DIFA Tower, Stone House, 122 Leadenhall Street, Heron Tower, the Minerva Building, City Road Basin, 1 Millharbour, the Willis Building; it seems that London is about to become Manhattan-on-Thames, with the Gherkin as the pilot project for a whole swathe of towers being planned to spoil the views of St Paul's. By way of helping out, Manchester has loaned us its very own tower man, Ian Simpson, to design a really rather large (and not at all phallic) tower on the south side of Blackfriars Bridge. Confusingly, it's to be known as the Beetham Tower -- the same name as Simpson's newly opened tower in Birmingham. And, er, the name of his other new tower in Manchester. What's interesting about these towers is that they aim to bring high rise living back into fashion, although this time for the rich, rather than poor people, who only ever moaned about the lifts breaking down anyway. It's certainly worked for his first residential biggie, No 1 Deansgate, where Manchester's trendiest urbanites, plus the Beckhams, couldn't wait to snap up vertically advantaged apartments.

NB: alternatively, you can catch Eva Jiricna on the same night, who will be talking at The Gallery about her life and work.

An evening of poetry and discussion with Dirk van Bastelaere and Arjen Duinker; two of the major voices in Modern Dutch/Flemish poetry, and Sarah Maguire, poet and founder and director of the Poetry Translation Centre at SOAS. Van Bastelaere is the major representative of postmodernism in Flemish, who combines a knowledge of poets such as Ashbery and Koch with a more traditional narrative thread. The Last To Leave: Selected Poems was published (in English) by Shearsman in 2005. Duinker's latest collection Sublime Song Of A Maybe is available in English translation from Arc Publications, and is also firmly in the tradition of Romantic European Modernism. One of his poems was translated into 220 different languages for a project entitled World Poem. Maguire was first published in 1989 in the series New Chatto Poets: Number Two. Her first collection of poetry, Spilt Milk (1991), was followed by The Invisible Mender (1997). The Florist's At Midnight (2001), a collection of poems about flowers and gardens, includes poems from her first two volumes and a selection of new poems. The event will be chaired by Paul Binding, writer and literary critic.

NB: this event has been programmed to run in parallel with the South Bank Centre's Stop The Clock series (07/03 to 28/03).

Eat Your Own Ears consistently provide an array of high quality acts and now they host King Creosote, a man called Kenny Anderson who has produced over 20 albums as part of the Scottish loose-knit Fence Collective, mostly in the completely DIY fashion of copying CDs and posting them to people. His latest release KC Rules OK has brought him to the attention of a larger audience, yet his appeal remains the same; this album is a deceptively simple collection of songs, impeccably arranged utilising strings within his folky acoustic sound -- at its very best it recalls the minimal sublime power of Nick Drake. The lyrics are charmingly embittered and emotionally uplifting. This gig should demonstrate why he is slowly acquiring the statue of a cult hero.

L'enfant originated out of a chance sighting made during the filming of the Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne's previous film Le fils -- a lone teenage mother aimlessly pushing her pram through a dismal Belgian town. This single image grew to become a beautifully acted but emotionally harrowing story of moral redemption -- the fourth of the Dardenne brothers' realist dramas, and their second Cannes Palme d'Or winner. Jeremie Renier -- earlier seen in the brothers' 1996 film La promesse -- is Bruno, a 20-year-old petty thief, ringleader of schoolboy pickpockets, reluctant new father and apparent moral vacuum. His 18-year-old girlfriend Sonia (Deborah Francois) is a source of benefit cheques and the mother of their newborn baby Jimmy. Bruno's inability to accord value to anything in life beyond the Euros that it would fetch on the black market leads him to "sell" Jimmy for adoption, and sets in motion the birth of his conscience. The miracle of the film is that despite his unsympathetic character, you ultimately identify with -- and hope for -- Bruno.

NB: L'enfant is released in London on 10/03. Other films of note released on the same day are The Proposition and Favela Rising.

This alternative Western has been exciting the British public enormously for months now, hyped and glorified before most people have even seen a single frame. Unlike Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, John Hillcoat's The Proposition is much less of an emotional journey, concentrating instead on violence, corruption and black humour. Set in the lawless, unbearably hot, fly-ridden Australian outback of the 1880s, it follows the attempt of a British officer Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) to bring to justice a notorious family of serial killing robbers. After capturing Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce) and his younger brother, Captain Stanley makes him a proposition -- bring your older brother to justice and younger brother will be released. Scripted by the musician Nick Cave, the film has large doses of Cave's macabre humour, which can be particularly excruciating when any statements referring to serial killing have a sense of gleeful irony attached to them. However, the film's strongest quality is undoubtedly the visible passion with which all its cast want to bring the story of Australia's bloody history to the cinema. The filmmakers' ambitious attempt to hold back nothing also adds to the film's vivid portrayal of an appallingly brutal time in the country's history.

