Camden's reputation as London's epicentre of all things indie is no longer based loosely on the fact you might spot the singer from the latest cover darlings of the NME sipping on a pint of Stella in the Good Mixer or because you can get an identikit indie band outfit from down Camden Market. For now there is the Camden Crawl, a two day event that showcases the finest in fresh young musical talent, that since its rebirth in 2005 has come to be known as the unofficial start of the Festival Season. This year sees the format expand with an earlier start each day, over 90 bands playing and several key London promoters (Moshi Moshi Records vs Greco Roman stands out) curating nights at some of Camden's livelier venues. The recent blurring of the lines between dance and indie is reflected in the range of artists performing with acts like Bonde Do Role, Roll Deep, Calvin Harris and The Black Ghosts sharing venue space with Foals, Xerox Teens, Hot Club De Paris and Late Of The Pier. Do expect to hear "Thou Shalt Always Kill" in every venue you visit.

Filmmaker, musician, composer, inventor, playwright, author -- Mike Figgis comes across as a kind of 21st-century Renaissance man, experimenting with, and mastering, a multiple of different disciplines. But it is in filmmaking that he is best known, and increasingly, at his most experimental. One of the first directors, in the year 2000, to wholeheartedly embrace digital technology and the creative possibilities it offered with his experimental split-screen, real-time feature Timecode he has continued to push the boundaries of digital moving image. Figgis has always been user friendly (how many other Oscar-winning directors have their own MySpace page?) and keen to inspire others, so in the spirit of encouraging us all to have a go, he has just published Digital Film Making. For less than the cost of the latest trashy airport novel, the eminently affordable guide is designed to make us all into DoPs and directors, and to mark the new book he is presenting a masterclass on how to get the best from the latest digital technologies.

From the very first scene of a beggar with amputated legs rolling about on his wheeling platform, and a group of tailors toiling over their work in a ramshackle slum, we knew we'd be in for an authentic ride. This production is a treat -- the music, sets and, above all, the superb acting by this specialist Asian group. Based on Rohinton Mistry's acclaimed novel, the play is set in 1975 Bombay, and tells of the effects of Indira Gandhi's notorious "State of Emergency" on the lives of four characters from different castes and religious backgrounds who are unexpectedly thrown together -- a middle-class Parsi woman, her Hindu student-lodger, and two Muslim "untouchables"-turned-tailors. Through these characters, and the web of curious individuals that surround them, we see the dramatic effects of those corrupt reformation programmes. The portrayal of the slum-dwellers was for us the most moving aspect of the production -- from one beggar's obsessive love for his pet monkey, to the woman who must wash and dry her only sari with herself, and above all, the two lead beggars, whose desperate struggle to make a better life, and their eventual tragic fall, is portrayed with such tender acuity, capturing what is a universal story for the lives of so many in India to this day.

NB: A Fine Balance is also performed on 18/04, 20/04 and 21/04.

Terence Davies' re-released 1988 first feature is a wonderful mediation on a working class family in Liverpool in the '40s and '50s. It weaves a rich tapestry of gorgeously composed family-album-like tableaux, exquisitely executed tracking shots and haunting long-takes, which burn themselves on the mind's eye, making it unforgettable. It joyously celebrates the seemingly banal, yet truly beautiful, influence of popular culture on an everyday world precariously rotating around an axis of birth, marriage and death; with a soundtrack which gloriously features popular music, movie tunes, hymns, shipping forecasts and other assorted radio clips, it's an aural as well as visual feast. Distant Voices begins with a death and a marriage. The arrival of a hearse, seen through an open front-door, heralds the funeral of the father, Tommy (Pete Postlethwaite). It's followed by a group-photo-pose of Mrs D (Freda Dowie), daughters Eileen (Angela Walsh) and Maisie (Lorraine Ashbourne) and son Tony (Dean Williams), just before Eileen gets married. Still Lives centres on a get-together in the local pub to "wet" the head of Maisie's new-born baby -- and to have a good, old sing-song. It's a masterful piece of film-making from a master of his craft. It's unmissable!

Talk: Fri 20/04 (8:20pm)
Geoff Andrews and Terence Davies will discuss Davies' films and his career.

Poetry: Sat 21/04 (2pm)
Liverpudlian poet Paul Farley, author of the BFI Modern Classics on Distant Voices, Still Lives introduces a special screening of the film.

NB: Distant Voices, Still Lives is re-released in London on 20/04 and is part of the BFI Southbank's Terence Davies Season which runs from 16/04 till 30/04. Other films of note released on 20/04 are Half Nelson and Hacking Democracy.

