectural anthology 10x10), says a lot about Neil Spiller's philosophy. Few architects would be as eclectic in their research as Spiller, whose reading list in the above book includes a biography of Salvador Dali, a study of The Cathars (who believed that all matter was evil), and Neal Stephenson's sci-fi classic, Snow Crash. Having realised that most scientific worlds turn at a much higher pace than that of architecture, Spiller isn't one to sit back and wonder whether his profession will eventually catch up. Instead, he pushes the current paradigm shift to new heights, injecting the contemporary scene with a schizophrenic mix of surrealist art, cyborgs, teleportation, nanotechnology, bio-mechanics, space exploration, genetics, and so on, ending up in a post-nuclear future in which structures ranging from the microscopic to the cosmographic pierce through apocalyptically amorphous landscapes. Then things get really weird. Suffice to say that if you like your architecture to be solid, polite and Victorian, this is probably not the talk for you.

Julian Barnes, recently awarded the Austrian State Prize for European Literature, is hosting a literary soiree in the elegant and soulful surroundings of the Union Chapel. He has invited his friends, a generation of popular and critically acclaimed writers, including Nick Hornby, Posy Simmonds and Sebastian Faulks, to join him in reading from the poetry and prose that has inspired them, sharing their sources and heroes. Leading to unexpected and illuminating juxtapositions it will map the obsessions that riddle contemporary literature. It will be fascinating to see how far their favourite influences overlap and how uniquely they have been developed. These writers have vastly different sensibilities. Hornby's novels offer wry insight into the self-piteous, middle-aged male psyche and its childish obsessions. Faulks weaves love affairs into nostalgic war-torn backdrops, while Simmonds is an illustrator, cartoonist and cynical social-commentator. Some of the grand themes to be explored are bound to be love and infidelity; France and Flaubert; what it means to be English; war, history and nostalgia; and truth, the nature of reality and the irretrievability of the past. This event is a fundraiser for the crucial work of The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture.

Autodigest's new CD A Compressed History of Everything Ever Recorded, Vol. 2: Ubiquitous Eternal Live (Ash International) might make one want to align their work with that of Canadian John Oswald, whose invention of the sampling style "plunderphonics" revolutionised the sleepy music industry some years ago. By using micro edits from almost everyone imaginable in pop music over the last decade, the results were akin to a massive music library in a blender, but Autodigest have taken this concept even further -- an encyclopaedic archaeology of all sound, ever. Accompanied by freeform sax players, Coxhill, Mills and Wilkinson, one can only imagine the performance possibilities. Continuing their radical collisions of Portuguese and English musicians, Atlantic Waves have also curated a meeting of sound artist Paulo Raposo, whose work has explored the displacement of sound sources as physical instruments and replaced them with custom-built computer software, with UK artist Janek Schaefer, inventor of the "Tri-phonic Turntable" and amusingly, and confusingly listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the "World's Most Versatile Record Player". Don't expect any fancy DJ tricks, though -- this will be a collaboration of inventive sounds, of new worlds born from old and re-discovered tools.

Giveaway: we have four Janek Schaefer records to giveaway. They'll go to four randomly picked Flashers who can name the title of Schaefer's limited edition T-shirt design found on his site.

Graphic design is intrinsically linked to music -- consider record sleeves, posters, adverts and films among the ephemera of our visual style culture. Links between music and art can be traced to 1920s Bauhaus artists Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky, famed for their colourful polyphonic designs. The rise of digital graphics has lent itself easily to expressing sonic concepts and we now can experience music through visual forms like never before. From international style to Modernism, new wave graphics and beyond: consider the album covers of acclaimed designer Peter Saville (Joy Division, New Order, Suede and Pulp) to the award-winning projects of digital film director Johnny Hardstaff (PlayStation, Radiohead and Super Furry Animals). The day's talks will explore how designers are using printmaking to respond to notions of sound, illustrating ideas with an array of experimental approaches to sonic graphics. The event features an impressive line-up of creatives, including Saville, Hardstaff, SHOWstudio's Paul Hetherington, Airside and onedotzero, in a collaborative venture between the V&A and the Bauhaus-inspired London College of Communication.

