If we are to agree with Gaston Bachelard, it is barely possible to differentiate between the inside and outside and it is fair to say that with global commercialism and an ever-growing population, the outside continues to lose its "emptiness" as areas become controlled and we attempt to escape the tame centres. 3 hours from here (An English Journey) places the viewer in the confines of the modern non-place we regularly inhabit in a time of modernisation. The business parks and motorways seem empty of communal civilisation yet maintain a constant ghostly presence. In the film, which sees a heavy goods vehicle journeying from Southampton to Manchester, Cross asks where the inside begins and the outside ends while revealing an anticipation for the act of travel, where time seems suspended in the quest for a different location. Filmed through the side mirror of the lorry, the film echoes the gently honest nature of JB Priestley's writing, while creating a fresh view of known settings and creating a literary soundtrack to the constant hum of the endless roads of England.

Clown-haired New Yorker Gary Lucas has been described -- by The New York Times, no less -- as "a guitarist of a thousand ideas" and by the Melody Maker as "A true axe god". Add to that his stints in Captain Beefheart's Magic Band, a much documented mentoring role for the late Jeff Buckley, plus sideman and compositional duties with everyone from John Zorn to Leonard Bernstein, and you have one stellar Manhattan maverick who's clearly as happy in an air conditioned uptown studio as in a downtown basement club. Lately Lucas has been busy with the Fast 'N' Bulbous: The Captain Beefheart Project, but tonight's solo show promises cherry-picked highlights from the man's four solo albums, plus nuggets plucked from the extensive oeuvre of his day job band, Gods and Monsters. Expect exceptionally dextrous guitar playing that ranges from the lyrical to the lurid and an Edith Piaf influenced voice only a mother could love imparting songs that draw on everything from traditional Jewish lullabies to '30s Chinese pop songs, and all stations in between.

More than being just a British photographer, Martin Parr is also a collector and celebrator of kitsch. Although we could describe his work as "journalistic", Parr -- included in the Tate Modern's Cruel and Tender (2003) exhibition -- has a brash and garish take that links his aesthetic to Pop, that great British sensibility. Now, together with photographic historian and critic Gerry Badger, he has written and collected the first of a volume history of the photobook. For Walter Benjamin, the presence of photography signed away the "auratic" powers of the artwork, thus photography provided a kind of democracy, a disseminated art. Here Parr and Badger point out that the photobook is the area in which the photographer distributes his art as whole to the world, as opposed to the "originary" print we seem to prize these days. It exists between the film and the novel, the evening's theme.

NB: this talk and book signing is being held in conjunction with the release of The Photobook: A History Volume I (Phaidon). Martin Parr's next solo show will be at Rocket Gallery's new space in the Tea Building (from 20/05 till 03/07).

Giveaway: we have one copy of Martin Parr (also by Phaidon) to giveaway. It will go to one randomly picked Flasher who can name the famous British band for which Parr directed a pop promo.

The term "counter-culture" is certainly one filled with nostalgia... Rather than a culture of counters (both shop keepers and accountants), we think of a torch being passed from the rebellions of early European Modernists to the young Americans who marched against Vietnam to the critical theorists' re-invigoration of academia. Has the art world lost this idea of the "avant-garde"? Are we now in a mere situation of production and are artists just concerned with their "market"? Julian Stallabrass certainly seems to think so, though his aspirations are greater. And why not. Are today's producers just mere capitalist drones? Can art still open our eyes to the world and change our world view? Can we still establish that Situationist spirit in our creative lives? Here the author of Art Incorporated is in conversation with artist duo Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska, who have tried to "place" their works outside of the traditional sphere of the art world and open new dialogues with their artwork. They will be joined by writer and Brit counter-culture chronicler Barry Miles, as well as the political and cultural historian Donald Sassoon.

NB: Cummings and Lewandowska have created an installation, Enthusiasm (till 22/05), in the lower gallery. While there, catch Robert Crumb upstairs (till 22/05).

