How man has made his mark on the planet is the story of architecture without architects. Humanity has left an extraordinary signature on the Earth's landscape ever since settlements began by early man. The Swiss photographer Georg Gerster has captured man's shaping of its environment since 1963. He has undertaken extensive visits to every part of the world; from the amazing images of the North American farming landscapes to the worlds' archaeological sites both famous and not, he has used aerial photography to reveal unexpected new perspectives. Gerster's photographs dramatise the scale of these systems that man has imposed on the landscape -- he reveals, for the first time, the relation of ancient structures to their surroundings. He says: "Height provides an overview, and an overview facilitates insight, while insight generates consideration." He also adds a modest: "Perhaps." By pursuing this line of reasoning, Gerster has turned aerial photography into something more probing, something that, with luck, may prove to be a contemplative, philosophical instrument encouraging greater reflection.

NB: Georg Gerster will take part in a panel discussion on archaeology, aerial and travel photography. The Past From Above runs till 11/02.

Reality imitating sci-fi is old hat -- we're irredeemably lost in a labyrinth of medical horrors -- but the latest move to broaden the scope and possibilities for face transplants is somewhat outre, something to unsettle even the guys wandering around with pigs' hearts. It's a controversial move by the white-coated ones, raising all sorts of questions about identity, psychology and society -- not to mention the path and potential of medical advancement. Is it time to wring or clap our hands? After all, what's in a face? A great deal, but a lot rides on a kidney or a heart too. Are we ready to add "face" to our donor cards? Can we legitimately class the face as an organ that can save a life -- psychologically speaking? Time to ask those who know -- our faces are in their hands.

NB: the event is free but places must be booked by calling 020.7942.4040 or emailing tickets@danacentre.org.uk.

In 1994, a 12" put out by Mo' Wax did more for UK rucksack sales and goatee cultivation than any other before and since. The record -- featuring "Kemuri" by DJ Krush and "Lost & Found" by DJ Shadow -- now changes hands for staggering amounts of cash, a feat which Krush's follow-up -- the superior, atmospheric "Meiso" -- has failed to achieve. It's a shame; although Shadow was immediately propelled to the forefront of the dance music scene, he's since plummeted into indie-rock hell and ill-advised flirtations with "realness". Meanwhile, Krush -- easily the more innovative turntablist of the two, and possibly the less self-aggrandising -- has quietly lingered stage left since the bursting of the "trip hop" bubble, content to build up a solid reputation as a live performer of note and branching out from his usual loping, booming, instrumentals into breakbeat and theme-like, rangy orchestration. He plays in Cargo -- the perfect venue, given that a fire in the cloakroom would eradicate at least a third of the country's sold Eastpak stock -- in a rare live show. Whether you're currently bathing in mid-'90s nostalgia or thinking "DJ who?", it should be well worth a look-in.

After a few films we'd rather forget [Showgirls, anyone?], Black Book restores faith in Paul Verhoeven's idiosyncratic brand of direction. And this is a true masterpiece -- a brilliantly complex, tense and erotic war thriller. Set in occupied Holland, in 1944, the story follows Rachel Stein, a Jewish ex-cabaret singer in hiding. After the bombing of her hideaway and the massacre of her parents, lover and friends she joins the resistance, and infiltrates the Nazi headquarters by cosying up to a high-ranking SS officer. Carice van Houten as Stein oozes 1940s bombshell sensuality: teasing, sultry and playful -- endearingly naive but surprisingly canny and magnetically sparky. She's the perfect central piece in a murky moral quagmire where betrayal and self-interest are the only sure currency. The plot twists come thick and fast, the violence is quick, brutal and emotionless, love takes root in dangerous soil, and tragedy is at every turn. It's heartstoppingly bleak, but dynamically compelling. European cinema at its best.

Paul Verhoeven Retrospective: the ICA is currently hosting a Verhoeven retrospective (till 25/01). Six of his early films are being screened -- testimonies to his courtship of controversy and masterful direction of sexually provocative and emotionally challenging films.

NB: Black Book is released in London on 19/01. Other films of note released on the same day are Play and Babel.