NB: The Proposition is released in London on 10/03. Other films of note released on the same day are L'enfant and Favela Rising.

Rio de Janeiro has become, for most of us cinema-goers, a swarthy city rife with beautiful people committing horrifically violent crimes and dancing to fantastic music. Favela Rising strikes many of the same chords as previous Brazilian culture films (City Of God and O Homem Do Ano), emphasising the struggle for young people, the lack of options, the love of music and the life of crime. But this slick documentary comes at a time when the influential power of favela music is at what may well be an all time high. With favela music and lifestyle making waves worldwide across underground and mainstream scenes alike, and sprouting success stories like M.I.A. who have borrowed and transformed it, the Brazilian squatter scene has been ushered to the forefront of international urban culture. But this is not a classic rags-to-riches story, as Favela Rising points out. In Rio, the favela is not a buzzword or a new dance phenomenon, but a harsh reality. Favela Rising is a film about life and youth in Rio's shantytowns, and combines violence, politics, music and transformation to set the pace for a beat-driven story of civil unrest and revolution in one of Rio's roughest hoods.

NB: Favela Rising is released in London on 10/03. Other films of note released on the same day are L'enfant and The Proposition.

Back in 1837 the original Spring Heel(ed) Jack was a Victorian enigma, a clawed man seemingly able to leap over high walls, with phosphorous breath and reflective red eyes, exhibiting qualities that could only be explained by otherworldly, often occult means. He arose again in 1990 in the forms of John Coxon, a pop producer who'd worked with the likes of Marc Almond and Spiritualized, and classical composer Ashley Wales in their production of minor pop classic Betty Boo's "Doin' the Do". Enraptured by the burgeoning jungle movement, they went on to release some of the more exploratory drum and bass, en route co-writing hits for Everything But The Girl, yet never entirely leaving their experimental origins. Collaborating with pianist Matthew Shipp and saxophonist Tim Berne on the Blue Series , they entered a new phase, opening up the boundaries of electronics and live performance, and leading towards this current chapter with Evan Parker, one of the world's most innovative and intriguing saxophonists. John Coltrane will merge with birdsong on this night, generating furious bleating, honking, spiralling music that isn't for the squeamish of ear, but absolutely for the open-minded and ambitious listener.

Bang Face is unique in that brings together the hedonist-fuelled diaspora of rave culture with live electronic acts resulting in a night of hardcore excess. Whilst there seem to be a plethora of dad-rave nights in London, almost all of them are about exhuming (tired) names from the past. Retro, replay, and no doubt rewind. And whilst Bang Face has managed to coax quality names from beyond the (g)rave like SL2, the Ragga Twins, the real attraction is seeing current established artists subscribing to the breakbeat politic. So this month sees Planet Mu's main man Mu-ziq showing us the more innovative side of hardcore and no doubt throwing in some grime and dubstep updates too. Also on the bill is Andy Jenkinson aka Ceephax Acid Crew, one-man acid output, younger brother to Squarepusher and legend in his own lunchtime. The ever-splendid Adaadat label loan out Ove Naxx and Scotch Egg for the night. The former is hard, the latter even harder. Round that off with DJ sets from Billy Bunter, Ray Keith and Mike Dred and you've got more rave cliches than a Ministry of Sound compilation. Hardcore. U know the score!

Globalisation has brought the world closer together in a free movement of products and people across the globe. It's had an impact on every facet of the society, lifestyle and culture of the metropolis that's home. But how do architects shape our multicultural city? And how are their practices responding to the fast-changing frontiers of globalisation? This open discussion at the Whitechapel promises answers to these questions. Critic, author and curator Lucy Bullivant, who recently published Anglo Files, will be joined by Stefano Boeri, architect, urban planner and editor of Domus magazine; Brett Steele, director of the AA school, who has pioneered the experimental architectural website www.aadrl.net; and Alison Brooks, who has developed an award-winning practice with an international reputation for innovative design, which takes a sensory approach to fusing housing, interiors and landscape. "Hot British architect of the moment" David Adjaye, who has worked on the Nobel Peace Centre in Oslo, first two Frieze art fairs, Idea Store Whitechapel, and the Denver MCA, provides cutting-edge criticism. Leading-light of the New York Beat Generation, friend of Andy Warhol and pioneer of an electronic poetry project, John Giorno adds dynamic perspectives on popular culture. Elder statesman of social theory, professor of sociology at the LSE, Richard Sennett grounds the discussion with his strong views on multicultural public space in the age of globalisation.