Giveaway: we have three pairs of tickets to give away. They'll go to three randomly picked Flashers who can name one of the two films directed by Johnny Hotstuff that were commissionsed by Sony PlayStation.

Hirokazu Kore-eda's film is beautifully subtle as it chronicles the development of its four central child characters. The shots tend to be short when any action is apparent, but linger over what, on the surface, seem to be irrelevant "scenery" takes. The story of the four children who, abandoned by their mother in a cramped tenement flat, embark on a life of self-survival, is inspired by a true event that occurred in late '80s Japan. The themes of time, adaptation and the ability, which is perhaps most evident in the young, to find small nuggets of happiness in what could so easily be presented as an unrelentingly depressing story are understated but ever-present. Hirokazu is quoted as stating that he wanted to write an antidote to the sensationalist accounts of the "horror" of the real life event and wanted to create a more rounded and realistic view of what might have occurred. A case, perhaps, of fiction displaying more faithfulness to truth than fact? Using non-professional child actors the viewer is presented in very real terms with the physical maturing of a child, especially the oldest of the four, Akira (Yagira Yuya), that corresponds with the almost forced emotional maturing that their situation requires. The film is undoubtedly sad, but never grim.

NB: screens till 02/12.

David Hare is to politics what Pinter is to the pregnant pause; you'll find plenty of it in his work but he'd kick your ass if you told him that's all he amounts to. After all, Hare is a playwright not a journalist and his work deals as much with the universal emotional truth of a situation as it does with the mundane facts of politics. In Plenty, his subject is the fall of Empire in '50s Britain seen through the disillusioned eyes of a woman who had fought in the Resistance. The play concerns itself with history, politics and the collapse of meaning in an individual life reflecting the march to post-modern uncertainty in society as a whole. Plenty questions the ability of world leaders to affect change, suggesting that the power of history overcomes them. Seen from today's perspective, where the uncertainties of post-modernism are being replaced with an odious neo-conservative ideology, some of us may yearn for the ambiguities of the past. By Friday, the results of the US election may or may not be known. Talking about Plenty as part of The National's celebration of 75 years of Faber and Faber, Hare may wish the play he'd written in '78 wasn't still so relevant.

NB: catch Tom Stoppard (Wed 10/11), Tony Harrison (Tue 16/11), Christopher Hampton (Fri 03/12) and Frank McGuiness (Mon 06/12) who all take part in the series Faber Playwrights at the National Theatre.

Giveaway: we have five pairs of tickets give away. They'll go to five randomly picked Flashers who can tell us the name of the Louis Malle film that Hare wrote the script for.

Any attempt to cover the History of the Horror Film, taking in movies from the silent era to the present, from Hollywood to Art House and from Mexico to Japan, would be foolish to claim to be exhaustive, and, presumably, this NFT Season makes no such claim. It won't, for instance, include such benchmarks of the genre as Rosemary's Baby or The Shining; there's no Alien or Blair Witch. It will, however, screen films ranging from the truly sublime (Ugetsu Monogatari, Cat People, Eyes Without a Face, Dark Water) to the utterly ridiculous (take your pick), which is entirely appropriate to the genre. It also includes the recently extended version of The Exorcist, somewhat inevitably, given that the co-curator of the season is Mark Kermode, famously of the opinion that William Friedkin's Meisterwerk is the greatest film ever made. He may be hopelessly wrong there, but there's no doubt that Kermode is one of the most perceptive, perverse and amusing film critics and historians around, and even if -- perhaps particularly if -- you aren't a fan of horror, or just don't see the point, we would strongly recommend getting down to his introductory talk (Mon 08/11), if only for the hell of it...

NB: History of the Horror Film runs from 05/11 till 30/11.

This year's edition of the London Music Collective's annual experimental music festival is entirely dedicated to the guitar, an instrument increasingly (re)used by electronic and experimental musicians in diverse shapes and forms. Expect an indulgent moment of guitar solos with a line-up of the most impressive standards gathering artists from the four corners of the world. The first day will be opened by the Sardinian prepared guitar player Paulo Angeli, followed by Billy Jenkins, the inspiring Annette Krebs, Paul Mumford and AMM's member Keith Rowe. Saturday will be run by the pedal street guitarist Susan Alcorn, Tom Besley, John Bisset, American avant-garde guitarist Elliott Sharp and former Fall guitarist Dave Tucker. Sunday will see London's multi-instrumentalist Peter Cusack, acoustic guitarist Janet Feder, Alfredo Genovesi, Simon King, to finish with the drones of New York musician and critic Alan Licht. Such events cannot be missed, especially when contextualised in such an innovative venue. Highly recommended.

