Is the city of Graz on its way to becoming the next destination of choice for the world's architourists? Subsequent to the "Graz 2003: Culture Capital of Europe" spectacle (which gave Peter Cook and Colin Fournier the chance to dream up their amazing Kunsthaus Graz), Dutch architect Ben van Berkel is hard at work with his music theatre for the city. And for those of us longing for an even more exciting place to visit, there's always the Galleria Fashion Store in Seoul, South Korea, for which van Berkel's UN Studio is designing a skin of 4,330 glass disks to be attached straight onto the metal substructure of the existing facade. Together with his partner, Caroline Bos, van Berkel is at the very forefront of digital architecture -- at the recent Biennale in Beijing, their work was exhibited in the space devoted to international avant-garde architects, next to colleagues such as Foreign Office Architects, NOX, and Greg Lynn. This talk at the AA, where for four years in the late '90s he led the "Urban Studio" devoted to the development of organisational structures in architecture and urbanism, will cover recent projects with special focus on the "magnetic geometry" of the Galleria store's iridescent facade.

NB: catch Antony Gormley at the AA on Tue 07/12.

What's your view on London's Olympic bid? Triumphant regeneration of east London, or city-bankrupting white elephant? We're quite excited anyway -- from the purely selfish point of view of us architecture-obsessed Flashers, it means a chance (admittedly fairly slim) to get some really cool stuff built. The Masterplan for the main Olympic site is a team led by urban designers EDAW, with Allies & Morrison, HOK and Foreign Office Architects. First among equals in the design team (in KF's opinion) are FOA, whose sinuous planar creations can be clearly picked out in some of the press images. The idea for the Olympic park's linking elements continues the theme of their soon-to-be-completed Coastal Park in Barcelona, and it will be interesting to see how their work sits with the polite white modernism of Allies & Morrison. Will FOA be to our Olympic bid what Herzog & de Meuron were to Beijing, or Santiago Calatrava to Athens? Here's hoping!

NB: advance booking is essential so make sure you book your tickets online or by calling the RFH box office on 08703.800.400.

A remarkable and beautiful documentary, centred on the quite unbelievable annual "Ride of the Sacred Blood" in Weingarten, South Germany, when 3,000 mounted and uniformed riders, backed-up by 30,000 people on foot, pay homage to the local monastery's relic (a drop of Christ's blood taken by a soldier from the ground under the Cross). The procession itself ends up playing a fairly minor, though highly photogenic, role in the film, instead serving for much of the time as a mirror in which the director Douglas Wolfsperger reflects the incredible depth of belief held by the locals, partly in their way of life, but especially in their Catholicism. With a genuinely compassionate, but necessarily outsider's, point of view, the film paints an idyllic picture of small town life (without hiding the inevitable drawbacks). A slow, revealing and picturesque look at a very different society.

NB: this documentary is part of the 7th Festival of German Films, which runs till 02/12.

This year France and Britain celebrated the centenary of the Entente Cordiale; a political agreement, it had wider significance in encouraging rich connections in the visual arts. Today, the Institut Francais and the London Film School are joining forces to launch Scenario2!. Now in its second year this friendly event explores contrasting and complementary approaches in screenwriting in France and the UK. It features a four-day festival of contemporary film: eight screenings, UK Premieres, Q&A sessions with directors and three panel discussions on the fundamentals of film -- adaptation, screenwriting and development. Highlights include a Q&A discussion with Danny Boyle (28 Days Later, The Beach, Trainspotting and Shallow Grave), which offers insights into the screening of his new flick Millions on 02/12. Written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, it traces the lives of two boys, struggling to come to terms with their mother's death. When a suitcase of money falls out of the sky and lands at their feet, they set off on the adventure of a lifetime to discover that true wealth is a world apart from having lots of money. On 04/12 Q&A debates with screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty and The Darkest Light) will complement a screening of his film Yasmin -- the story of a British Muslim woman, who is forced to re-evaluate her faith in the aftermath of 9/11. With a five-day workshop for professional screenwriters this event will appeal to cinema buffs and aspiring filmmakers alike.

NB: Scenario!2 runs till 05/12.