Chilean director Alicia Scherson's debut film Play presents a series of coincidences, both random and engineered, where people's lives intersect and briefly overlap, and suggests that the accepted idea of urban anonymity is not always as true as we may think. Christina is new to Santiago: a nurse-housekeeper to a mute old man -- she's working-class, indigenous and from the rural south of Chile. Tristan is wealthy, professional and urban -- and his girlfriend has just left him. Both have created somewhat lonely emotional personal spaces within the centre of the crowded, busy city. Finding, after his mugging, Tristan's briefcase and the personal contents it holds, Cristina's intense curiosity to examine all aspects of Tristan's life places her in a (benign) stalker-like role as she observes the city through his life. The film is as much about Santiago as it is about the characters -- as a place where the differences between class and gender can be observed -- and breached. With touches of magic realism, it is visually strong, with vivid colour and sound design that aids the feeling of isolation between the characters. The enigmatic storyline will perhaps not be to everyone's liking, but should be given a chance -- just let yourself go and enjoy its subtle observations on life.

NB: Play is released in London on 19/01. Others films of note released on the same day are Paul Verheoven's Black Book and Babel.

Before people like Peaches rocked up on the scene, back in the proverbial dark ages, when electronic music was generally frequented by a less fashionable crowd of gurning teenagers, it was seriously uncommon possibly even sacrilegious to see anyone but men spinning records and tweaking knobs. In the '90s, save for DJ Rap (who was mercilessly blacklisted and run off the London circuit), DJs Kemistry and Storm seemed to be about the only women with any musical kudos involved in dance music and even they very rarely got to produce their own music. Imagine, then, how bizarre it would have seemed to arrive in a club to see a young Japanese producer with her hair in pigtails cranking out mercilessly energetic, brazenly eclectic music to a sea of ecstatic punters as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Clearly Mieko Shimizu, then known as Apache 61 and now as Mico, knew something others didn't and it had less to do with making sassy fashion statements and more to do with making music. To this day, she and her cohorts Monotekktoni, Dorit Chrysler, Iris and Gudrun Gut continue to challenge misconceived perceptions about the genre and supply an endless enthusiasm for the possibilities and permutations of underground electronic music. This show at the Spitz should be no exception.

Have you seen the YouTube clip showing an American schoolteacher demonstrating his ability to draw a perfect circle on a blackboard? He is last year's World Freehand Circle Drawing Champion. Obviously the reason this clip has become so popular is not because we are wowed by his well-practised skill, but more astounded at the pointlessness and ridiculousness of such an act.

The champion freehand circle drawers of this world share an obsession for drawing lines with Sol LeWitt, whose set of wall drawings from 1973 have been re-created on the walls of the Lisson Gallery by British artist Jonathan Monk. Monk also has an exhibition of his own work on display across the road at the Lisson's other site. These two exhibitions are separate, but have a relationship beyond the obvious instructor / technician relationship of the perfectly crafted wall drawings. Monk's own work references and re-employs the strategies of LeWitt and his conceptual contemporaries, Bruce Nauman and John Baldessari. Monk's work is about cyclical relationships between camera and image, between textual language and visual expression. He creates games of understanding and interpretation, between the creator and the viewer and then the re-creator. Rather imperfect circles.

LeWitt's 1971 observation serves to highlight the futility of the Freehand Circle competitors, "each person draws a line differently and each person understands words differently". Although KultureFlash hopes that everyone will understand these words in the same way, go see these shows before they end on Saturday, and don't waste your time watching YouTube clips.

NB: Jonathan Monk's work is on view is at Lisson's 52-54 Bell Street space and Sol LeWitt's work is at Lisson's 29 Bell Street space. Both shows runs till 20/01.

There is an enigmatic notion of "the ghost in the machine" that has always haunted visions of the near future -- instilling them somehow with a listless melancholy. Toys and various other technologies are forever acquiring habits and practices that are increasingly human in nature, only driving this home even further. Whether Kubrick's HAL or Spielberg's "David", the crossover between man and machine always produces introspective and vaguely dismal offspring, calling attention to the margin of error that is human nature. Similarly, there is always something disquieting about looking back at images of the future that, by rights, we should be currently occupying, and we are thus reminded of the treats and tribulations we have been both denied and spared. I Am Future Melancholic comfortably straddles the gap between the cautionary and the sardonic, with films from Vito Acconci, Carsten Holler, Mai Yamashita and Naoto Kobayashi, and Rachel Reupke to name but a few. In addition to the time-based line-up, Mathieu Delvaux, Matthieu Laurette and Susanne Burner will provide a brief intro to their own work. An excellent glance over the various futures we could be populating as we speak.