NB: the festival runs from Fri 05 till Sun 07/11. The event will continue at the 12 Bar Club (Fri and Sat at 12am; Sun at 2pm) with ad hoc groupings of main stage players and special guests including Aki Onda, Paul May and Caroline Kraabel (free to main event ticket holders).

As our annual acknowledgement of that strange character Guy Fawkes draws to a fiery close, Jade Fox will be taking to the stage of the Jazz Cafe. If KultureFlash dealt in cliched witticisms, we would warn you to prepare for some jazz-infused fireworks. As it is, the incendiary sounds of this new London four-piece speak for themselves. Jade Fox made themselves at home in Camden throughout the summer with a residency which was rapturously received. The band has developed an impressive freeform style, seamlessly straddling multiple genres to create an improvisational mix of breakbeats, nu-jazz, future soul and much more. The band has also become deeply entrenched in a rapidly evolving London scene, underpinned by dance culture, but branching out fascinatingly in multidimensional directions -- as demonstrated by Bugz In The Attic, NSM, Two Banks of Four, Shaun Escoffery and Terri Walker, almost all of whom Jade Fox members have directly collaborated with. The band is also benefiting from the Gilles Peterson seal of approval with a live session pending. A musically deep night awaits, where Messers Okumu, Ramm, Herbert and Skinner will dazzle all with their improvisational and flowing rhythms.

Genre-hopping creative types are a tricky bunch. For starters there's Wayne Hemingway -- ex-fashionista turned tiresome cultural commentator cum mildly irritating social housing consultant. Then there's the musical output of William "Captain Kirk" Shatner, or for those who really want to feel ill, Madonna's acting. Sometimes, it can all work out rather well, as an experiment in the arcane field of glassware has proved. Vessel, a trendy Notting Hill store/gallery, handed out protective goggles to four British artists not usually associated with glassmaking, and asked them to create something interesting with a helping hand from Italian glassware company Salviati. The resulting works have proved a cracking success (sorry), with boundary-vaulting pieces by Future Systems' architect Amanda Levete, Muso's Tom Grieves and Jane Dillon, product designer Ross Lovegrove and 3D designer Thomas Heatherwick. The quintet follow in the bootsteps of Anish Kapoor, Tom Dixon, Nigel Coates and Tord Boontje -- who ensured a similar experiment four years ago garnered universal plaudits. Do check out the gallery's website, if only to marvel at how even the most pretentious prose can be riddled with apostrophe-related schoolboy errors. Also, if your pockets are deep enough you can even purchase a work or two.

NB: runs till Sat 06/11.

ALT*CTRL deliver in spades this evening with creative noise-master Si Begg and breakbeat pioneer Tipper when they team up and tee-off a live set that promises to run into the larger of the small hours. Support comes from among others The Dexorcist and Point B. For those of you inclined for a little "intellectronica", courtesy of the Wheels Instead of Hooves, make sure you savour the soothing live twitch of Yellotone's elec-trip-hop (whose recent release Tar File Junction on Ai Records is getting heavy rotation at KF HQ) and some suave (possibly microscopic) visuals from Kurst . Expect seriously funky electronic beats and deeply crisp sounds.

NB: see the flyer for the full line-up.

Its all about light and shade at Fabric this weekend. In Room 1, ringleader Matthew Herbert introduces glam-glitch from Brooks before a live spectacle from The Soft Pink Truth. Moonlighting from his day job in Matmos, Drew Daniels is currently reinventing punk anthems as glitchy, bouncy house tracks. Which means wiring the rotting corpses of Crass and Minor Threat to the mains and sending them twitching and lurching toward the floor for zombie robot karaoke fun. Sounds too much like The Wire Christmas party? Relax, Daniels spells innovation F.U.N.K. Next door, unreconstructed males Dave Clarke and Ben Sims grunt, scratch their testicles and tear Room 2 a new arsehole with bleeding-edge techno. Leaving Swayzak to apply a palliative balm of woozy, bleepy grooves direct from their superlative Loops From The Bergerie. Aaaah...

