Several new models of design practice have been emerging over recent years, and one of the most promising is the holistic multidisciplinary type which Universal Design Studio represents. Founded in 2001 as an offshoot from earnest industrial designers BarberOsgerby, who won the Jerwood Applied Art Prize in 2004, they profess a doctrine of consistent, responsive design at the scale of architecture and interiors. Their client list is wide ranging: they've done a right-on collaboration with The Team for the British Red Cross, but have also put their name to work for Diageo and Virgin Atlantic. UDS also collaborated with YBA Damien Hirst, designing the interior of the short-lived but much-hyped Pharmacy restaurant in Notting Hill (which goes to show not even interesting design can save an idea whose time has not yet come). The practice has a stake in major projects such as the retail redevelopment of Battersea Power Station, so don't miss the chance to see two of their designers, Hannah Carter and Brian Studak, giving a talk organised by the Architecture Foundation as part of their Winter Nights programme.

NB: next Wed (31/01) catch a talk by Gianni Botsford Architects.

Eat Your Own Ears have historically caught bands whilst on the cusp of rising to national stardom (Hot Chip, Four Tet, Jamie T) and this showcase of Xfm favourites Hot Club de Paris promises to be no different. Having supported NME indie darlings Dirty Pretty Things and Maximo Park, the skewed pop three-piece have been gradually rising to prominence with their infectious lively mix of Futurehead-esque indie-pop with the more complex, math edge of iconic American bands such as Cap'n Jazz, Owls and Don Caballero. They also specialise in ridiculously wonderful song titles ("Sometimesitsbetternotto...") and a dynamic, heart-warming live show which features playful acapella singalongs. With promising angular indie-rock band Dartz! in support, this gig stands out amongst other events in London this week because it offers lively fun, fantastic value and a chance to see two of the best young bands in England at the moment.

Got the January blues? Is 2007 already losing some of its lustre? Well, the best cure for that sort of thing is some Gypsy Punk and Russian Roma fusion. That's right. Eugene Hutz, of Gogol Bordello fame (think Nick Cave meets John Zorn and The Stooges), has travelled across the largest continent to track down his musical muse and mentor, Sasha Kolpakov. The Kolpakov Trio, a string ensemble featuring the seven stringed guitar, represents the pinnacle of traditional Russian Roma music, and plays nightly at the unique and illustrious Theatre Romen in Moscow. The Pied Piper Of Hutzovina, a film by Pavla Fleischer, follows Hutz on his epic mission and will be followed by a Q&A with both Fleisher and Hutz. The evening's events kick off from there with a performance that unites Hutz with his mentor live onstage, mixing the influences of age old traditional Roma with the fast and crazy, bouncy punk rock stylings of the "Ukranian Iggy Pop." This event is a three-in-one, so for those of you too worked up to go home at the end of the show, it will be followed by an inspired set of interdisciplinary mixing and scratching that should top off the evening just fine.

Yet another appearance from the acclaimed 12-string rebel guitarist Jack Rose. His last London performance was a stunning showcase of pure beauty as he effortlessly creates unique riffs, ranging from steel-stringed acoustic guitar to standard 12-string. With strong influences rooted in the late John Fahey and the raga-esque impact of Robbie Basho's greatness, Jack Rose has fused the genre with his own musical past: punk and rock, nourished as part of the trio Pelt. Supporting the US master are two representatives of the soon-to-become "New Weird Belgium" which follows the footpath of their Finnish counterpart. Bram Devens from Brussels, aka Ignatz, released a great debut album in 2005 on the Belgium label (and collective / festival) (K-RAA-K)3. Futuristic folk / blues chanting, looping guitar pedals, haunting voices, electronics, repetitive mumbling, just the right combination of groups, with a new album Rebound From The Cliff. The Ghent-based Silvester Anfang is a self defined "funeral folk / droneband" collective whose number varies considerably depending on the availability of each member to record or perform. Not even Kilburn is far for such a treat.

