Christian Marclay's current exhibition at the Barbican offers a lively selection of his ongoing explorations of the meeting between visual art and music. Showcasing some of his key interpretations of the ways in which sound is experienced and translated, from a series of silent photographs of mouths open and singing, invented album covers starring none other than himself, to his spectacular filmic symphony, Video Quartet, this ongoing fascination crosses from the formal gallery space to the music industry, where he is known in equal measure. In keeping with this multifaceted show, an eclectic mix of events has been programmed alongside, including live music sessions, techie debates and a much anticipated Tabula Rasa performance by Marclay and collaborator Flo Kaufmann at LSO St Luke's (22/03 -- get your tickets, quick!). Tonight, focusing on Marclay's role as one of the early pioneers of turntablism, author, composer and fellow sonic guru David Toop, and BBC Radio 3's Hear And Now presenter/composer Robert Worby knock heads in an exploration of vinyl, turntables and "the groove".

NB: the Christian Marclay exhibition runs till 02/05.

Last week at the Architecture Blueprint Sessions, debate raged suitably furiously about whether architecture should be judged by how well it does the job, or how imposing and impressive it looks. This week, for the second of the four Sessions, the Interior designers are up -- so what will dominate the debate this time? Whether Dover Street Market is better design than Hussein Chalayan's new shop in Tokyo is one topic that might divide opinion. Now in their second year, The Blueprint Sessions were established as design awards with more integrity. The whole judging process is carried out on stage, in public, and the audience is given the chance to have their say too. Hawksmoor's reverential Christ Church building in Spitalfields provides the backdrop, the nominees to win this year's Interior Designer of the Year are Azman Associates, Block Architecture and Rei Kawakubo (Comme des Garcons). On stage Fay Sweet (journalist), Ian Borden (Bartlett School of Architecture's director) and Masoud Golsorkhi (Editor of Tank) will debate who ought to win. The audience can vote for a winner at the end, and continue arguing over drinks, which last week was pretty heated. The venerable Peter York will be chairing the discussion.

NB: Session III (Product Designer of the Year) on 16/03 and Session IV (Furniture Designer of the Year) on 23/09. The winners will be announced at a party on 24/03.

The urban music festival rids itself of many of the inconveniences that plague its larger countryside cousins: the mud, the camping, the tiresome trek out to the middle of some far flung county, though this being Camden, the typically high ratio of New Age types remains. At the Camden Crawl, for a mere ?15 you are given a wristband that allows you entrance to 10 music venues, each a short walk away from the other, that are showcasing 40 or so bands from 7pm to 3am. Oh and there's a free CD too! This is a great opportunity to check out some interesting young bands all taken from the edgy, punky, angular tribe such as Hot Chip, Maximo Park, Sons And Daughters, Art Brut and Clor, as well as a handful of more established acts like Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, Le Tigre and Graham Coxon. There are far too many bands to mention here so please check the links -- the full programme of events will be published on the night. Alternative use should be made of our urban spaces; Shoreditch or Highbury Fields would be perfect for a music festival. So please support Camden Crawl and other areas may follow suit.

NB: catch Le Tigre perform at the Forum on Tue 15/03.

Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs is the most sexually explicit film to be awarded an 18 certificate by the BBFC. 9 Songs' plot is simple: in between gigging at Brixton Academy two lovers (Kieran O'Brien and Margot Stiley) meet for lots of sex. Winterbottom and his camera crew get as close to the action as physically possible, yet 9 Songs is a film characterised by a sense of distance. Film footage at Brixton of bands including Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Franz Ferdinand and The Von Bondies lacks aural and visual sharpness. By contrast, the sex scenes feature epiphanic lighting and acutely realised licks, sucks and sighs. The viewer remains, however, distanced as a result of the film's sparse dialogue that barely captures the relationship's rise and demise. This detachment may, however, be more a projection of the viewer than a result of Winterbottom's direction. The viewer is presented with an incredibly intimate relationship in an incredibly public space: the cinema. The surroundings in which culture is consumed affects the responses generated: watching a couple having sex in a full-house challenges the viewer's comfort zones of shared artistic experiences. Winterbottom's 9 Songs acknowledges the creative role of the consumer of artistic production.