Zikzira Physical Theatre is a company with a distinct and unorthodox approach to performance. Founded in London in 1999 by Brazilian choreographer Fernanda Lippi and director Andre Semanza, Zikzira attempts multi-discipline, site-specific events. As Cinzas de Deus (Ashes of God) is typical -- or as typical as can be. A "dance film" it attempts to merge those two disciplines and was the first instance of contemporary dance cinema to be filmed in Brazil. Zikzira's latest Verissimilitude -- inspired by Michel Foucault's The Four Similitudes -- is followed on Sat 07/05 and Sun 08/05 by a live set by Kid Loco (a rare chance to catch Loco in "The Big Smoke" as he rarely performs here.)

NB: Verissimilitude runs for four nights (Thu 05/05 till Sun 08/05). On Wed 04/05 (8pm) catch a screening of Zikzira's As Cinzas de Deus and La Chambre (a Q&A with cast and crew follows the screening).

Witness the hitherto unsuspected link between ballot box and off-your-box at Electrowerkz this Thursday as Lumin present an Election themed rave. Forget the legacy of the Criminal Justice Bill as wonks and pillheads put the party into party-political. Taking a cue from the numerological significance of Thursday's ballot, the 555 Election special offers a quintuplet of acts: Venetian Snares, Richard Devine, Mira Calix, Solar X and Global Goon. Stretching the theme to near breaking point, visuals will comprise a multimedia collage of sloganeering, manifesto pledges and (possibly) postal vote fraud and bare-faced gerrymandering. Venetian Snares's current opus Rossz Csillag Alatt Szueletett is an unlikely mash-up of drill 'n' bass and traditional Hungarian folk music, loosely themed around pigeons. An oddly apt headliner for a similarly incongruous evening's entertainment.

50 years have now passed since the car crash that killed him but James Dean refuses to lie down and die. Images of the star are everywhere and his status as a major pop culture icon is taken for granted. It's easy to forget then that when director Nicholas Ray cast him as Jim Stark in a film he was planning to make about teenage alienation, Dean was a raw and relatively unknown actor, anxious to prove himself. The two were kindred spirits and clearly thrived on the collaboration. Ray, always adept at conjuring something special from the actors he worked with, provoked Dean into producing the defining performance of his short career. The actor's commitment, in turn, brought out the best in the Ray, whose use of expressionist images: composition, colour, lighting and set design, externalised the inner torment of the main character. Now there's a chance to catch this legendary film on the big screen as Rebel Without A Cause is re-released by the bfi in a new digital restoration as part of the NFT's tribute to James Dean.

NB: the James Dean season runs from 06/05 till 28/05. On 24/05 catch the documentary James Dean: Forever Young with an intro by Dean biographer George Perry. Rebel Without A cause is released in London on 06/05. Other films released on the same day of interest are Andrew And Jeremy Get Married and Palindromes.

If you enjoy gawping at the weirdness of American family values then Palindromes has all the creepy ingredients of a Jerry Springer show. Director Todd Solondz -- of Welcome To The Dollhouse and Happiness -- has a knack of creating oddball characters in films that go beyond indulgent kookiness to really tear at the fabric of Western society. Aviva (her name is a palindrome) is the slightly gormless anti-heroine of Solondz's latest feature. A 12-year-old girl desperate to be a Mom, she is played by two women, five girls of different ages and even a boy. It's an unusual device, but strangely undistracting because Solondz is less interested in the psychological complexities of his protagonist, whose maternal drive remains entirely constant throughout the film, than the reactions of the adults she meets on her adventures: neurotic, manipulative parents; evangelising foster mother Mama Sunshine; and a host of unsavoury men all too happy to take advantage of Aviva's naivety. Slightly heavy-handed about abortion issues and religious fundamentalism, Palindromes is nonetheless an intelligent, often funny and refreshingly original morality tale that highlights the formulaic nature of American cinema, even those films that parade their "indie" status.