Clowns engender such extreme reactions -- most often people find them intensely annoying, if not terrifying. Conversely, there exists in some areas an almost sect-like devotion to the art. So with Rainpan 43 it's a breath of fresh air to find two such staggeringly skilled and intelligent theatre artists actually "clowning" in a way that resonates with a contemporary audience. They often begin by goofing it up with fairly classic routines, only to turn on the audience with a "WTF?" expression completely at odds with the cosy relationship you'd expect. Geoff Sobelle and Trey Lyford adopt radically different styles; Sobelle, known in the States as "the Swiss Army Knife of performers" for his range, growls and crashes around like Tom Waits on ice, while Lyford remains August and deceptively passive: his transformation towards the end was the funniest and most surprising moment of the Edinburgh Fringe 2005. Like much of the most interesting live work today, Rainpan 43 brave situations that feel awkward, wrong and uncomfortable, reflecting a viewer's gaze and questioning what it means to be laughing at someone in the same room as you.

NB: All Wear Bowlers runs till 28/01 and is part of Mime Fest 2007.

The recently refurbished Scala kicks off the new year with Chalk, a new Saturday night venture that clearly handpicks some of the most talented acts from MySpace that the NME is yet to lazily attach silly genres to. Chalk kicked off proceedings with Mystery Jets, Jack Penate and DJs from skinny jeans and interesting hair club night White Heat last weekend. This Saturday sees the double cream of indie from Devon to Leeds descend on Kings Cross with Rumble Strips, Black Wire, Video Nasties and hot tip for 2007 Metronomy taking to the stage over rooms one and two. London club nights of note without some sort of electro disco punk are few and far between these days but thankfully Chalk have put a new spin on proceedings with a London (Shoreditch furniture Team Megamix) versus Manchester (Hot Sauce institution Tramp!) DJ battle in room one. Meanwhile 2step / pop kids Silverlink provide the hip shaking wonk in the second room. The dirty bastard version of British hip-hop is represented in the third room with 2006 UK beatbox champion and neat facial hair phenomenon Beardyman sharing the stage with north London firecracker Miss Odd Kidd with buff hype shoulder lean bangers from Ill Commotion DJs.

NB: Chalk's 27/01 line up includes baltimore bounce legend Tittsworth, an Ed Banger invasion and Diesel 2006 U-Music finalist David E Sugar; whilst on 06/02 the excellent line-up comprises of Radioclit, Duke Dumont, Skull Juice, Xerox Teens and Goldie Locks among many providing the ear pleasers.

Filmmaker Philip Groening waited 17 years for permission to bring this project to life. Finally getting the green light he spent four months living with the closed Carthusian order of monks at the Grande Chartreuse, perched on a remote corner of the French Alps, and the work that he has delivered is of epic proportions. The monk's life of intense, near silent religious observation, prayer and reflection is evoked through a discreet and respectful lens. We become absorbed in Groening's surrender to the pace of their existence; time is slowed and then replaced by ritual and repetition; the deep drone of bells is the only articulation of time passing. Outside the monastery Groening's deft camera work portrays the majestic expanse of the dramatic setting and its internal seasonal rhythms. With time erased the "now" unfolds and expands to an exponential degree and silence manifests itself as space. Our newly sensitised ear becomes attuned to the noise of the non human sounds of daily life that punctuate the film, and their own abstract rhythmic repetition; thudding footsteps on the floor or a saw cutting through wood. This film is not for everyone but if you withdraw and immerse yourself in its aesthetic feast you might not notice its rather generous length.

NB: Into Great Silence screens at the Curzon Mayfair till 29/01 (you can also catch it at the ICA where is screens till 31/01).

Babel, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's most ambitious outing to date, draws on the Biblical tower of its title to develop an empathetic and deeply critical look at cultural fragmentation in the globalised age. An American tourist travelling in Morocco (Cate Blanchett) is accidentally shot by two local youths, whilst across the globe her housekeeper / nanny oversteps her bounds by bringing her employer's children to a wedding in Mexico. As misunderstanding upon misunderstanding forces each story to its straining point, a concurrent tale of a deaf-mute Japanese teenager improbably intersects with the rest. Inarritu's trademark, multi-perspective storytelling, which once so realistically captured the interweavings of urban lives in Amores Perros, here gives rather insufficient attention to each of Babel's many button-pushing topics. But while the politics may be piecemeal, the director's eye for characterisation and his humanistic ethos are on top form, making this a film more than deserving of our consideration and respect.