Is it a good idea for you to get what you wish for, or does the achievement of a wish dilute the desire? Is "wanting" spiritually preferable to "having"? And do angels exist? Or more to the point -- do they exist in Green Lanes, Harringay? The Lives Of The Saints -- the debut film from photographer and Dazed & Confused founder Rankin -- attempts to address these rather vast philosophical questions, albeit with mixed results. Mr Karva (James Cosmo), local gangster and kebab-shop owner, runs the local neighbourhood with a mixture of violent menace and jovial sociability, but when his stepson and gangland heir Othello and his friends find a mute abandoned child -- the angel -- in Finsbury Park, the balance of all their lives is thrown out of kilter. A struggle of both power -- and belief -- is triggered. The acting (notably Karva, and the very spooky little angel) is good, and visually, as would be expected from Rankin's background, it's very strong. Although perhaps not fully realised, overall the film is an interesting and ambitious idea and worth a look.

NB: The Lives Of The Saints is released in London on 26/01. Another film of note released on the same day is Bobby.

The RSC knew what they were doing when they asked Cornish theatre heroes Kneehigh to take on Cymbeline as part of their Complete Works season. And it wasn't to do Shakespeare, chapter and verse, although fragments of the text surface in Carl Grose's tender but rambunctious remix. Director Emma Rice rather animates the strangely elemental almost fairy-tale romance. King Cymbeline mourns the loss of his sons while his harpy second wife plots her boorish son to marry the princess Imogen instead of her childhood sweetheart Posthumus who is banished to Italy where a local Lothario decides to test Imogen's honour... "Did you get all that?" asks Mike Shepherd's panto dame, as Kneehigh cook high and low in their theatrical melting pot. Thrown into the mix are keening music, sublime puppetry, clowning and bold visual splashes, spicing the meat of splendid performances from the versatile cast, including two of the country's finest in Hayley Carmichael and Amanda Lawrence. There are moments -- as ever with this gang -- where the bathetic juxtaposition of moving sentiment and comic lunacy can occasionally judder you to earth as much as soar. But if you love this, it's transcendent.

NB: runs till 03/02. (Also at the Lyric is The Receipt. KultureFlash saw an early incarnation at BAC. It was unmissable then and apparently it's even better now!)

If you are going to brave the crowds for the penultimate day of this exhibition, it's worth doing it in better company than the yummy mummies deconstructing Sarah Lucas' No Limits and its masturbating hand with their offspring. Jim Lambie rarely feels obliged to praise where it's not due, though this may be tempered by the fact that while none are on show here, Hirst also collects his works. In Hirst's defence, the show claims to be no more than a selection from his murderme collection, accumulated haphazardly throughout his life. There is marked loyalty towards his famous peers like Lucas and Marcus Harvey and slower burners like Rachel Howard, for several years Hirst's assistant, not to mention emergent youngsters like Tom Ormond, but there are also several canvases by Warhol, Prince and an installation by Haim Steinbach. Even this snapshot packs the gallery to the gills and spills onto the lawn, and it is hard to avoid standing on the bloodstained floor surrounding John Isaacs' blubbery installation. In the darkest hour there may be light, reads the exhibition title; in horrific times let there also be a puerile snigger, suggests the work.

NB: In the darkest hour there may be light runs till 28/01 (ie this Sunday).

Look into my eyes. You feel tired, very tired. On the count of ten the secret to becoming the perfect performer without losing your credibility as a painter will be revealed. One. Two. Three. Four. American artist Matt Mullican could very well have repeatedly heard these words while staging his performances under . As much performance as actual painting, Mullican's work while under hypnosis aims to question the role of the conscious mind in the creation of a work of art... and to give a good show as the artist paints while having apparently taken on the characteristics of other people. This performance is part of the Saturday late night UBS openings. Repeat after us: we are captivated, we will buy tickets for this event immediately.

