Native San Franciscan duo Two Gallants are named after a short story within James Joyce's Dubliners, an apt allusion since their own music is imbued with distinctive romantic storytelling. The duo produces a wholly organic sound consisting of merely two voices, guitars, drums and a harmonica; predictable comparisons with The White Stripes will be inevitably lazy. Instead their more acoustic-based sound evokes a certain punk energy, combined with a folk-driven purity of discontent. Following on from the release of their 2004 debut album The Throes -- which received immense critical acclaim and allowed them to build a core following -- their new album, What The Toll Tells, has just been released by the nexus of US indie cool, Saddle Creek Records (Bright Eyes, The Faint, Cursive). The confines of London's oldest venue should be a great place to witness their timeless lyrical tales of dreams, loss, despair and triumph.

Shared Territories is a series of Anglo-Dutch debates on issues in contemporary design and architecture during which Dutch and UK-based practitioners will discuss the challenges faced by their disciplines today. This debate will address the need for designers to understand how their design languages and fabrication strategies relate to specific markets of our globalised world. They will consider who it is they are designing for and which qualities industrialised products need to have to make them acceptable in specific local cultural contexts. The event is chaired by curator and critic Lucy Bullivant. The speakers include Ron Arad, Head of Design Products Department, RCA; Ed Annink, industrial, furniture and interior designer, and co-director of the design consultancy Ontwerpers, The Hague; and Jurgen Bey, industrial designer, Amsterdam. Also participating is Luke Pearson, industrial designer and co-director of Pearson Lloyd, London, whose recent projects include the Virgin Upper Class Suite, Duffer of St George shops, and street furniture for Westminster Council. And finally Gioia Meller Marcovicz, furniture and lighting designer, founder of gioia, Venice and London. Originally trained as a fashion designer, her products embody the same ideals as her clothes: plain, simple, functional and timelessly elegant.

Straight from a Weimar cabaret, Spanky and Xavior will bring the louche glamour of the inter-war era to the plush surroundings of Bistrotheque in east London. Spanky creates modern medleys based on songs by Madonna and other pop divas and is accompaniedat the piano by Xavior who looks like he has just escaped from the set of a Visconti film. This talented pianist offers a strong counterpoint to Spanky's emotional vocals. Although one can't help thinking of Kiki and Herb, this duo brings freshness and style to the genre and will for sure dangerously tickle your trigger. Spanky and Xavior perform every Thursday till the end of March so go and check them out!

NB: runs every Thursday till 30/03.

Whilst he subscribes to the energies of the sub-current rhythms that London emits -- dancehall, dub, grime and dubstep -- to name a few. The Bug's music has always existed on the fringes. We guess that's the way he likes it. Qualities that are embodied in those genres can be uncompromising, visceral but also addictive and inclusive. So it seems apt that The Bug (with help from Loefah) finally hosts his own night, a celebratory event of all things London transmitted via Plastic People: the city's best sound system. Those aforementioned genres are delivered by a hand-picked selection of DJs (including Andrew Weatherall, Adrian Sherwood, DJ/Rupture and Mary Anne Hobbs) with additional vocal stylings provided by the effervescent Warrior Queen and Ras B. An unmissable gathering, every last Thursday of the month.

Rather than a straight up biopic, Capote concentrates on the eponymous writer's composition of In Cold Blood, his "nonfiction novel" about the brutal murder of a family in Kansas. Philip Seymour Hoffman is mesmerising as the prancing, mincing Truman Capote -- sublime raconteur, nauseating celebrity-phile, and shocking egomaniac -- whose relationship with one of the murderers (Perry Smith) forms the backbone of the film. The relationship between the two men is fascinating -- tinted with desperation, exploitation, empathy, manipulation and faint homosexual undercurrents on both sides. In his novel, Capote walked the line between reportage and art with remarkable and groundbreaking aplomb, and the film turns its head towards the morality of this. It's when the novel as "art" increasingly eclipses the journalistic integrity of the piece (Capote comes to yearn for Smith's execution so he can finish his book) that empathy for the title character goes awry. Hoffman fawns, teases and flirts with Smith, drawing his story from him with what eventually proves to be shameless, and utterly repellent, self interest. It's compelling stuff and the tug of war between hating the man and admiring the artist is a paradox that'll have you chewing over the problem for hours.