Named after a galaxy far, far away, Anthony Gonzalez and Nicolas Fromageau are M83; two teenagers from Antibes, who produced last year's extraordinary Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts (Gooom). An epic, kaleidoscopic head-rush of synths and FX, their debut was hailed as "total sex" (by the NME) and drew comparisons with My Bloody Valentine's Loveless (from everybody else). Certainly Kevin Shields is an influence but there are distinct parallels with Sigur Ros, Mogwai or any other over-emotional, self-indulgent noisy bastards. At Electrowerkz, support comes from Amusement Parks On Fire, aka Michael Feerick and Patrick Wolf, whose follow-up to the excellent lo-fi electronic pop of Lycanthropy -- Wind in the Wires -- is expected early next year.

NB: this concert is organised by Knom.

Over the last year, a comatose music scene seems to have woken up in the post punk Nirvana of the early '80s. The angular stylings of Franz Ferdinand represent the most commercial end of this slim tied be-drainpiped scene, but from Scotland alone we have XTC inspired Dogs Die in Hot Cars, Sons and Daughters channelling Johnny Cash through The Proclaimers and The Fall and the fantastically named Sluts of Trust providing a stripped-down early Bad Seeds meets Wire. The Liars offer a uniquely US take on all this, mastering the fusion of danceable basslines and punk attitude that made Gang of Four so good. Recently, with the release of They Were Wrong So We Drowned, they've added legends of German Folklore to the mix (perhaps they've been listening to too much Tom Waits), to produce music for even the most Keane-jaded ears.

Giveaway: we have a pair of tickets to give away. It'll go to one randomly picked Flasher who can tell us which label released their last album.

Robert Frank's travels across America between 1955-6 were made in a battered second-hand car (loaned by Peggy Guggenheim) with a 35mm Leica which he would hide under his jacket or shoot from the hip so as not to draw attention to himself. The quiet inconspicuousness of his journey contrasts with the noisy reception its result, The Americans, has received ever since. The force of his images jolted America into an uncomfortable self-consciousness, broke new and controversial ground in photography, and provided photogenic expression for the mood and concerns of the Beat generation (Kerouac wrote the introduction). The book is still one of the most powerful series of narrative photography ever made. This symposium is part of the Tate Modern's retrospective of Robert Frank, and brings together a panel of experts, including Robert Delpire, The Americans' first publisher who famously threatened to quit if his company did not print Frank's photographs.

NB: other speakers taking part in this symposium are Tate Modern director Vicente Todoli and photographer Stephen Shore. See the programme for the full schedule and all other participants.

When Napoleon Dynamite opened on six screens in America's most effete cities, nobody could have expected the months-long conquest of the box-office that would ensue. Six months after its premiere, this weird little film has sold over 43 million dollars worth of tickets. Many of those, no doubt, to repeat visitors. Because this is a movie that reveals itself slowly -- often days after a first (or second) viewing -- it is a movie that isn't easily forgotten. Like its eponymous protagonist -- a mop-haired, surly, unrequited iconoclast in a rural American high school -- the film itself is unconcerned with good first impressions or customary niceties. It draws you in not with the plaintive vanity of most contemporary comedy, but with an infectious indifference. Jon Heder's Napoleon trudges through his senior year in high school with a grumpy exuberance. He manages to catalyse wonder in the stark plains of Idaho, doodling wacked-out fantasy animals that in fact aren't any odder than the ordinary people that surround him: his emotionally stunted Uncle Rio, his silent girlfriend Deb, and his politically ambitious and socially incompetent best friend Pedro. There are moments when the film seems to lag into the redundancy of an expertly imagined, but overworked, Saturday Night Live sketch, but the strength of the character, and his beguiling ambivalence and enthusiasm for life take us much deeper than the sketch it could've been. Because what's funny isn't how dumb Napoleon acts, but how smart he really is.