Country living offers all that we, in the city, don't have: slow pace of life, free air, time, grass. But then do you want to give up all them urban pleasures...fast food, shiny cars, high heels. Described as "America's greatest living composer", Steve Reich is known for his '60s tape-loops and minimalist compositions, the highlight being his Music for 18 Musicians (1976). Now these are nice reminders of what urbanism can produce. In town with experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison and Bang on a Can artistic director Michael Gordon, Reich is creating another level to "understand" our lives in the big city. In fact this little ensemble is performing his City Life, a work created with tape recordings of New York City sounds, and the UK premiers of Gordon's Gotham and Mark-Anthony Turnage's Crying Out Loud.

Rather an over-used name these days, but this Punch Drunk is the one to go for. Created to celebrate Vincent Dance Theatre's 10th birthday, it marries a new-found "don't give a f*ck" irreverence (to quote director Charlotte Vincent in this excellent video-interview) with the technical finesse they're already famous for. On a disused, vaudeville backstage, a group of dancers, stuck somehow in this place, go over old numbers and moves. And before long this becomes a questioning about the process of making "a show" -- what is it that pulls these poor over-used souls back in front of the audience? The way a "stupid", old-fashioned dance move can still bring forth bucket-loads of joy is brilliantly demonstrated, and placed as analogous to the more personal issue of how to carry on when either past one's prime or simply exhausted. Ricocheting without mercy between hilarious show-off routines and intense bouts of self-conscious introversion, Punch Drunk flows beautifully but shuns any attempt at linear development. Perfect!

NB: Punch Drunk runs for two nights (Fri 11/03 and Sat 12/03).

As part of London Book Fair, English PEN are holding writing masterclasses. As they're sponsored by the Daily Mail, we're wondering if they'll be teaching budding writers how to pen a tome about a work-shy immigrant terrorist with a bionic finger full of heroin who, with his evil side kick, a genetically modified single mother, plan to kidnap the Queen and turn her into a Pete Doherty look-alike who'll sell Sudan II contaminated hotdogs to paedophiles. It's unlikely though. What the bill does promise is sensible advice on getting published and on a range of styles from history writing to poetry. To get the most of these things, it helps to have a bit of talent and a story to tell. Failing that, just copy the synopsis above and take it with you free of charge from your favourite newsletter. It'll certainly give the Daily Mail book club something to chew on.

NB: the weekend is divided into four events: publishing (Sat 12/03 from 10am - 1pm), contemporary fiction (Sat 12/03 from 2 - 5pm), historical fiction (Sun 13/03 from 2:30 - 5:30pm) and poetry (Sun 13/03 1:30 - 4:30pm).

Daddy of social theory Richard Sennett gets together with Stephen Mumford, Morag Shiach and Sean Sayers at LSE this Saturday to discuss a topic that will be close to the heart of every exhausted metropolitan wage slave: work. Do our ideas about what constitutes a productive use of time still stand up to scrutiny? Is it time we admitted that there is?virtue in laziness? Sennett is a delicate and unusual thinker who has recently published on public space (Flesh and Stone) and the dangers of interventionist social policy (Respect). This is the kind of meaty subject he likes to get his teeth into and the results should be interesting. Shiach will be talking about that famous defender of sloth Betrand Russell, who argued that, "without a considerable amount of leisure a man is cut off from many of the best things".

NB: Richard Sennett will be speaking with other guests, including Helena Kennedy, on religious hatred at the ICA (16/03).