NB: Capote is released in London on 24/02. Another film of note released on the same day is Crossing The Bridge: The Sound Of Istanbul.

Crossing The Bridge is a documentary about a German musician and producer's journey through Istanbul's diverse music culture. Director Fatih Akin follows the eccentric, good-natured rocker Alexander Hacke as he tracks down the sounds of Istanbul, its history, stars and the wide range of genres the city embraces. The result is a fast-paced, intelligent and entertaining mix of interviews and live recordings with street musicians, rappers, punks, film stars and classical Turkish music performers. Hacke's skilful recordings give the film a superb soundtrack, and his willingness to get into the spirit of the music, whether it is going on the road and drinking with gypsies or playing guitar with big-ego popstars, works well as a contrast to the serious way in which the musicians speak about Turkey's politics, philosophy and cultural history. For fans of Head-On, many of the sounds and settings are revisited in Crossing The Bridge, with Hacke even staying in the same hotel room as the main characters from Akin's earlier film.

NB: some of the musicians featured in the film will be playing in London from this April. Crossing The Bridge is released in London on 24/02. Another film of note released the same day is Capote.

Friday Late: onedotzero_transvision
Fri 24/02 from 6:30 - 10pm
The media pioneers at onedotzero, the annual digital film festival that turned into a cross-media production company famous for constantly pushing the boundaries of moving image, are inviting more than 20 creative acts to contribute to a spectacular night at the V&A. Motion graphics, music videos, short films, interaction design, live audio visual performances, music and architecture are on the menu, with four artists and designers having been commissioned to make site-specific installations responding to the museum's permanent collections. Phillip O Dwyer, Dominic Hailstone and digital studio Sennep are all worthy of note, but even more interesting is Ed Holdsworth, responsible for stunningly beautiful videos for a range of distinguished artists including Radiohead and Four Tet.

Architecture And ... The Moving Image
Sat 25/02 from 2 - 4:30pm
The connection between architecture and the moving image will be further discussed during talks and screenings on Saturday, led by Neil Spiller, professor in architecture and digital theory at the Bartlett School of Architecture. Speakers will include Chris Allen, director of the Light Surgeons, architecture professor Robert Tavernor and Ecstacity author Nigel Coates. Dwellings on "virtual spaces", "digital cities" and "interactive structures" are to be expected, as are examples of how architecture influences and is influenced by computer gaming, music videos, and interactive media.

It's almost feasible to think that the promoters at The Rhythm Factory -- having been approached by DJs and promoters from fields as varied as Big Chill-style downbeat dance, Whitechapel-focused hip-hop and frenetic East End breakbeat -- gritted their teeth one day, thought that it was time they taught us a lesson we wouldn't forget, and assembled a line-up for an evening so ludicrously forward-thinking, leftfield and groove-driven that even the sort of clubber who's never been dancing in nights organised outside of art galleries would scratch their head in bewilderment and feel slightly out of their depth. Hence this evening put together by Analogue vs Digital, a night where the most mainstream artist is Mike Paradinas, a night which coaxes Bentley Rhythm Ace out of the big-beat retirement home, a night which promises live performances from the likes of Trencher and Eggboy, and which boasts live visuals. If you can hum two songs in a row, you can be sure enough of your own coolness to start a fanzine which will make people whisper in awe as they see you pass. Chances are, though, that you'll be too busy dancing your ass off to do so.