Allen Ginsberg -- San Francisco counter-culture beat poet and anti-war / pro-drug / gay-rights activist -- visited London in summer 1967 to attend the snappy sounding "Congress of the Dialectics of Liberation (for the Demystification of Violence)" at the Roundhouse in Camden. Novelist and psychogeographer Iain Sinclair -- at the time a fledgling filmmaker -- captured Ginsberg's visit, and this rare screening of his documentary Ah, Sunflower! highlights the big concerns of the time during the Summer of Love: Black Power beat poems and Buddhism, plus the famous Hyde Park pro-cannabis rally. Featuring R D Laing, Stokely Carmichael and hippy-activist Emmett Grogan, the film is a brilliant record of this period of alternative politics. The screening also includes a selection of short films and a Q&A, plus a reading by Sinclair to mark the re-release of his 1971 chronicle of the film The Kodak Mantra Diaries.

This is the first entirely electronic show in a regular series of underground improvised events put together by maverick curator Olivier Rodriguez. For this concert at the FleaPit, Rodriguez has assembled a group of artists whose approach to electronics is bound up in how technology allows us to re-approach and elaborate on sounds and musical structures we hear in everyday scenarios. Peter Wright's slowly shifting, frozen micro-polyphony falls in part somewhere between the tapestries of Morton Feldman and the soundscape guitar experiments of Robert Fripp, although he extends the range of his work on some occasions by juxtaposing these soundscapes with radio recordings and found sound commentary. Patrick McGinley's work as Murmer runs almost in parallel with his interest in field recording and phonography which he presents weekly in his show Framework, broadcast on London's Resonance FM. McGinley's performances as Murmer blend his own field recording with intricately captured instrumental sounds composed on a variety of objects from bicycle wheels to chimney sweeps. From these sources, he manipulates narratives and extracts sonic evolutions and events, taking the listener on an intricate journey into his own unique anthropology of sound. Murmer and Wright are joined on this occasion by Icarus, who will be presenting new experimental work during the course of the evening.

Writer / director, and former brat-packer, Emilio Estevez's fourth feature is an engrossing mix of archive footage (focusing on Robert F Kennedy on the 1968 presidential campaign trail) and Altmanesque drama. It comes with a great soundtrack -- including some '60s Soul classics -- and a formidable cast starring Laurence Fishburne, Anthony Hopkins, William H Macy, Demi Moore, Elijah Wood and Lindsay Lohan. The film charts the day in the life of The Ambassador Hotel in LA (and its assorted inhabitants -- guests, staff, ex-staff and Kennedy campaigners) that led up to that fateful moment shortly after midnight on June 5th when Bobby Kennedy was shot and fatally wounded. The Ambassador serves as a microcosm for late '60s America -- an America struggling to deal with numerous divisions in society and a futile, unwinnable war raging in Vietnam. Estevez looks back to a time when idealism was still high on the agenda and contrasts it with a present when hope for a better world has given way to a lust for violence and revenge. As Hopkin's wise, old, ex-doorman says, "When you make a move out of frustration or anger it always ends in catastrophe."

NB: Bobby is released in London on 26/01. Another film of note released on the same day is The Lives Of Saints.

It's time to rack up the fuel miles again. That slightly battered yet ever up for a fight international mega-exhibition, otherwise known as Documenta, returns this summer to Kassel for its 12th outing. Under the artistic direction of Roger Buergel, the quintennial exhibition reputed for its heavyweight academicism seems to be taking a turn to the light. Whilst not completely eschewing the tumultuous politics distinguishing Documenta's output especially over its recent past, it appears Buergel and art historian Ruth Noack are attempting to ease us out of the burden of representation with three simple questions: Is modernity antiquity? What is bare life? What is to be done? With an intriguingly childlike perspective on global politics, characterised by violence and pleasure to the body, it will be fascinating to see how Buergel and Noack pull off the careful balancing act of working with the locals whilst showcasing the vanguard of international contemporary art. For those averse to global jetsetting, there's an unmissable opportunity to hear Buergel and Noack speak at the Royal College of Art, joined by curators and critics Mark Nash, Adrian Searle, and Clare Carolin.

NB: this event is free but you must send an email to victoria@boltonquinn.com in order to register beforehand. Also on 01/02 (9am) Tate Modern is hosting a Documenta press conference. To attend send an email to victoria@boltonquinn.com.