The throbbing locale of Brixton plays host to the legendary Kevin Saunderson, one of the founding fathers of techno and founder of the Detroit Music Institute alongside Juan Atkins and Derrick May. Fittingly for the slightly retro-facing Brixton crowd, who are far more likely to be heard talking about how Ibiza hasn't been worth it since '92 and lamenting the lack of soul in dance music than freaking out to jeep beats or electroclash, he'll be playing an old-school house set -- perfect for those of you who'd rather spend your time jacking like Cubase never happened, and can still fit into your vintage Farahs. Listen out for the kind of influences that shaped his sound -- from the early Detroit techno to more introspective fare like Can and Depeche Mode -- whilst grooving in Plan B, one of Brixton's friendliest and most pleasant bars. Perfect for a Saturday evening -- miss it, and miss out.

Time for Gilles Peterson, lord of the UK jazzdancefunksoul scene, to present a genre-bending smorgasbord of what he is feeling at the moment. This tantalising prospect will be served up within the palatially renovated KOKO, a club otherwise known as ex-grubby den the "Palais", last seen reverberating to sounds of ear-crushing/soul-destroying hard house all-nighters. Headlining this opening event will that lovely young lady Bembe Segue, talented lyricist, composer and poet MC, hotly tipped to rise up and shine this year, after associating with the likes of Two Banks of Four, Bugz in the Attic and the Goya collective in recent years. The diminutive Earl Zinger will also be in attendance. This consistently entertaining alter-ego of Rob Gallagher (ex Galliano) will produce another dubby jazzy journey laced with his inimitable stories and witticisms. On the DJ front, this event will suffer an embarrassment of riches -- from a headlining set by Peterson, ably supported by his talented protege Benji B (now fronting the excellent Deviation show on 1Xtra), to the second room where the ubiquitous Bugz in the Attic will be holdin' it down with another broken session, accompanied by Chalie Dark and his Blacktronica crew. Promises to be an exhausting but rewarding session.

Design prizes don't work because the criteria is woolly and the judges, in a desperate attempt to court controversy, push their personal favourites, turning the competition into a jamboree. This year they've stretched the word "designer" so far that grammatically it falls on its face; since when has a Penguin Books become a designer? Loosely modelled on the Turner Prize, each of the shortlisted? "designers" are supposedly judged on their work for the year that has passed, with the show consisting of a series of installations. Probably the most enjoyable installation was from the Glasgow duo Timourous Beasties, their richly patterned prints with gritty social scenes of impoverished districts of Glasgow, festooned around the room, upstaged Jasper Morrison's restrained display. Although Morrison is excellent at quiet design that has a simple elegance whilst being sophisticatedly engineered through a process of evolved Modernism, the work would look more at home in a contemporary Utility showroom. Hillary Cottam, design educator, who is leading the Design Council's proselytising of design into secondary education with some success, was the wild card, but perhaps the most worthy. Though what will she do with the 25K, more glossy design council brochures? And, lastly, Penguin Books were as timeless as ever. (Runs till 19/06.)

NB: while at the Design Museum be sure to catch the far superior You Are Here: The Design Of Information (runs till 15/05).

Tropical Malady's experimental exploration of a romance between a soldier and his boyfriend is surprisingly satisfying for a film that could compete with Tarkovsky for impenetrable allegories. Split cleanly into two sections, the first half observes the everyday life of Thai country boy Tong, focusing on his job at the ice factory, his attempts at learning to drive and his joyful larking about with his soldier boyfriend Keng. Tropical Malady's original and addictive blend of documentary, surreal encounters and enchanting cinematography in the first half takes a sudden dive into Thai folk legend in the second part. Though tougher to watch, it is a rewarding experience -- a huge amount of screen time is given to the jungle, an awesome setting for the story of a soldier trying to track and kill a powerful Shaman that can take on the shape of animals.

NB: runs till 31/03.