NB: Palindromes is released in London on 06/05. Other films released on the same day of interest are Andrew And Jeremy Get Married and Rebel Without A Cause (new print).

Improvisation often produces some of the rawest, most compelling sounds. From the freeform modality of Coltrane's quartet to the frenzied squawking of Captain Beefheart, greatness often emanates from a blank canvas. From the modern perspective, it's inevitable that most innovative improvisation now manifests itself in a more electronic format, which (ahem) seamlessly brings us to The Bays. This collective is extremely unique within that giant corporate whore, otherwise known as the music industry. Their performances are all about spontaneity with no rehearsals, set lists or repeat performances. It is all about the "moment" and this makes for a fascinating, visceral live experience. The Bays don't release stuff and therefore don't have to subscribe to the buy/sell ethos of most of the industry. Instead, at gigs they pound out memorably fresh sounds, with the basis of a band (drums/bass/keyboard) but with lots of extra FX and deck action. At this performance, they are joined by two of their self-professed heroes, legendary US experimental guitarist David Torn and ex-Japan keyboardist and latterly Porcupine Tree member, Richard Barbieri. The addition of these will only further add to the sounds and increase the scope for even more blistering and captivating musical improvisation Coltrane would be looking down and smiling.

The "object" of psychoanalysis seems so simple: plop down on a sofa, talk about your problems, hear someone bounce 'em back and, eventually, you're cured. Well, it hasn't quite worked for Woody, but the rest of us have managed to enjoy his symptoms. Perhaps it's our modern mythology, Freudianism has become such a part of our daily negotiation in the world, and he'd be doubly proud that for the last few decades we seem to be trying to kill the father. Yet Freud and his followers, particularly a certain French man, have not seen their last days; psychology is a modern way of reading and interpreting our surrounds rather than being a cure... Take the large number of critics and theorists that have imported Freud, and Lacan, into philosophy, literary theory and politics over the generations. Now the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research is doing their bit with yet another summer lecture programme to improve our hearsay and understand why we behave in certain ways. This week Darian Leader will speak on "The Object from Freud to Lacan" (11am to 1pm in room G3).

NB: on 21/05 (room B35) Hanif Kureishi brings some celeb sheen to a generally serious group of Saturday introductory lectures (series ends 18/06). Need more Freud? Drop into the Freud Museum.

Kutlug Ataman's installation Kuba, an Artangel commission, is located in an abandoned sorting office off New Oxford Street. Climbing graffiti-covered staircases and traversing dirty, disorientating concrete halls, you arrive at a squatting community of shabby, mismatched armchairs in a draughty space, bathed in pallid light and humming with the chaotic babble of voices. Every one of the 40 armchairs faces an old television playing a looped interview with an inhabitant of Kuba, a shantytown in Istanbul named after Castro's defiant Republic. You navigate a series of fascinating, intimate encounters with strangers of all ages, their surroundings evoking a few hundred makeshift dwellings constructed in the late '60s by Leftist militants eluding security forces. Of this radical past, only the name remains. The portrait that emerges is of a ghetto besieged by poverty and violence. Downtrodden women, trapped in loveless marriages to feckless men, confide to the camera about their daily struggle to care for their children. They speak of lost dreams, some retaining a wry sense of humour, others seeming completely destroyed. Ataman allows his subjects to speak; his presence is empathetic but removed. He was nominated for the Turner Prize last year and Kuba has been awarded the Carnegie Prize (the exhibtion runs till 04/06).

NB: Sat 07/05 sees two Kuba related events... in the afternoon there is a symposium (2 - 8pm) and in the evening there is a party (9pm till late). Kutlug Ataman hosts the party with all proceeds going towards helping Nejla, one of the residents of Kuba (Nejla suffers from bone cancer and urgently needs treatment that she cannot afford). Party tickets are available, in advance only, from the information desk or from Artangel on 020.7713.1400 or via email to info@artangel.org.uk.