Whilst an extraordinary retrospective switches neon lights on to grey London days, art world bigwigs are gathering to discuss the phenomenon of Dan Flavin. If you haven't already seen the show, you won't believe such things were possible from a fluorescent strip light -- the colour fields and light effects make you feel something akin to a non-religious religious experience. Flavin's lights have illuminated art since the '60s and, though a self-labelled "maximalist", he can be seen alongside Donald Judd and the first experiments of minimalism. One obvious protege is chromophobe David Batchelor, who will join the show's co-curator Tiffany Bell, art critic Alex Coles, YBA dealer Karsten Scubert and other Flavin-ites to talk about the electrician's artist, and his influence. If this all sounds rather serious, the symposium includes a ticket to the exhibition and a drinks reception at the Hayward afterwards.

NB: Dan Flavin: A Retrospective runs at the Hayward Gallery till 02/04. On Fri 24/02 (6:30pm) catch Tiffany Bell as she gives a talk on Flavin's development of fluorescent light as an artistic medium.

Giveaway: we have one pair of tickets to give away. They'll go to one randomly picked Flasher who can tell us where Dan Flavin married Tracy Harris.

It's not often that the London Sinfonietta gets a guest conductor in -- this time it's Peter Eotvos, Stockhausen collaborator and top interpreter of contemporary music and a composer in his own right. It's also not often that you hear a triangle concerto or a piece for double-belled, microtonal trumpet. Both of these pieces are by Eotvos. Triangel takes the triangle to new dimensions, using multiple triangles to create an unreal, electronic sounding atmosphere and then processing that with electronics. The percussion soloist role, performed by David Hockings, in this piece is like an African master drummer, in one movement "teaching" the other musicians how to play. Marco Blaauw takes centre stage for the jazzy, film noir Snatches of a Conversation with double-belled trumpet, allowing two mutes to be used on the same instrument. The concert centre-piece, however, will be Messiean's classic Oiseaux Exotiques, where he transcribes birdsong from Asia onto the piano to marvellous effect.

NB: there is a pre-concert talk at 6:15pm with Peter Eotvos and composer Pedro Amaral, who also has a piece featured in the programme.

Brixton is undoubtedly the London home of all things bass. As soon as you step out of the glass enclave that is the tube station, you can either hear it, smell it or feel it. We're convinced the local authority have hired someone to drive around the high street just to emit frequencies below 90Hz. Over the weekend, the number of outlets peddling this commodity multiples dramatically and if you venture up Brixton Hill on this particular evening, you'll find a positive celebration of the low-end. The low-key interiors of The Telegraph house many features: bar, restaurant and dingy back-room club. The perfect setting for the ALT*CTRL crew to wreak sound system havoc. With tough electro from Billy Nasty (still going after all these years), Tim Wright and Transparent Sound and the unique sound of UK Bass from Debasser (the latter three all playing live), it's an exercise in heavy electricity. Plug yourself in.

German artist Jonathan Meese's work takes on many forms from intense paintings and installations to the most animated and energetic aspect of his working practice, performance. Within all of Meese's work, the artist explores the dissemination of power through the characterisation and acting out of historical figures that have attempted, with varying degrees of success and catastrophic failure, to manipulate its propagation. Meese's resulting performances are often aggressive and highly charged and the landscapes within which they take place are filled with the paraphernalia you might imagine obsessive fans to amass over years of careful hoarding. Meese, however, creates these arenas from the detritus of manias grown out of or fallen redundant, abandoned in thrift shops and jumble sales. His own fascination with pop-history fuels an understanding of obsession that gives a captivating reality to his peformances. Motifs reappear in differing guises and are often linked to military or religious imagery. However, the most powerful element present within all of Meese's work is language. Using his own lexicon of created words Meese effortlessly moves within a linguistic system that is mesmeric but not always intelligible to the outsider. The performance will take place within a boxing ring on the bridge across the Turbine Hall, looming above Rachael Whiteread's Unilever offering and definitely promising to be a typically captivating Meesian spectacle.

NB: Jonathan Meese is currently exhibiting at Modern Art (till 26/03).