Jim Eyre, of Wilkinson Eyre, is the architect of such celebrated bridges as the Bridge of Aspiration (linking the Royal Ballet School and Royal Opera House, Covent Garden) and the "blincking eye" bridge in Gateshead (home to Baltic, the Tate Modern of the North). In this lecture, Eyre argues that successful design should be the product of collaboration between the disciplines of engineering and architecture. Working at the cutting-edge of cultural city architecture, he will cite a range of liberating technologies that are paving the way for new and exciting forms. This lecture is the first of a series of two RIBA/Ri Building Bridges talks, the second of which will be given by architect Thomas Heatherwick (05/04). Under the title Building Bridges: Exploring Extraordinary Forms Heatherwick will discuss recent studio projects, including the Rolling Bridge at Paddington Basin, London and the UK's tallest sculpture. The lecture will link with the themes of Eyre's talk in the discussion of groundbreaking architecture.

After the success of their last album This Island Le Tigre's particular brand of infectious, bubblegum punk-pop continues to sparkle. Weighty issues are deftly handled by this group; even when singing intelligently about serious matters such as feminism or the recent US elections they retain a lightness of touch. A recent article in The Guardian described the dismissive attitude of the music industry when faced with female rock musicians; Le Tigre would never stand for this. With electro-funk beats, cute girly vocals, samples of political broadcasts, handclaps, raps, yelps and roars, Le Tigre are an entertaining mixed bag of tricks and guaranteed to be fun live. "Deceptacon", from the eponymous album, is one of the most exciting sounding thrash, punk, pop songs ever written -- it will make you dance.

NB: catch Le Tigre perform at the Camden Crawl on Thu 10/03.

"You can have a fusion of the sincere and ironic. I see this fusion emerging just recently, in the last five to six years -- A dangerous combination on many levels." This perception is perhaps the big bulldog clip holding together almost all Richard Maxwell's work. Slowly, methodically and with an economy of means at once excruciating and exhilarating, his unique theatre has wrenched people's imagination, stamina and -- contrary to reports -- emotional mechanisms to breaking point. His new creation Joe lives up to expectations -- if only by breaking many of them to bits. The stages in Joe's life are played out by five actors (ranging from a child to an 80-year-old) mixing monologues with startling bursts of twinkle-star, goosepimple-raising song (think Magnetic Fields). Don't read any reviews of Joe (except this one -- great pic!) as some (including The Guardian one) have given away the big surprise. Joe is in some ways RM's least "entertaining" piece so far, but the strange awe that sets in lasts far longer than other more instantly gratifying shows. While in town he brings us also the site-specific, hotel-room piece Showcase, for 15 people at a time: a man prepares for a conference, and his shadow walks in to confront him.

NB: Joe runs from 08/03 till 12/03 (7:45pm) and Showcase runs from 14/03 till 19/03 (7pm, 8pm and 9pm).

The average lifespan of a florescent light bulb is 2,100 hours. When Dan Flavin (1933-96) looked towards that material he was trying to create "temporary monument" out of everyday life. Not quite a Duchampian gesture but a Minimalist one in recognising that day-to-day materials could also be turned into art. Some critics are now claiming Minimalism as the first real American art movement, and certainly with its spare design sense and industrial materialism, the Minimalist generation espouses as much American attitude as Warhol and his cohorts. If you think that this show of works is about light bulbs, you're missing the point. With nods to Constructivism and thus a healthy sense of revolution, this show of '60s Flavins, hung sparely (no pun), has to be one of the best installed at Haunch. Flavin used fluorescents as his medium, both for structure and effect; it is almost painting with coloured light where the lightbulbs and fixtures become drawing. Unlike the continuous present of the light being generated, these Flavins surprise you with their capacity to evoke ideas from Constructivism to modern design. (Runs till 16/03.)

NB: a travelling retrospective of his work is currently at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (till 05/06), and the Dia maintains the permanent Dan Flavin Art Institute in Bridgehampton, New York.