The Turner Prize is intended to attract debate about new British Art. From its debut in 1984, it has risen in profile from a localised curiosity to become one of the most discussed events in the international art world. Organised by Tate Britain and sponsored by Channel Four, since 1990 the prize has gone to "a British artist under 50 for an outstanding exhibition or presentation of work in the preceding twelve months". Previous winners include Anish Kapoor (1991), Damien Hirst (1995) and Chris Ofili (1998). But its fresh perspectives cause controversy. There's a love-hate relationship between the artists and the media, particularly in the case of this year's strongly political and film-orientated short-list of Kutlug Ataman, Jeremy Deller, Langlands & Bell and Yinka Shonibare. At Late at Tate Britain there's an opportunity to explore the prize after dark for yourself. Entry is half-price and there's an array of events. The evening kicks off with a conversation between art journalist Miranda Sawyer and artist, author, broadcaster and critic Matthew Collings. Staged in the exhibition, the debate takes a snapshot of the award's history, evolution, judging and prize money. Just what does it all mean? Martin Creed, the winner of the 2001 Turner Prize for his notorious gallery installation of a pair of flashing lights, knows exactly what it's like to win. Music orbits around the essence of Creed's art, which focuses on how we interpret our environment. At Late at Tate Britain he will be performing live with his new band, playing old favourites from his rock trio Owada and introducing new songs. Don't miss a great evening.

This is a chance to see Sud close out the year in style with a live set from Sutekh (Context, Force Inc./Mille Plateaux, Soul Jazz and Orthlorng Musork). The Egyptian god's namesake, Seth Horvitz, has been known to produce music of electronic insect rippling over solid tubular underpinnings and sumptuously crafted noise scratches. But famed for the gulfs of difference in style of his many releases, the only consistency seems to be the rhythmic evolutions that push their funky way through his music. With more live broken beat and emotive exploration from the perpetual presence of Portable (Context, Background, Karat and Mutek) and V/DJs in the form of SDNA, Lakuti, Jonathan and Dot, this should be a great kick off to the start of the festive season.

Giveaway: we have one Sud goodie bag to give away. It'll go to one randomly picked Flasher who can tell us the name of Sutekh's media company.

With Derrida departed to work on that great deconstruction in the sky, we mustn't forget that the great female poststructuralists of that generation, Julia Kristeva, Helen Cixous and Luce Irigaray, and kiddies like Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, are still about bashing thinking into ever more complex parts and slowing our writing-thinking selves down into more contemplative bites. Now Irigaray, that doyen of French feminist critical thinking, she of the "phallogocentric" signifier, broke from Lacan and re-inserted a more feminine way into our "masculine" discourse with her, now classic, Speculum of the Other Woman. Here she is in town to speak about "spirituality" and "belief", a subject only alluded to by that generation. With an anthology of poems entitled Everyday Prayers and a collection of essays that include some on spirituality, perhaps we'll now be introduced to less a "critical" and more contemplative Irigaray, but a more critical way to approach belief.

NB: This talk is part of the ICA's The New Believers series, which includes flash fave Slavoj Zizek speaking at King's College (08/12). 100 Artists See God, curated by Meg Cranston and John Baldessari, runs at the ICA till 09/01/05.

Indie kid goes to art college and starts a band. Indie kid gets degree, time to push for dream design/art/writing job, but their band is gigging at the Metro with a friendster fan club of 45. Shiza! Spend time making demos and pitching for gigs, or strapped to Monday's Guardian while dropping off your portfolio? Do both and bumps might start coming up on ya neck, so indie kid (now discerning cultured adult) makes a choice and "focuses". It's just NOT FAIR are the screams from Farringdon to the Westbourne Studios! Graham Coxon, Marilyn Manson, John Lennon, Bowie and Madonnna have all had a go at the greener side with differing results, and now some NME pinups are doing something similar for the "love" of it. Interpol's Sam Fogarino, Julian Gross from the Liars, Darren Seltman from The Avalanches, Death in Vegas' Richard Fearless and Dolf from The Datsuns are the musos showing off their visual side plus a few cutting-edge graphic designers and directors. The launch party is sure to be a much talked-about hoot, and if you can't get in the limited places the exhibition would be a much-needed tonic for anyone weary from following their dream of love, art and music.

NB: this event is free but Flashers must RSVP to info@itwillcome.org. Noise Of The Art I runs till 11/12.