Proving that West London isn't just a barren waste of brain-dead chumps called Hugo who do something in finance and cabals of New-Tory MPs, Nodisko have for the last couple of years been spreading a bit of glamour to those in the area who like to dig a bit deeper than Everything But The Girl for their sonic kicks. Relocating to the slightly less chi-chi Brixton for a new monthly session, they're promising no let up of the italo, electro disco sounds that they've been pushing up till now. But if you're probably thinking that a night out in Brixton is just about as enticing as heading out West on the District Line, then re-think as Nodisko have trawled the continent to put together a lineup that should even tempt those that think south London is good for nothing but catching cholera. Rome's brilliant Francisco and Finland's Freestyle Man are the names that should catch the eye, though home fans may be rooting for the rather excellent Freaks or residents Zak Frost and Magic Jase.

A quick glance at the flyers on the shelves of Soho record stores indicates that techno just simply isn't welcome in this town. A million and one soul / funk / hip-hop nights to choose from -- but nothing to appease connoisseurs of more machine-derived funk. We've attended quite a few of those aforementioned nights and found them to be deadly dull affairs. Fashion-ridden retro rehashes. But whilst techno might have fallen out of favour with the London masses, we personally think it still contains hints of futuristic excitement. And the Lost crew are one such group of people who'd agree with us, managing to rope in Detroit legends Jeff Mills and Juan Atkins for one night only. For those unfamiliar with either of these two, we suggest you backtrack through something like Wikipedia and consult their respective histories. And there's a lot of history to be told. But Lost's musical policy has always been less about the past and more about the unheard future. Welcome to Techno City.

Bland, poorly lit, low-ceilinged corridors; a succession of perpetually locked grey doors; the very real possibility of mind-numbing, endless waiting. No, this is not an account of a recent visit to the local medical/employment/council office (pick one). Instead, this, in a nutshell, is an encounter with Elmgreen & Dragset's The Welfare Show currently on view at the Serpentine. The Scandinavian duo has done it again -- and to brilliantly devastating ends. The Welfare Show's cycle of interconnecting spaces that simulate the dry environments of civil service institutions cuts to the cold, cold heart of the debate around social welfare. Here, Elmgreen & Dragset's subversive humour collides with their long-standing interest in the public realm, resulting in an exhibition that cleverly operates on more conceptual planes than one can count. Unrecognisably reconfiguring the Serpentine with its diverse yet coherent series of installations, The Welfare Show evokes a crushing sense of isolation and abandonment. Importantly, rather than proposing idealistic answers to the problems they highlight, Elmgreen & Dragset break them open for interrogation on multiple levels, making the issues (if not the spaces) accessible. One only wishes the Serpentine were larger, to see just how far the artists would take it.

NB: runs till 26/02.

Since 9/11 we have all been made aware of the existence of uneasy theories which would require us to question the "truth", the "great" and our own willingness to accept that which is easier to swallow. Loose Change 911 is a convincing film that disrupts the status quo, and if you have ever had any doubts about what the history books claim happened on that day, but have not wished to become some kinda of "conspiracy" junkie (along the lines of the Diana crash), then this event is the perfect opportunity to find out more in a un-hysterical environment. Part of the My Favourite Film series, this Dylan Avery film was picked fave by band Liars who will also perform songs from their new album Drum's Not Dead. This new album is a film project in itself with a DVD containing three film versions of the album, one by band member Julian Gross, another by Angus Andrew and the third by Markus Wambsganss, all of which will be projected during the band's gig. So, alternative music and political dissent -- finally! At a time when the creatives seem to prefer to play as safe as the media, it's good to see the Liars make a point of questioning who the real liars may be.

Seeping seamlessly across countless aspects of visual culture, the graphic arts do battle with the degree of immunity built up by the suspended state of overexposure that we inhabit. The Design Museum talk series seeks to unravel the complex web of intentions and faces behind the array of iconic marks that define this industry. Among the movers and shakers of the graphic design niche, Graphic Thought Facility operate in a class of their own. Their CV reads like a visual catalogue in design integrity; boasting clients from frieze to Marks and Spencer they have successfully negotiated the difficult boundary between culture and commerce. Driven by a process-oriented working practice, the consultancy deals in sophisticated branding statements, shaped by attention to observation, efficiency, material and process.