NB: Babel is released in London on 19/01. Other films of note released on the same day are Paul Verheoven's Black Book and Play.

Seattle's art-punk outfit The Blood Brothers make a much welcome and highly anticipated return to London, touring on the back of their critically acclaimed recent release, Young Machetes. Recorded by Fugazi's Guy Picciotto, this album combines the pure ferocity of breakthrough album Burn, Piano Island, Burn with shades of experimentalism evident on their previous album, Crimes. It can initially be a disorientating listen -- the intensity and rapid instrumental density can, at times, almost be too much to completely digest. Coruscating hardcore guitar rhythms are meshed with frantic percussion and swirling keyboard lines. Within the mix the dual vocalists spit wrought vocals, yet within the maelstrom essential pop melodies gradually surface. The whole thing is laced with a rare but tangible violent raw beauty. Anyone who has been searching for a band as thrillingly visceral and life-affirming as the much missed At The Drive-In will probably already be familiar with The Blood Brothers; those interested in a band who are making some of the freshest guitar music around at the moment are advised to investigate.

Presenting the work of 10 contemporary Korean artists, Through The Looking Glass: Korean Contemporary Art aims to replicate the dislocation that Westerners feel when they step into the Eastern world. Korea, a synthesis of influences from both East and West, is the inspiration for this exhibition where appearance does not always reflect reality. Meekyoung Shin's Translation: Chinese Vase is an installation of large Eastern vases atop their travelling cases. On closer inspection of their delicate patterns, the opaque marble gives off the familiar and surprising scent of bathroom soap, from which they are actually made. The designer and artist Jeong-Hwa Choi brings a humorous touch to the presentation of Eastern contemporary art in a quintessentially English town house: hanging in the stairwell his chandelier, Green, is simply constructed of green plastic colanders, of the type one could find anywhere in Chinatown. Outside on the rooftop bloom two large inflatable lotus flowers (No Lotus), one black, one white, bouncing and swaying in the winter wind like fat cartoon clouds. Here is your chance to catch Jeong-Hwa Choi as he gives a lecture about his practice, focusing on the dual employment of art and design in his work and considering amongst other issues what place the two traditionally distinct disciplines hold in today's quickly shifting society.

NB: Through The Looking Glass runs till 03/03.

Could there be such a thing as a free jazz supergroup? If so, this could be it -- musicians who've been there from the start from both sides of the Atlantic in addition to some of today's most innovative and exciting players of later generations. Noah Howard made some of his first recordings on the cult ESP label and collaborated closely with Albert Ayler as part of the New York scene in the '60s. Evan Parker, a pioneer of free improvisation in Europe has pushed music forward throughout his life and continues to do so. He will be doing battle with Howard on the sax. John Edwards on bass seems to display almost limitless imagination and ingenuity in playing whilst the youngest member of the quartet, Chris Corsano, has pushed the use of the drumkit right out of the percussion section and seems to play in such chaos but yet is in total control. Who knows what will happen when all of these musicians, each amazing in their own right, are put into a room together... will the world collapse?

NB: Chris Corsano will also perform a solo set the next day (24/01) at Fear Of Jazz at The Pool.

Barnett Newman is not the only artist to have appropriated the vertical line. Daniel Buren, France's answer to the question Who's Afraid Of Red, Yellow And Blue? started using exclusively the 8.7cm-wide stripe as his iconography of choice in order to smother gallery walls and billboards the world over. At the time, he and his partners in crime, the artist collective the group BMPT (Olivier Mosset, Michel Parmentier, and Niele Toroni) aimed to produce purely formal works. What remains when you take away the narrative, the style, the aura? Paint. With Intervention II, works in situ, Buren is revisiting the very same gallery where he hung six squares of striped fabric from the ceiling 33 years ago. He also uses this opportunity to revisit the opacity of his approach. His new work consists of three rows of fabricated windows covered in coloured gel, each aligned to the actual windows of the gallery. While the opaque stripes that dominated more than three decades ago yielded nothing but the artist's intention to reduce painting to its simplest expression, the juxtaposed translucency of this new work acknowledges the power of aesthetics and the mysterious ways in which art can coalesce with the world.