In her 2003 performance, Lines Made By Walking, artist Carey Young threw on a suit and repeatedly walked a line amidst a crowd of London commuters. Set within the increasingly corporatised metropolis, Young's performance came as a small but resonant attempt to reclaim a space for individual and social action. The artist will find herself in sympathetic company at the ICA on January 30th for the discussion, "Should Art Be Democratic?" Chaired by Dave Beech of art collective Freee, the event features Turner Prize nominee Mark Titchner, Birkbeck law professor Jaime Stapleton, What Good Are The Arts? author John Carey and artist Tino Sehgal discussing everything from intellectual property to the ethics of public art. The talk is aimed to kick-off Sehgal's latest exhibition at the ICA, alternatively titled This Success or This Failure for its many possible performative variations. Given the immensely engaging nature of Sehgal's past two outings at the ICA, this will be an exhibition and discussion you won't want to miss.

NB: on 29/01 (7pm) catch Tino Sehghal as he chats with Dr Carey Jewitt. This Success or This Failure runs at the ICA till 04/03.

Hot on the heels of the launch of DazedDigital.com, Dazed & Confused magazine has found another distraction from the precarious print medium with a monthly electro-indie night, Get DZD. In the scarcely-known Soho club Moonlighting -- previously noted only for a midweek 60p drinks night -- Dazed has opted for a more mainstream venue than its most obvious mag-meets-club rival, the Shoreditch institution that is Vice's pub The Old Blue Last. It's a reliable formula for the opener, with new XL Recordings signing To My Boy grinding out staccato poppy indie rhythms while Tapedeck spin some of their catchy glitch remixes of nu rave to keep the kids interested later on. Dazed Soundsystem fill out the night and there's a mystery guest billed as "one of London's top up and coming solo acts." You'd assume a mag of this calibre will be able to pull in some good names once a month -- bated breath all around then.

What was your resolution this year? Get fit, start a dance class or was it to go and see more new performance? Resolution! on 31/01 will motivate you to achieve all the above. Featuring high energy multi-talented Avant Garde Dance, the evening will make you shake your bootie like you've always wanted to. Led by dancer choreographer Tony Adigun, AGDC got Breaking Convention '06 crowds roaring for more. Mixing abstract street dance with virtuoso hip-hop, Adigun gives his dancers the sharp elegance and raw looks that make you think that these guys have just escaped from the coolest of MTV videos. Don't rush immediately to your nearest dance class, each night Resolution! presents three companies, making it virtually impossible to leave the theatre unimpressed. On the same bill, Rebecca Convey's Coy-Motion presents Curiouser & Curiouser, and MIKS introduces a new take on audience involvement with Only On Mondays. And as ever with Resolution! the sooner you book the cheaper the seats. Now that will certainly tick a box on your 2007 resolution list!

NB: Resolution! 2007 runs till 17/02.

Unlike much French theory that was buzzing round the last century, Jacques Ranciere may be found a little less woolly here than other members of his thinking fraternity. Not one to throw round terms like Derrida's "deconstruction" or Baudrillardian "simulacrum", Ranciere -- an emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Paris-VIII (St Denis) -- became famous in the '60s for co-authoring Reading Capital with the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser. His career, though, moved away from Althusser into questioning something closer to the individual and the personal, what he calls positing "a specifically working-class discourse". That is, he began to conceive his thinking from the bottom: with the common man. What some have called a "politics of equality". Recently he has been politicising aesthetics, which brings him closer to our spheres. Unlike artists who introduce political subject matter, Ranciere takes us right back to reconsider the entire notion and nature of "the aesthetic". Here, with a new book, Hatred Of Democracy And On The Shores Of Politics, as part of the ICA's New Left talks series, he will speak about 21st-century dissent, the democratic impulse and the Left. This talk will be followed by an interview with Peter Hallward.