Malcolm McDowell has always been a bad, bad boy. And we're just thinking If, Clockwork Orange, Caligula or the more recent Gangster No.1... no need to even consider pap like David Cassidy's (remember him) dad or drek sci-fi villains in Star Trek. No matter what lows and highs he achieves, we're always gonna remember the Kubrick Alex; Beethoven can never really be the same again. However, what really launched McDowell was the role of the delinquent Mick Travis, a precursor to Alex -- If was probably the anti-establishment, student protest classic of its era. Noted for moments of filmic poetry, with its mix of black and white with colour, as well as its barbed social satire, McDowell's talk kicks off a season of Lindsay Anderson films at the NFT.

NB: Lindsay Anderson: A Critical Conscience runs through 30/11.

Time is the theme of Spread the Word's new season of live literature, and influential Caribbean poet Lorna Goodison will be looking at present history. Lorna is making a rare appearance in the UK, hosting a workshop at Willesden Green Library, where she will be reading from her recent poetry collections and speaking about her work. A teacher of creative writing at the University of Michigan, she received the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for North and South America in 1986. Her books of poetry include Tamarind Season, I Am Becoming My Mother and Heartease. She will be joined by Dorothea Smartt, a London poet and live artist. Spread the Word supports the development of new writing and live literature in London, encouraging innovation and experimentation. Workshops, courses and live literature events are available for writers at all levels and in genres such as film, comedy, lyric-writing and memoir.

NB: this event is FREE however advance booking through Spread the Word is necessary (020.7735.3111).

Those lamenting Iron and Wine's sold-out night at St Luke's may breathe a slow sigh of relief, and allow themselves a small, slightly smug upward twitch of the lips, for the melancholy and dark gentle poetry of Sam Beam (aka Iron and Wine) can now be heard for an extra night in the hallowed chambers of the Union Chapel. Elegiac, by turns lyrically sombre and touched with hope, Sub Pop's answer to Sufjan Stevens (and if we must compare, then Neil Halstead and Kings of Convenience too) twins his hushed melodic voice with guitar, banjo and slide-guitar, to haunting effect. His first full-length album, Our Endless Numbered Days is a gem of moving simplicity, blending gentle blues, country inflected ballads and acoustic ponderings on love and faith, steeped in a pastoral landscape. Look out for a new EP, Woman King, due for release in early 2005.

There are no fiddley-diddley aspirational ideals about a band called "The Mutts". If you've ever hung around with sleazy Garage Rock musicians you may have noticed that they fall into two broad categories: wannabe Oscar Wilde types, with grandiose working class-chips worked in the style of a trampy queen, or, Artful Dodgers. The Dodger wasn't always smart, but he had a heart, and have-a-go party boy glint. Hands up who prefers the latter! Well these Mutts are from Brighton, not Lancing or Portslade, and they play stuff in the style of The Ramones and MC5. But that's not the point really is it? Let's be honest: Garage Rock/Punk has already had its re-emergence, and one could be mistaken for thinking these boys may have missed the coat-tails. No, no, no -- the point is not fashion and nonsense trends; if you ever need to jump, and scream, and raise ya blood pressure a bit for something other than Dubya or Abi Titmus then go and see these lads for a bit of cathartic noise. They've toured with The Soledad Brothers and Radio 4, and are gonna jump on the bus with The Datsuns and The Dirtbombs, so catch 'em while they're this end of the M23.

NB: support from Mando Diao and Rulers of the Planet.

Giveaway: we have three copies of The Mutts new self titled EP/mini-LP (released 15/11) to give away. They'll go to three randomly picked Flashers who can tell us on which label did they release their second single.