Hexstatic's new album Master View is an absolute stunner, packed to exploding point with honeyed beat-lines, delicious electronicalism and mesmerising, delectable vocal riffs. Coming as it does with a DVD of their famed visual works and a pair of 3-D glasses, it must also count as one of this year's most fun releases. That's not least because the visuals are steeped in such extravagant levels of weirdness and wonder: a homage to '80s video games like Pong and Defender, a man standing on a bongo drum practising karate kicks, an actual parrot bursting into humanoid song! The Coronet, a converted cinema, seems appropriate for Hexstatic's audio-visual live show -- and they'll be going the whole electro-hog, with cinema-sized projection screens, the latest sound technology and weepingly good support that includes Ninja Tune veteran DJ Food.

NB: others on the line-up include Organic Audio, Fingathing, Eddie Temple Morris and Exceeda AV, plus Zen TV AV Mashdown with Matt Black (Coldcut), and Juxta.

Giveaway: we have three Masterview CDs and three Hexstatic tees to give away. They'll go to six randomly picked Flashers who can tell us the name of Ninja Tune's famous (now defunct) club night.

Everyone knows about how everything was so much better "back in the day". That good ol' days syndrome that insists that music was better, the scene was cooler, the movies had some kind of integrity that has been lost along the way. So we can skip right over all of that stuff and get right to the point. This is a club night hat brings together some of the "greats" of house and techno. Detroit techno legend Jeff Mills (Axis) is in London with the UK debut of his new project Three Ages, a soundtrack to the classic Buster Keaton flick. It seems a natural convergence, the fusion of cinematic time travel with Mills' characteristic minimal techno, and this new project promises more great things to come. Kim Bilir is screening another sight and sound project, contributing an urban flavour to the evening's events, and Marshall Jefferson is playing this exclusive UK gig -- and his first night at Lost. The Purple room features a line-up of regular Lost DJs and Steve Bicknell will hook up a hard-hitting house set. So for everyone who has been wondering why there hasn't been anything as good as that show they saw back in '97 that put the proverbial cap on their clubbing experience, get Lost. Go see something better.

This screening accompanies the V&A's exhibition Encounters. The show explores the relationship between Europe and Asia from 1498, when Vasco Da Gama landed in India, until the British-Chinese Opium Wars in the late 18th-century. It examines the objects that were traded and exchanged as gifts and the way native styles began incorporating foreign influences. Encounters brings together fascinating artefacts, from the ever popular Tippo's Tiger to beautiful Japanese scrolls where tail-coated Dutchmen are depicted as elegantly as the geisha they flirt with. Respected film director Mike Leigh, best known for gritty drama such as Secrets and Lies and Naked here takes on the genre of costume drama. In Topsy-Turvy (1999), starring Timothy Spall, he dramatises the genesis of Gilbert and Sullivan's perennially successful operetta The Mikado, 1885. The odd couple composer and lyricist are having a mid-career crisis when Mrs. Gilbert drags her husband to an exhibition of Japanese life and the rest is history. The film concentrates on chaotic backstage rehearsals with scenes of delicate Japanese ladies instructing cockney actresses on how to comport themselves with a fan. The Mikado launched a craze for all things Japanese that has never gone away.

NB: booking is essential, for tickets call 020.7942.2211. Encounters runs till 05/12.

Britain in the late '40s wasn't exactly a laugh a minute. What with rationing, leaden skies and, God help us, Butlins, you'd sooner overdose on Spam than spend another minute on this lifeless isle. Then, out of nowhere, came bebop -- a searing ray of positive energy that made smiling compulsory. Young Italian saxophonist Tommaso Starace and his trio promises to bring this feeling to life at The Troubadour -- the original subterranean smoky jazz den quietly noodling away in Earl's Court. Your ticket buys you visual as well as aural stimulation: jostling among quality jazz standards, funk and ballads will be the first airing of some Starace-penned tunes, specially composed to accompany a slide show of '50s shots by Magnum's Elliott Erwitt. At 29 Starace has ticked all the right boxes -- feted sessions at the 100 Club and the Umbria Jazz Festival have been interspersed with impressive sojourns at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Berklee College of Music and the Birmingham Conservatoire. Swotty academic records aside, the Milanese and his crew are set to deliver a vital bagful of laid-back bebop that will make the grey London winter fade from memory before you can say "groovy alto solo you crazy cat". Could a cold night in December be better spent?