Our other picks in The New Left: Then And Now talk series are:

12/02 at 7pm
What's Left Of The Left?
Martin Kettle, Hilary Wainwright, Nick Cohen and Mick Hume

19/02 at 7pm
New Left And Its Influence
Ernesto Laclaus with Robin Blackburn and Lynne Seagal

19/02 at 7pm
New Left And Urban Terror
Mike Davis

Private Eye has been going for 45 years and the exhibition at The Cartoon Museum rejoices with a celebratory selection of cartoons found in a publication renowned for its political satire, bracing social commentary and acerbic wit. 130 cartoons adorn the walls of this small treasure trove of a museum on Little Russell Street. The viewer does not have to be a longstanding reader of Private Eye with a comprehensive knowledge of politics to take pleasure in the critical humour and entertainment supplied by more than 50 artists making their mark in the magazine from 1961 to the present day. From an anteater suspended in the air by balloons, sneaking up on two unsuspecting ants in It's quiet... too quiet... by Nicholas Whitmore, to Kate Moss and Pete Doherty's wedding reception in The bride and groom will now cut the coke by Nick Newman, the cartoons of Private Eye, impossible to capture through written description, not only shrewdly encapsulate socio-political and popular cultural moments, they also provide an assortment of flavours to cater for a broad spectrum of comical tastes.

NB runs till 11/01.

"We are so abjectly wedded-& have to be," reads the text that accompanies a pen and ink drawing of two disparate, floating, spiky entities. The rumination is puzzling, vaguely tragic, almost funny, and typical of Raymond Pettibon's enduring graphic style. Moving from punk rock into art, in the early '80s, Pettibon is well known for his comic book inspired drawings of whatever suits his fancy. Almost always accompanied by an ambiguous text, the drawings come to life, as they do at Pettibon's current exhibition at Sadie Coles, through the juxtaposition of image and texts, and the artist's distinctively energetic style. For this exhibition, Pettibon is explicit about his role as a sampler, and compares himself to a bebop musician, slicing and dicing text that already exists as a part of the cultural milieu. If you are familiar with Pettibon's work, this exhibition is worth checking out to survey the prevalence of colour in the show -- an unusual move for Pettibon.

NB: runs till 17/02.

With her tight, meticulous drawings and paintings Laylah Ali tricks us into thinking we know what, or who we are looking at. In The Kiss And Other Warriors, Ali presents a new series of ink on paper works that appear to be simple portraits of some rather peculiar looking characters. Unlike her colourful paintings, Ali makes her drawings unplanned and unconsciously; the strange costumes, headgear and hairstyles of the characters are compiled in an obsessive doodle style of squares, dots and lines. Cumulatively the intricate marks build up the chain-mail and feathered headdresses of warriors engaged in the curious act of kissing. In earlier paintings, Ali has been concerned with representing violence between individuals and groups, and it seems that little has changed in these new drawings: what we want to read as intimacy has been turned into an awkward and unpleasant exchange. Other pictures show more recognisable "types", people we think we know, such as a single mother with a baby strapped to her waist; but with her huge head on a thin armless body she looks like an alien. The people in Ali's pictures are not without humour, but it is a type of black humour provoked by their oddities and the desperate situations they find themselves in.

NB: runs till 24/02.

This exhibition is truly light fantastic. At the Kinetica Museum in the heart of Spitalfields, it features nine leading international artists who create amazing works of projected light. They play with the process of our perception of colour, enhancing vision by casting illusion. Art meets cutting-edge design technology in Jim Campbell's LED matrix works, exploring shifts of time and memory through analogue to digital media, and questioning the pixel formula of visual culture. Sam Buxton creates a chaise longue that traces organic shapes with aerospace technology; Martin Richman charts new heights with luminous ladders inspired by sky-rise architecture; and rAndom International draws patterns with image machines. Rob and Nick Carter use hand-held fibre-optics to brush an abstract painting with light, "an image without a camera". Peter Sedgley mixes turntables, screenpainted aluminium discs and ultraviolet light in kinetic art works that explore the modern colour theories of Paul Klee and Goethe. Animated 3-D sculptures by Gregory Barsamian inspire Surrealist dreams, and experimental dance films by Christian Schiess enliven the senses with pulsing volumes of neon light and sound. Curated by Dianne Harris -- who exhibits speaking heads -- this psychedelic show will brighten a trip to the market on a winter day.

NB: runs till 11/03.

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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