You read it here. This may be Ori Gersht's most emotive body of work yet. Since the escalation of violence in the Middle East, the Israeli-born photographer has been returning to his homeland more frequently. The result being two series of intense, over-exposed photographs of trees and landscapes, Ghost and Blaze. The olive trees of the former, hundreds of years old, but more importantly a religious and culturally-loaded Mediterranean symbol standing for the relation between man (the farmer) and his land, have been photographed in the hotly disputed zone of Galilee. Likewise, with Blaze, Gersht has touched upon the region's violence by literally turning the camera towards the sun and scorching light on paper. Although violence and politics play a vital part in both these series of "burnt" images, Gersht reaches a painterly calm, reminiscent of Cezanne's landscapes or Jake Berthot's trees, that is entwined with themes of time, history and memory while continuing his exploration of historically-steeped regions.

NB: runs till 26/11.

On the wall opposite the Millers Terrace gallery, some graffer has written CRONIC. We are sure that Oliver Payne and Nick Relph would approve of this statement being made on the doorstep of their latest show. In recent years, their films about kids and streets have been a breath of fresh air in the stifled climate of contemporary video/film art. After the ICA, Tate and Venice Biennale there is something reassuring to see them showing in a back street gallery off the Kingsland Road. How to Recover from Hyper Mode is an installation in three parts. Two facing walls have been covered with mirror tiles and a William Morris design has been screenprinted over them in red ink. Very Bruce Lee meets flock wallpaper chic. On the back wall there is a sculpture made up of a stool, a photocopier and a pair of prison white Reeboks. The trainers, which are placed on the photocopier, have got a fiver imbedded in their soles. The photocopied image appears on the tray of the machine --­ are these artists telling us they don't want to become corporate? This is like the kind of work Jim Lambie would make if he were obsessed with chavs rather than the '60s.

NB: runs till 28/11.

New from Matador -- this debut EP from the Prosaics. Andy Comer (guitar/vocals), Bill Kuehn (drums) and Joshua Zucker (bass) met early 2002 in New York and the first fruit of their labours compares favourably with several of the past and present alumni of that city. Visually, they resemble a version of Interpol's undertaker chic but sonically the Prosaics are more urgent, more idiosyncratic and lacking their label-mates' gloomy detachment. These five tracks crackle with energy and the pace is breathtaking -- propelled by a frantic rhythm section, the trio seem hell-bent on reaching the end of the CD. Comer's vocals -- alternatively introspective and soaring -- are particularly distinctive with the sky-scraping chorus of Teeth recalling the grandeur gestures of '80s indie. A full-length album follows next year.

To buy Aghast Agape click here.

Sean Penn plain and simply rocks! The breadth of the roles he has played and his disparate performances have proven that he is a true chameleon. From Jeff Spicoli (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, 1982), to Officer Danny McGavin (Colors, 1988), to David Kleinfeld (Carlito's Way, 1993), to Matthew Poncelet (Dead Man Walking, 1995), to Sgt. Welsh (The Thin Red Line, 1998), to Emmet Ray (Sweet and Lowdown, 1999), to Sam Dawson (I Am Sam, 2001), to Paul Rivers (21 Grams, 2003) and lastly to Jimmy Markum (Mystic River, 2004 -- which finally won him a well-deserved Oscar); you don't get much more diverse than that... Unlike some of his contemporaries, Penn has true integrity and has never sold out -- that's forgetting the abysmal Shanghai Surprise... His marriage to the limelight-seeking Madge was doomed from the start as Penn is and always has been a very private man who will defend his privacy at all costs even if that means he has to punch a few paparazzis in the face... Notoriously temperamental, this intense, idiosyncratic, brooding actor is hands down one of the most talented living actors -- if not "the" most talented actor of his generation -- choosing his films wisely and never scared to take risks. Drawing from exclusive interviews with Penn and those around him, this insightful book has been written with his full participation and compiled as an oral history of the actor's life and work. Penn is also a devoted father and a responsible citizen who has, for the past couple of years, been showing a keen interest in his country's politics and has not been afraid to voice his controversial opinions on the war in Iraq. Despite being a huge star, Penn has a very human quality about him. As he put it himself: "the responsibility of the artist is to know the time in which he lives".

To buy Sean Penn: His Life and Times click here.

Giveaway: we have one copy of the book to give away. It'll go to one randomly picked Flasher who can tell us who Penn's son is named after.