This tentative exploration into the world of the "mini-festival" marks a change in structure for Sud, pioneers of avant-garde, jittery, brokenbeat electronic styles. This evening sees them trying out more live acts -- principally Mikael Stavoestrand, founder of Mitek and leading light in the Swedish minimal techno scene. Since last summer, Swedish dance music has been growing in popularity, and this summer it's set to be even more popular than sex or sliced wholemeal, but Stavoestrand's glitchy, feedback-washed style of sparse, funky beats is a welcome antidote to the ubiquitous Eric Prydz house sound. Affiliated with more record labels and underground techno artists than there are trees in Smaland, Stavoestrand is worth checking out -- and at this event he's joined by Am/Pm and Portable live, with more techno spun on wax by Lakuti, Dot, and VJ Brittski. As yet, this is simply stated as taking place "somewhere in Shoreditch" but keep an ear to the ground and head down for an evening of nodding out to gentle yet driving beats, buzzes and bleeps.

NB: advance tickets only -- buy here. All details on ticket.

Jean-Luc Godard's statement "cinema is truth, 24 times a second" is more true of Mike Leigh's or Abbas Kiarostami's work than of most other filmmakers. Both are uncompromising realists who have brought ordinary life to the big screen; in Kiarostami's case, offsetting negative attitudes to Iran by showing the non-political face of his country in Western cinemas. Since coming to fame in the '70s (Leigh through the BBC Play For Today films for TV, Kiarostami through the slightly more dramatic vehicle of the Iranian Revolution), both have cultivated their own unconventional methods of filmmaking. Kiarostami's films (Close Up, The Wind Will Carry Us and ABC Africa) are known for their expressive cinematography, experiments with sound and for the ambiguity that makes their audience form their own interpretation. Mike Leigh's signature style comes into play before the cameras get rolling: his scripts are written during improvisation sessions with the actors; none know more about the story than their character would, thus building up a real world of human relationships and creating the gritty authenticity of his films (Abigail's Party, Secrets And Lies and Vera Drake). Of all the collaborations and encounters concocted for London's Kiarostami Festival this is the most fascinating -- Leigh's creative integrity makes him Kiarostami's British counterpart, and anything they have to say on film you'll probably want to write down.

NB: the Kiarostami Festival continues into June with photographs (ends 21/06) and an installation at the V&A (ends 05/06), a film retrospective at the NFT (ends 31/05), and screenings (09 to 12/05) and a talk (09/05) at the Cine Lumiere.

As KultureFlash closes for another week, the winner of the Deutsche Boerse Photography Prize 2005 has yet to be announced; the lucky one of the four nominees will have to wait till Wed 11/05 to walk off with £30,000. In town for the ceremony from his base in Duesseldorf, Joerg Sasse is going to take the time for an open conversation with Clare Grafik, Programme Organiser at the Photographers' Gallery. Whatever the result, Sasse is no also ran; originate in the quotidian and, from familiar ingredients, his images conjure placid and impenetrable landscapes, even if our eyes recognise a collection of glasses on a dish or a porcelain trinket peeking from high up on a wardrobe. He is nominated for works in the Tableaux series, where more than ever each image's distance is augmented by deployment of digital manipulation where the artist sees fit. Where it begins and ends is a mystery, as are circumstances and even original authorship of the image; Sasse openly admits that many are donated or found photographs.

NB: the Deutsche Boerse Photography Prize 2005 exhibition runs till 05/06.