NB: catch Stefano Boeri and Hans Ulrich Obrist in conversation with Brett Steele at the AA (Fri 10/03) as they explore journalism, criticism and research in contemporary architecture.

Would you stop and help someone who was being mugged? Most of us have had this conversation -- probably after one of you has been relieved of your mobile phone in broad daylight and no one stopped. Well, we would all like to think we would assist, wouldn't we? Yet Guantanamo can only exist in a world where people actively block out evil and the plain illegal so as not to "get involved". Michael Winterbottom, famous for Welcome To Sarajevo, 24 Hour Party People and A Cock And Bull Story is making a fuss with The Road To Guantanamo, the story of ex-detainees the Tipton Three, which features real footage and dramatisation. A shocking and challenging vision which is uncomfortably familiar -- we knew all along right? Starring Oxford grad, actor and rapper Riz Ahmed, and Farhad Harun, the film won Berlin's Silver Bear. All too ironically, while returning from Berlin two of the Tipton Three, Riz and Farhad, were detained at Luton Airport under our new terrorist laws, searched, investigated and then freed. Reprieve legal director Clive Stafford Smith said: "This may be a farce, but it is an ugly farce".

NB: watch The Road To Guantanamo on Channel 4 on Thu 09/03 (9pm) and if you cannot make the Everyman Q&A catch one at the Curzon Soho with Michael Winterbottom and two of the Tipton Three, Shafiq Rasul and Ruhel Ahmed, on Fri 10/03 (5pm).

At a time when few people actually seem to give a sh*t about dance music let alone techno, Lost continue to fly in the face of adversity (or should that be stupidity) to bring you excellently packaged nights of man-machine music. Responsible for mammoth extravaganzas held in the Docklands, this Saturday event is entitled Spacebase and aims to bring you the Lost experience in the most intimate surroundings of Plastic People. Resident Steve Bicknell will continue to explore more darker dance music terrain with the skill and dexterity we've come to know him for, while the main draw for the night is Alexander Robotnick, or Maurizio Dami to his mum, the legendary Italian italo disco producer responsible for many a synthesiser-tweaking moment. He's an old hand at all this electro business, having been in the game since the early '80s. But don't expect retroist knock offs, his sights are still firmly planted on the future. Providing, of course, that Robotnick doesn't follow in the footsteps of Juan Atkins and not show up.

NB: this event has been re-scheduled from last November.

This concert seems to particularly reflect the ethos of this year's iF festival, in the sense of bringing artists together, purely for the sake of just seeing what happens. The concert should show two of these projects, the first being the Camberwell Composers Collective, a group of London based composers who regularly collaborate with performers and one another. The most interesting collaboration of the evening should be Alexander's Annexe, a grouping of contemporary pianist Sarah Nicholls, Warp's Mira Calix and sound engineer Dave Sheppard of Sound Intermedia. This grouping was made following the original Warp and London Sinfonietta collaboration for Ether 2003. Works have been created by merging contemporary piano techniques, live and pre-prepared electronics and intimate vocals. Although their work has been performed in public before at Aldeburgh; it should still be quite fresh and interesting to have it performed in front of a London audience.

NB: this event will be preceded by Speed Dating For Performers And Composers, hoping to encourage future collaborations!

Guy Harries has acquired a strong reputation for his engrossing and heartfelt electro-acoustic laptop wielding, having composed for The Tate Ensemble, The Vocal Lab and the LOOS Ensemble. His manipulation of threads of cabaret, urban soundscapes and world music into his songs provides compelling listening. However, on this night he could easily be upstaged by the unique spectacle of Piney Gir. Releasing music on British label Truck Records, Piney purveys an utterly unique brand of kitsch experimental pop. Perhaps the most important thing to emphasise is her magnificent stage presence, the tangible sense of a natural performer. Musically she produces a montage of styles -- pop, country, electro -- that could more generally be described as kitsch, while her rich and beautiful vocals are mixed with frenzied random yelps. Occasionally there is a sense of novelty about its style of light-hearted entertainment, but overall it'll be difficult not to enjoy yourself.