In the English-speaking world, comic books are where we find our superheroes; a place where good generally triumphs over evil, where fantasies seem to be spawned. And generally we outgrow them. In Europe and Asia, the comic provides different functions and fantasies that grown-ups still enjoy. It's only in recent days, with the success of American Splendor and Chris Ware's The Smartest Kid on Earth that we've changed our views on the comic. But if there was one Godfather, then it would be Robert Crumb. Immortalised in Terry Zwigoff's movie, Crumb, we forget the wonders of his work for the weirdness of the personality. Perhaps all that eccentric living was necessary for the first, very zany comics of the '70s and the current, introspective autobiographies. Maturing with Hippies in the Bay Area, Crumb's life is a document to that other America: one that also belongs to Ware, Charles Burns and Harvey Pekar. Besides being an amusing storyteller, Crumb is first, and foremost, a brilliant draughtsman. With a show at the Whitechapel, he's also in town to promote a new book, and we'll just benefit from hearing some funny stories.

NB: there will be Crumb related screenings from 16/03 to 22/03 at the NFT. His wife, Aline Kominsky Crumb, will be speaking with Pete Poplaski at Foyles (15/03), and his exhibition at the Whitechapel runs from 01/04 to 22/05. Still, need more Crumb!? Check this site for more info.

There are few film directors better at leaving their audience shell-shocked, exhausted and desperate for an explanation than Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. The epic length of his films, the slowly advancing camera, the narrative traps, and frustrating broken promises from characters who say, "I'll explain everything later" always keep you at arms length from an easy interpretation. Films like Solaris and Stalker (the NFT is showing new prints of both these films) may be science fiction, but their plots are not about saving the world so much as considering the workings of our minds and memories. Beyond his depiction of the future, Tarkovsky's dramatisation of 15th-century monk Andrei Rublev conjures up all the sensual horrors of a medieval world we can only begin to imagine. The NFT's full retrospective gives those daring individuals with a tough and patient temperament and desire to enter the often beautiful and mysterious world of Tarkovsky a chance to experience some of the most unforgettable films of last century. (Runs till 30/03.)

NB: the NFT has also organised several seminars, so make sure you check out the programme. "Two for the price of one" tickets are available to readers of Vertigo magazine by showing a copy of the current issue to the box office.

Today it's strange to see Beuys' sculpture at Tate Modern. The work seems lost without him. Almost a shaman for our modern age, his idea of social sculpture touched every fact of life. Fat, copper, stone could be turned into drawing, painting or sculpture, the point being that every aspect of life could be a conduit for artfulness, equally everything that surrounded us could be converted back into sculpture for society. Without the man, and his so l-o-n-g lectures, these objects seem like "unsaintly" relics, now more a by-product of a fecund creativity rather than object for social change. Perhaps those revolutionary times will return, or just maybe those anti-globalization protesters will turn out to be secret Beuysians... A small fragment of his oeuvre can be found in the numerous posters he generated in his lifetime. His posters for the Green Party -- of which he was one of the 500 co-founders -- were, perhaps, some of his most poignant, but it is poster titled We are the Revolution, with an image of him stridently marching forward, that is probably his most well known and sums up his graphic and political aspirations. Now Isabel Siben and Prestel have conviently brought together all his posters for our enlightenment,if only they could bring the man back!

NB: to help budding social sculptors, Tate Modern will be holding a series of Social Sculpture seminars led by Shelly Sacks (04/04 to 25/04). Joseph Beuys: Actions, Vitrines and Enviroments at Tate Modern runs till 02/05.

To buy Joseph Beuys - Posters online click here or buy it through Walther Koenig Books at the Serpentine Gallery (020.7706.4907).

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.

If you want to tell us about an upcoming event please do so by sending an email to: events@kultureflash.net. Please note that KultureFlash is not a listings e-zine and we do not receive any payment from venues, artists, managers or promoters.

Please send all invites, press releases, CDs and books to:

KultureFlash Ltd.
52 Cranmer Court
London SW3 3HW.