The hot, lofty rooms of the Scala in King's Cross provide the setting for a line-up of bands and DJs which would make most promoters weep into their vodka-sprinkled cornflakes. Alongside the amazing low-slung downbeat jazz styles of the ridiculously talented and well-respected Four Tet, promoting new album Everything Ecstatic, we get records spun by DJ and producer Trevor Jackson -- ex-Underdog, head of Playgroup and one of the men responsible for spearheading the glammed-up electro-house Hoxton sound revolution -- and Human League addict Richard X (also, of course, a very well-respected producer in his own right). In addition, filmmaker Chris Cunningham will be playing records, and the Super Furry Animals and Mogwai go head-to-head in a DJ set -- despite their guitar band status, both groups are very much in touch with modern electronic music, as their impeccable choice of remixers can testify. Live music from the likes of Hood and Hot Chip complete a staggeringly well-attended night.

NB: this evening's awesome line-up has been put together to aid rehabilitation of musician Dax Pierson, recently injured in a road accident -- 100% of the ticket cost will go towards raising the cash he needs to modify his home to enable him to live a decent life during this period. Head down, tell your friends, and don't you dare try to blag a ticket for free entry.

Following last year's roaring UK debut at Breakin' Convention '04, Kafig return to the Peacock Theatre with Corps est Graphique, a piece combining high energy street dance with the traditions of French, North African and Andalucian choreography. Director choreographer Mourad Merzouki draws on his circus and martial arts training to highlight the possibilities of using the body as an instrument for writing and drawing. Although the conceptual framework is strict each dancer is allowed to do "their own thing" thereby creating a fusion of hip hop, breakin', popin' & lockin', acrobatics and contemporary dance. Whilst the male dancers execute handstands and somersaults, their female counter part bring feline and seductive fluidity to the piece. Kafig has inspired new French companies such as Amazigh or Hamid Benmahi. Go and see the original!

NB: Corps est Graphique runs from Mon 09/11 to Wed 11/05. Ceck out the Breakin' Convention website for more urban dance.

Whereas last year's mighty The Power Out was in most places a vocally driven affair, new album Axes sees Electrelane again exploring more instrumental territory. Well, that's the simplistic way of looking at it: in reality, the vocals are still there but are treated as just one instrument of many, Verity Susman's dulcet tones mingling compliantly yet ardently with squalls of guitars, plonks of pianos, marauding French horns and gallant banjos. A blaring train klaxon even has a role to play. Chicago a capella, who featured on The Power Out's punk-opera-kind-of-thing number "The Valleys", also make a return, to outstanding effect, on the truly splendid "I Keep Losing Heart". Live, they are prone to knock you sideways, in the most wonderful of ways. Intriguing support comes from everyone's favourite drum-playing wig-wearing singer Scout Niblett, playing from new EP Kidnapped By Neptune.

Mr Blair's re-election is at a crucial juncture, grating along due to a certain war or, perhaps, invasion. On the other side of the pond, the constant worry is about the number of American dead. It's easy to forget via this cold interface of the media that there are also other casualties. Here from all sides, protagonists and innocents all, Stephen McNeff, currently The Royal Philharmonic Society's in-house composer, has not only given the dead a voice, he's actually named some of them. Musicals are meant to be happy things, "Singin' In The Rain" happy or "The Hills Are Alive" joyous rather than deadly tragic, but here McNeff has created, with the help of Adey Grummet's vocals and the Duke String Quartet's sounds, a musical memorial to the dead in Iraq. Some have names, others don't. The numbers are different depending on the report; whatever the case many innocent non-combatants have died (as of 02/05 the body count is: 21,239 - 24,106). This piece of theatre, commissioned by the BAC and produced by Fuel, could be better described as an opera, but maybe as a "musical" it would further expand the possibilities of the genre.

NB: Names Of The Dead runs for two nights only (Tue 10/05 and Wed 11/05). Based upon the idea of short experimental bursts of theatre, this event is part of Burst 2005, a new festival of experimental music theatre organised by the BAC which replaces the BAC Opera (ends 14/05).