It is not for nothing that Tate Modern's exhibition with Josef Albers and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy is entitled From The Bauhaus To The New World. The curators have managed to make Albers and Moholy-Nagy relevant for a contemporary audience. To further mark this relevance, design commentator Alice Rawsthorn, an award-winning journalist and author who recently resigned as director of the Design Museum, has been invited to talk about the impact of Moholy-Nagy on modern design. You may be familiar with the Bauhaus philosophy and culture, but there appears to be more to learn from Moholy-Nagy's camera-less experiments, the so-called photograms of geometric compositions, his "nuclear paintings" of 1945, experiments with the then newly invented plastics, his mobile constructions, and the refined graphical design for clients such as British Airways and London Transport.

NB: this talk has been programmed in conjunction with the Albers and Moholy-Nagy: From the Bauhaus to the New World exhibition which runs till 04/06.

Where to go after a movement you spearhead radically changes tack? Well, back to the forefront, if you're Linda Nochlin. The renowned feminist art historian will speaks on "Contemporary Women Artists, Painting And Sculpture" at the Courtauld Institute. The talk previews the upcoming exhibition, co-curated by Nochlin and Maura Reilly, at the Brooklyn Museum. Global Feminism (23/03 to 15/07 in 2007), which will inaugurate the Elizabeth A Sackler Center for Feminist Art, aims to survey recent trends in "feminist" art. But how to define "feminist" or "neo-feminist" art in 2006? 30 years after her groundbreaking Women Artists: 1550-1950 exhibition, also at the Brooklyn Museum and co-curated with Ann Sutherland Harris, Nochlin once again poses the question, now in a context in which the term "feminism" is itself a matter of dispute. The character of the early movement known as such is often critiqued by younger women artists. And since Eurocentrism is a major point of issue these days, Global Feminism will include women who mainly hail from outside the so-called Western world. Many of the most compelling young female artists, as Nochlin points out, come from Africa, Asia and Latin America. Whether such artists as Shirin Neshat, Mona Hatoum, Miyako Ishiuchi and Regina Jose Galindo even see themselves as "feminists", and whether their art should can be understood in these terms, are driving issues for Nochlin's current project and her talk at the Courtauld.

Deceptive. Inventive. Critical. Experimental. Those are just a few of the words often used to describe the work of architecture trio R&Sie(n) (a clue: heresy). Turn them into an acronym and they spell dice, which is strangely fitting for a practice (architects Stephanie Lavaux and Jean Navarro work alongside Roche) devoted to breaking up old structures and giving chance a chance. Question everything, seems to be their motto. Use the uncertain, the unpredictable, to your advantage. Think of the city as a habitable organism; think growth scripts, adaptive scenarios, hybrids, mutations, clones. Think genetics rather than aesthetics. Think climatic, organic, and topographic data turned into buildings. Think, in short, about a practice with one trainer solidly placed in the world of fine arts, and a brogue kicked straight into the world of architecture. From their speculative urban planning through to the VIAB (a prototype machine made in collaboration with the USC Robotics Research Lab that plans, draws and constructs structures out of an organic-looking spongy material). Since its birth in Paris in 1993, R&Sie(n) has consistently investigated the biomorphic space where information meets architecture. In the past years, Francois Roche has also taught at the Bartlett School, and in Vienna, Barcelona, Paris and Philadelphia. This just might be the opportunity to get some answers to all your questions about utopian city spaces and generative heterogeneous mutations.

NB: Alternatively, you can catch UFO on the same night at the RCA.

If some art forms offer a challenge, then this is certainly a night to join the dots, where John Cassavetes meets Albert Ayler, folk colludes with electronica, Arnold Schoenberg dines with Charles Ives, and the schizophrenic performers offer a night of digital delights, seductively entitled An Evening Without Fear. Hosted by Berliners Staubgold and no-signal, the night promises to amuse and confuse in equal measure, with purveyors Leafcutter John (aka John Burton) playing a kaleidoscopic set, marrying field recordings with his folk roots, whilst Ekkehard Ehlers aka Auch aka Autopoesies aka Maerz (still with us?) manipulates samples of bass clarinet and cello and rearranges them on his laptop, accompanied by Joseph Suchy's live guitar. You might just have time to harvest a beard before the night.