Born in Queens, New York, a mere 78 years ago, 13 times Grammy winner Tony Bennett is an enduring testament to healthy living and gentle, urbane optimism. The man's signature song may be a dejected essay about losing his heart in a certain undulating California city, but its phlegmatic, ruminative -- even celebratory -- take on lost love perfectly encapsulates the Antonio Dominic Benedetto philosophy. Tony Bennett doesn't do longeurs -- as anyone who witnessed his stylishly upbeat 1978 Glastonbury triumph will attest. Famously the favourite singer of that other iconic Italianate crooner, Frank Sinatra, Bennett was recently granted a prestigious "Citizen Of The World" honour by the United Nations -- as much for endurance as for global appeal and artistic merit, one suspects. Nearing his ninth decade, the twinkling, crinkly-eyed charm remains and the rich mahogany and molasses voice is still surprisingly potent. Above all, Bennett exudes that ineffable -- and increasingly rare -- entertainment commodity: class. Accompanied by long-serving pianist Ralph Sharon and a brisk, nimble rhythm section, this promises to be a night of life-affirming musicality, cordially sincere sentiment and lengthy standing ovations. It's not cheap, but then nor is Tony.

Thunderous and darkly glamorous is what this uber-dynamic double-bill will be. The Brechtian-punk-cabaret of Boston's Dresden Dolls and its London doppelganger, Noblesse Oblige, with its elecktro-kunst-punk mayhem, is set to shake the moral fibre of little Cargo. Stand back and enjoy! The Dresden Dolls -- Amanda Palmer (Piano/Vox) and Brian Viglione (Drums) -- are a heady fusion of Weimar-era cabaret, the rock 'n' roll fury of Joan Jett, PJ Harvey and The Violent Femmes. Their awe-striking live energy and singular look has earned them opening slots for Beck, the B-52s and Jane's Addiction. As for the Zeitgeists, the Franco-German duo, Noblesse Oblige -- Valerie Renay (Vox/Bass) and Sebastian Phillip (Vox/Bass/Drum) -- their ferocious sound has been likened to Joy Division, Peaches and Einsturzende Neubaten. Having formed less than a year ago, they've enjoyed praise and notoriety from wild sets at the Marquee, Islington Academy, Sean McLusky's On The Rocks, Torture Garden and Whoopee among many other raucous and racy nights around town. This gig will be out there on the edge with the best of them. Kindred spirits, we're there!

NB: Dresden Dolls and Noblesse Oblige will also be performing at the Life Cafe in Manchester (08/12) and at the Medicine Bar in Birmingham (09/12). Noblesse Oblige will then be at Berlin's Hebbell Theatre (14/01).

Hong Kong bomb-buster John Woo has frequently stated that he'd like to make a musical, and his action bulletbusters frequently have a balletic quality. Yet the first accidental action hero, Charlie Chaplin, rode that fine line between action and dance, comedy and tragedy. In our colourful, talkie, high-speed narrative day, it takes longer to acclimatise to Chaplin's pace and pratfalls. Enter, stage left, the London Sinfonietta to the rescue! Bringing into our space (and time) Chaplin's "grace" will be Frank Ollu, who will conduct mezzo soprano Della Jones and baritone Omar Ebrahim, with the help of Sound Intermedia and some newly invented music to suit Chaplin's Easy Street, The Immigrant, and The Adventurer. Instead of plinky-plonky pianos and organs, this new "soundtrack" should have a life of it's own, just as we often think Chaplin's legs do.

NB: for other Sinfonietta events and music, click here.

Hanif Kureishi's new book mines a similar vein to his previous works. Except this tells of his father's life. My Ear at His Heart describes his father's move, both literally and spiritually, from Bombay to Bromley. This reflection on the effect of surroundings on an individual is pure Kureishi and can be seen in the reassuringly specific geographical nature of novels such as Buddha of Suburbia (1991) and Gabriel's Gift (2001). In the former we were really being presented the story of Britain's late 20th-century development; the protagonist Karim's loss of innocence and coming to term with his self was a reflection of the idealism of the '60s mutating into the Thatcherism of the '80s. In 1996's My Beautiful Launderette again we are being told a tale about identity without such a theme getting in the way of the narrative of the characters and their lives. On Wednesday Hanif Kureishi will be reading from My Ear at his Heart and talking about his work as a part of a series of lectures from writers, that has previously seen Germaine Greer, Will Self and Martin Amis take the stand.