In this moment when culture seems to require spectacle, the Tate has put on a little show of the Swedish author and playwright August Strindberg (1849-1912). A self-taught artist, when he couldn't write he painted. And on the whole, these mucky, impasto creations from the end of the 19th century seem out of place at Tate Modern, yet it's also appropriate given that Turner was his favourite artist. We can trace a certain tradition from Turner through Strindberg, Albert Pinkham Ryder and Clyfford Still. Still is probably the best relation to Strindberg's gnarly paint today, but where the former presses for a more primordial connection between paint and viewer, the latter works via a representation of the ocean. Dark, rough seas and black skies with a flourish of white for the wave's crest, even the small canvases create a certain rawness that evokes nature. Today we look to Hollywood's digital technology to produce such momens of sublime terror, but it is remarkable how these little canvases can create such effects. This is not a show of a master, rather this collection of drawings, sculpture and photography together with the paintings bring about a sense of another time and another way to fulfil the creative impulse. (Runs till 15/05.)

NB: the Tate will be screening The Creditor, a film based upon Stindberg's play on Sun 08/05.

Amongst the detritus of a meagre living and under the dull buzz of ultraviolet strip lighting, Aaron Williamson has adopted the front gallery space of The Showroom as a makeshift home for six weeks. Dressed in rags and beneath a large black mop of hair, Williamson moves around the space seemingly oblivious to its visitors. This existence is scratched out amidst a cacophony of painted fluorescent leaved branches, woodchip and scattered straw; bright and garish colours mixing uneasily with the musty woodland smell and the slow trickle of running water made by the water feature hidden in the undergrowth. This elaborate tableau is a retelling of the story of Victor of Aveyron, a boy found living wild and alone in the woods in the late 1700s. Believed to be a savage without the capability of normative communication, Victor was subject to psychological experimentation in a genuine, if misguided attempt to civilise him in keeping with 18th century standards. The failure of this experiment subsequently lead psychologists of the day to the realisation that language and communication itself, could not be confined to the spoken word alone. Williamson, himself profoundly deaf, takes this story to an extreme allowing the viewer to see the negative and outdated culture that surrounds difference. (Runs till 29/05.)

NB: On Sat 07/05 (4pm) Laurence Harvey will give a talk about the work in the gallery.

As the evenings are extended and light invades our day, a CD arrives that offers a brushing locked groove to mirror the pattern of your day. From Tears; Beach Archive is dubmeister Douglas Benford's seventh full-length album as the enigmatic si-cut.db, presenting us with a series of works that explore an evocative subaquatic journey through an electronic netherworld. "Before Beach Archive" manipulates a sheet of lightning static, weaving a magnificent transparent textural pattern akin to the finest work of Fennesz, and drawing a nostalgic sketch of a dank, crackling, post "On Land" Eno landscape. "Sustain A Rift" follows a groove trajectory, repeated through much of the album, where the mood is distilled into hiccuping beats, pushed by a dusty bassline, melodies spinning out of phase, shrouded in echo, washing across the pulses and clicks. An elegant release, cocktail music for an industrial generation: just open your windows to enjoy.

To buy From Tears; Beach Archive online click here.

Alongside the ambitious Here is Where We Meet, the John Berger season currently in full flow at several major venues across the city, is Berger's latest work of fiction. It's a fascinating read, taking us to meet the streets, houses and people of Lisbon, Geneva, London, Krakow and Madrid, interspersing encounters with the memories they sound out. W G Sebald's mix of non-fiction memoir merged with tinges of fiction would be an obvious comparison, but Berger's brevity and sensory evocation is very different. Like Sebald, Berger is concern with uncovering the hidden narratives of the places he travels through, but his first-person interaction with both the dead and living are much more lively. If you have not come across Berger before this is a brilliant introduction to the work of a masterful writer whose sentences show just how much of the world he's touched, smelt, drawn and seen. It's also a very carefully crafted book, which, like the story within its pages, links the modern-day back to its forgotten history.

NB: discounted copies will be available at Festival events (runs till 18/05).

To buy Here is Where We Meet 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.

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