Arguably the most recognisable female architect in the world, Iraqi-born British citizen Zaha Hadid speaks about one of her latest projects. The Phaeno Science Centre in Wolfsburg, Germany puts a new spin on the German tradition of great design using 27,000 cubic metres of cement with more than 3,500 steel girders. Hadid gained worldwide popularity after becoming the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize, widely viewed as architecture's highest professional honour. The Phaeno Centre disorients the viewer by rupturing the conventional relationship between space and structure. Those of us paying any attention are made to think of Le Corbusier as the entire building rests on a set of massive conical legs. At other times it's pure Marcel Breuer or her contemporary Daniel Libeskind as windows in the building are cut into the facade in seemingly random places. Basing her designs on vectors of movement, Hadid sees architecture as a container for the chaos of the world. Wolfsburg is home to Volkswagen, and this triumphal monument to science rises from the industrial wasteland like a phoenix from the ashes.

NB this talk will take place in the Lecture Hall but will be video relayed into other rooms at the AA (tickets are allocated on a first come first served basis and must be collected in person). Catch Hanif Kara, Christos Passas (Project Architect) and Paul Scott (Project Engineer) when they discuss the Phaeno Center on 02/03. Both talks have been programmed to conincide with the Zaha Hadid: Phaeno Science Centre exhibition that runs from 24/02 till 24/03.

Paris in springtime -- words, whether sung by Cole Porter or not, that usually inspire a collective sigh and romantic fantasies. This month, a pinch of the Parisian joie de vivre blows across the Channel. Over the next few weeks the National Gallery is screening a selection of films to run alongside the exhibition Americans In Paris 1860-1900. For obvious reasons, the films are from a later era, but they illustrate with equal vigour the art world's long and feverish love affair with Paris. The season opens with Vincente Minelli's 1951 classic An American In Paris (25/02), which fittingly indulges the romantic myths of the city as Gene Kelly pirouettes about as a struggling artist living hand-to-mouth in a garret.

Through a rich melange of expression -- poetry (Man Ray's short film L'Etoile de mer screens on 04/03), comedy (Charlie Chaplin's A Night In The Show screens on 18/03), dance (Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn's jazzy moves in Funny Face screening on 11/03), to name a few -- romantic, rebellious and avant-guard ideas are spun, inspired by Paris and the American view of it. Heavyweight directors Truffaut (15/04), Hitchcock (25/03) and Godard (04/03 and 08/04) all feature on the bill, with films which use American perspectives (both derogatorily and appreciatively) as a canvas upon which to paint. It's Humphrey Bogart's disenchanted Rick, self-exiled in Casablanca (25/03), whose nostalgia for euphoric months spent in Paris provides the overview for the festival. We'll Always Have Paris comes to stand for an ideal that is part fallacy, part reality in (perhaps) equal measure -- and such is the measure of the film season.

NB: We'll Always Have Paris runs till 15/04 and has been programmed in conjunction with the exhibition Americans In Paris (till 21/05). Screenings are every Saturday at 2:30pm. A various selection of short films from the likes of Chris Marker and Stan Brakhage will be shown before each feature film.

Berlin-based Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset are the team who provided an animatronic sparrow in its death throes at Tate Modern in 2004, a re-created New York Metro station at the Bohen Foundation last spring, and most recently, a Prada boutique in the middle of the Texan desert. Their brand of clever structural critique fused with an exploration of issues around public and private space and socio-economic systems prompts a second look at everything from left luggage in an airport to gay bars to the possible permutations of the white cube.

Elmgreen & Dragset's touring exhibition, The Welfare Show, is currently at the Serpentine Gallery (till 26/02).

To read the interview click here.

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