NB: this event is free but Flashers must contact Maria MacDonald on 020.7919.7436 or via email at m.macdonald@gold.ac.uk.

The sudden deja-vu obtained by walking into Mamoru Iriguchi's set for The Pink Bits quickly establishes the tone for the rest of this cleverly crafted (and award-winning) piece of theatre; it's a classroom, simple as that. We sit at desks, the performers likewise, dotted among us. Perhaps the heavy legacy of Kantor's 1975 Dead Class has frozen attempts to explore the classroom as performance space. But as Mapping 4D shows, the possibilities here for an overwhelming, total theatre are endless -- one moment picking up fragments from a confused teacher, the next reading notes passed from another audience member, and constant chatter all around from the performer-pupils subverting or questioning what's going on. Slowly some kind of understanding builds, curiously and cumulatively; a feeling for how our inflated aspirations to somehow belong to/take responsibility for our own history are largely punctured by the horns of various emotional, ethical and political dilemmas. The clever structures support a beautifully arranged, absurd-yet-intelligent text delivered in impossibly offhand fashion -- a style typified by Greg McLaren, currently one of London's most rewarding performers. Surely the shortest hour and a half in theatre for a long time, this is fortunately more interesting (and entertaining!) than the somewhat austere blurb suggests.

NB: runs till 11/12.

America's greatest living photographer has been gratifyingly visible in London of late -- there was the 2002 retrospective at the Hayward Gallery (ironically enough, paired with Ansel Adams, of whom we learn Eggleston's opinion here); then in 2003 the Cruel and Tender show at the Tate Modern, a very partial chronicle of 20th century photography; and now Dust Bells, at Victoria Miro Gallery, showcasing two newly published portfolios of images from the '60s and '70s, along with Stranded in Canton, Eggleston's only film (shot on video), a cinema-verite plunge into the raunchiest depths of the Memphis underground -- if you mind seeing a geek at work, this may not be for you. (At Victoria Miro, the film is presented in a 30-minute version; to see the full 80 minutes, head for the Prince Charles Cinema on 13/12.) Stranded in Canton underscores Eggleston's reputation for wild and tempestuous ways -- and when we heard that he was running late for our appointment, perhaps because he had spent the previous night partying with Juergen Teller, we wondered whether he was still keeping it up at 65. Instead, we encountered the perfect Southern gentleman, a soft-spoken man who chooses every word with the same precision found in his photographic view of the world.

William Eggleston's Dust Bells at Victoria Miro runs till 18/12. Also catch the second Artprojx UK screening of Eggleston's Stranded in Canton at the Prince Charles Cinema on 13/12.

To read the interview click here.

This book takes what might be considered an obscure subject and investigates it to such an extent that most people will find a great deal of interest inside its pages. Camouflage, by its very nature, is perfectly suited to being explained in pictures and this illustrated encyclopaedia does a fine job. Although a portion of the book is dedicated to a study of military camouflage (including a 224-page supplement detailing the camo patterns of 107 nations around the world), DPM Disruptive Pattern Material promotes a strong anti-war message throughout and prefers to emphasise the natural roots of the phenomenon and its subsequent use by artists, fashion designers, graphic designers and other creative cilvilians. Conceived and compiled by maharishi 's Hardy Blechman, the book is the first to document the cultural use of camouflage outside the armed forces -- these days all types of things are adorned with disruptive patterns, from Barbie dolls to dog beds. Over its 944 pages, DPM confronts every conceivable issue relating to camouflage as well documenting the numerous patterns and applications in a very unique way. The sheer size and ambition of this project is enough to attract even the most sceptical reader.

Special Offer: to buy DPM for £80 instead of its normal retail price of £100 call the dpmhi store on +44.(0)871.218.0260 and quote "KultureFlash".

KultureFlash is a free, weekly newsletter covering contemporary culture in and around London. Each week we track down some of the more unusual and interesting events taking place in the Capital and deliver them straight to your inbox. Featuring art, gigs, films, talks, clubs and more -- we are committed to bringing you an eclectic mix of the most stimulating events in London.

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