NB: Daniel Buren will be in conversation with Michael Craig-Martin. Intervention II runs at Modern Art Oxford till 28/01.

Finally an opportunity to write not about architecture but architecture as perceived through photography. What's the difference you might ask? Well, everything. Photography can potentially transform a chip shop into a cathedral in the same way as the girl-next-door can be mediated into a celluloidal photogasm. At its worst, the manipulation of architecture through photography is frequently manifest as: wide angle lenses creating spatial distortions where there were none; purple filters that render the dramatic illusion of Miami sunset skies although in overcast Dalston; the use of blur as its visually indeterminacy lends an ideological complexity to otherwise dumb space; airbrushed supermodels that provide the visual fix to crass interiors... we could go on. Given the latent deception of photography, it is not surprising that Zaha Hadid, the "world's most visible architect", berates dissenting voices that "before they open their mouths they should go and see it (the building)". Though Hadid is partial to her camera phone, Helene Binet has photographed her entire oeuvre and is rare as an architectural photographer in that she photographs "architecture as process" (during building) and not just "architecture as product" (the Building). The AA Gallery presents an opportunity to "visit the photograph": you might try and identify which one of Binet's photographs is printed back-to-front...

NB: runs till 08/02. On 18/01 (6:30pm) catch Helene Binet as gives a lecture on work.

It's difficult today to appreciate the sheer radicality of Picasso's "crass" cubism. Perhaps the closest we've come in recent times is the cut 'n' paste nature of hip hop; Pablo was truly the Beastie Boy of his day. Yet that fecund imagination and restless mind would not allow him to stay a mere cubist -- as his brilliant partner-in-crime Braque did. From Blue to Rose first, then synthetic and analytic cubism, followed by the Neo-Classical, Pablo was constantly re-inventing genres and painting itself... But it was life that provided the manna for his inventions; each home, like his women and, later, children, and even art works, became objects to be deconstructed and reconstructed in that Picasso language. Hence, La Californie, his villa in Cannes, from 1955 to 1961, a palace with elaborate wrought-iron gates and stylised carvings around the windows, seeped into his unruly, late work. Even with less important work, late Picasso is full of wonderfully wild gesturings, cool colour combos, mad patterns and plenty of unanswered questions and possible avenues for painters. In this show in particular, the vision of Matisse and Delacroix are subjected to reinvention.

NB: runs till 28/02. while on Cork Street check out the work of another old school painter, Ben Nicholson, at Bernard Jacobson (runs till 03/02).

It is not only Bunuel's return to France at the end of his career that gives his seemingly diverse body of 32 films a cyclic cohesion, but also the cutting-edge Surrealist aesthetic that he developed during those early years in Un chien Andalou and L'age d'or that sets the scene for the rest of his career. This unblunted treatment of reality that gives way to fantasy is seen again in Los Olvidados, made in1950 during Bunuel's Mexican period after 20 years in relative anonymity. Bunuel's ability to constantly make you see the world anew is what makes for an uncanny viewing experience, where all expectations are up-ended. Bunuel's return to France after 35 years culminates in such landmarks as Belle de jour, a film that moves from banality to extremity, only to find redemption in the mundane again, a pattern followed in life by Bunuel himself.

NB: this Luis Bunuel season runs till 28/02.

Following last year's sell out run, Sylvie Guillem and Russell Maliphant return to Sadler's Wells. If you missed them last time, book now as tickets are selling fast and it will sell out! The programme features Guillem's solo Two, a masterpiece that has the uber-ballerina encaged in a box of light. Floating above the stage like a butterfly, her arms like wings cut through the light walls and create sparks of sheer beauty. Also on the bill are Maliphant's signature solo Shift (1996), a romantic, elegiac solo danced by Maliphant and disappearing shadows, and a duo with Guillem: Push. Reflecting the flow and energy between movement and light, the dance pieces are complemented by lighting designed by Maliphant's long-time collaborator Michael Hulls, with music by Woman of the Year 1997 for her contribution to the Arts, Shirley Thompson (Shift), and Andrew Cowton (Push). Since its premiere Push has received four major awards, among which an Olivier and a Time Out.

NB: Push runs from 20/03 till 25/03 (buy your tickets fast as this event will sell out soon).

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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