Food, more and more food, everywhere you look -- from glistening ranks of designer sausages being pawed over by Saturday morning crowds in Borough Market, to Gordon Ramsay's rough hands tenderly slicing soft chicken and buttery morels on Channel 4, through book after book on perfect offal and where to find the best fish, via self-sufficiency and the intellectualisation of the processes of taste written about in the broadsheets' food science columns. Food is a cultural obsession now more than ever and the British cognoscenti have seized this preoccupation with pungent, earthy slabs of meat, baskets of mushrooms and molecular processes of preparation with an almost Leopold Bloom-esque fascination. Find out what makes us such food snobs at this fascinating lecture, delivered by experts on the topics of the non-oral elements of the tasting process, genetic predispositions towards obesity, why we feel greedy and more. The nature of taste and obesity explored from a neurological point of view -- unmissable for anyone who's gone out of their way to find a wild mushroom in the supermarket, grown herbs or salivated over a grilled kidney.

NB: this event is free but places must be booked by calling 020.7942.4040 or by sending an email to tickets@danacentre.org.uk.

Highlight of White Christmas, emerging dance theatre company Lost Dog presents The Drowner, a re-worked and extended version of the piece they premiered at Edinburgh Fringe 2005. On a beach, a man finds an unconscious woman. Help her. Step over her. This is the dilemma that might affect the rest of their lives. That instant where everything could happen can feel like an eternity. What goes into one's mind when faced with such a decision? Using flashbacks, the company reconstructs the story of what could have been and should have been between this man and woman. The performers are Ben Duke trained in contemporary dance and acting, and contemporary dancer Raquel Meseguer (last seen as part of Ektos Dance Theatre at Resolution! 2006). For this piece they are joined by Jim de Zoete on guitar who provides live accompaniment to his comments on the action that unfolds before us. We loved them in The Over Head Project (White Christmas), so don't overlook them!

Seek out your symbolist goggles, which can be found nuzzling alongside your rose tinted glasses and head for the Lisson Gallery for a veritable cerebral work out courtesy of British artist John Murphy. Between the Acts previews the latest body of work from our homegrown talent. Building on a strong lineage of painted work Murphy translates his recurring theme of the process of generating meaning onto the every day, employing the heritage of the found object and reproduction in his conceptual manoeuvres through photographs, postcards, film stills and the like. A constant murmur of voices ring through this space playing off against the essential visual aesthetic and translations that weave throughout each encounter. Echoes of Duchamp and whispers of a Symbolist art history filter through Murphy's intention to "create meaning in the space that exists between the words and the image, without at the same time specifying meaning". Is it the clunky mechanical sounds of the art, exposed in its raw state that is deafening, or our own cognitive cogs churning, vying for space among the quiet din?

NB: runs till 25/03 (catch Juliao Sarmento's show in Lisson's 29 Bells St. space).

For ten years, the Deutsche Boerse Photography Prize (formerly Citibank) has been a refreshingly understated yet significant art world event that showcases and promotes contemporary photography. The nominations this year, chosen on the basis of an exhibition or publication, are Robert Adams (again), Alec Soth, Phil Collins and Yto Barrada. Adam's beautiful and delicate, angry yet quiet silver gelatin prints explore environmental issues in the American Northwest, with detailed captions revealing concerns about deforestation, industrial development and its impact on the physical and social landscape. Collins presents a video compilation of several projects from his yeah.....you, baby you exhibition, whilst Moroccan artist Barrada's symbolic images of Tangiers trace narratives of migration and exclusion at the barrier between Africa and Europe. And finally we come to our pick of the bunch: Alec Soth. This Magnum photographer is showcasing his large format colour work Sleeping by the Mississippi. Each individual photograph displays a visual poetry reminiscent of William Eggleston and Stephen Shore, and together they form a rhythmic travelogue of his journey along the great river from Minnesota to Louisiana. (Runs till 22/04.)

NB: the winner is announced on 22/03 and a season of events including artist talks accompanies the exhibition.

Arthur Danto is a renowned art philosopher, long time critic for The Nation, and Professor Emeritus at Columbia University in New York City. In the past he has written on far ranging topics from Warhol and Nietzsche to Merleau-Ponty and Mapplethorpe. In his writing he crafts a friendly philosophy that interprets contemporary art with an inquisitive hunger. Although he's well into his 80s he shows no remorse for having opened aesthetics to the popular imagination. Rarely making an appearance in the UK, Danto sat down with KultureFlash on the occasion of a symposium held in his honour at Tate Britain. What follows is a frank discussion of his thoughts on modern painting, why the French have few great living artists, the role of art fairs, and Kant's prediction of the realities of ugly art.

To read the interview click here.

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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