Though it may start out as just another documentary, there comes a point in Hacking Democracy where the reality of the situation comes through, hits you somewhere, and you think -- "Oh my God". Starting with the fact that the vast majority of votes in America are counted by computers, the film proceeds to take apart any pretence of security in either the electronic voting systems themselves or the wider systems which allow, and even encourage, them to operate. Not a beautiful film maybe, but an important message and a fascinating view into how a world of vested interests can ride roughshod over the lynchpin of the democratic system, raising the possibility of universal disenfranchisement. The relief in the knowledge that there are people like Bev Harris of blackboxvoting.org out there is tempered by the distressing roll call of who they're up against. Gil Scott-Heron seems to have been more right than even he knew when he said "Mandate, my ass!".

NB: Hacking Democracy is released in London on 20/04. Other films of note released on the same day are Distant Voices, Still Lives and Half Nelson.

By the time you read this the rather dubious blog house entry on Wikipedia will have probably (thankfully) been deleted. Should it have been and you still want to get a grip on what's happening right this second in the electro, b-more, new rave, etc, etc, etc scenes then you'd do worse than heading on down to 93 Feet East this weekend for some Hot Sauce. Headlining the night is one of the UK's brightest new talents Duke Dumont, who will be celebrating his recent signing to Tiga's Turbo Recordings. With a sound perfectly pitched somewhere between the crunching electro of Paris' Ed Banger stable and the fidget house of British producers like Sinden and Switch, his remixes and productions have been setting dancefloors and blogs alight. Joining him are a whole host of other up and coming fresh faced types including the avant-grime of Rowdy Superst*r, the stripper friendly booty bass of Zombie Disco Squad and Suicide Dogz' leftfield take on everything from r'n'b to baile funk. More fun than staring at a screen and reading about it, that's for sure.

James White's artwork twists the meaning of the quick snapshot and passing anecdotes with an ongoing consideration of the artist's awareness of the act of making an art object. The process of painting, the idea of seriality and meaning of expression through art-making inform the artist's work, and along with a title like Doomed reminiscent of a teenager's thrash metal t-shirt, this exhibition communicates a sinister, but ironic jump into the dark-side. Subjects that include a grouping of cigarette lighters remain bang up-to-date with an application of black and white paint that takes the viewer to a history of painting and a contemporary interpretation that appears easy to source. However, presented alongside works from the ongoing series Dark Thoughts, consisting of portraits of the artist's friends with their eyes closed, and obscured paintings synonymous with Ad Reinhardt's black paintings and the consequent interpretation of the removed image, the show takes on a dialogue between painting and painting, artist and viewer -- whether referring to unsettling ideas of contemporary life or not -- where the seemingly obvious becomes oblique rendering the work as a whole increasingly abstract.

NB: runs till 21/04.

Alfred Leslie is incomparable. With a career stretching almost 60 years -- interrupted by the caesura of a studio fire in 1966 which destroyed most of his early output -- Leslie is a key figure of postwar American artistic culture, bridging the Beats and the Abstract Expressionists. Best known as a painter, Leslie has also produced a series of important films made with an astonishing array of collaborators, including poet Frank O'Hara (their film The Last Clean Shirt will be shown over the weekend ) and photographer / filmmaker Robert Frank (Pull My Daisy, also shown).

On this rare visit to London he will present all of his extant films, including The Cedar Bar, his cut-and-paste account of "the war between the people who make art and the people who write about it" which was a hit at the London Film Festival in 2002, and two exclusive screenings of works in progress. Mixed in with his own works are a documentary in which he talks with O'Hara and a screening of one of his inspirations: The Gold Diggers Of 1933, featuring the choreography of Busby Berkeley at his most baroque. Best of all is the chance to see Leslie in person, still fizzing with the energy that has drawn so many poets, artists, writers and performers into his orbit.

Talks
On 21/04 (7pm) catch Alfred Leslie when he introduces DW Griffith's Birth Of A Nation and again on 22/04 (5pm) when he discusses his work plus a screening of both The Anatomy Of Cindy Fink and Pull My Daisy.

NB: this festival runs for two days on 21/04 and 22/04.

This is a monumental production. Improbable are a fantastically exciting theatre company; their recent collaboration with the National Theatre of Scotland for The Wolves In The Walls was unforgettable. Satyagraha is Philip Glass' follow up to Einstein On The Beach (five hours, directed by Robert Wilson, of course you had to be there...). It's about Gandhi's early years in South Africa, and his philosophy inspired by the Bhagavad Gita. Ok -- what the flyers don't say is that it's over three hours long and it's sung entirely in Sanskrit. Isn't it the whole point of the ENO that the operas are sung in English? Who's asking, when the visual feast offered is so exciting: Paule Constable's lighting is simply breathtaking, newspapers in particular are used to create clever tableaux and then giant puppet-like structures are formed... It all happens through skilled seamless transitions, and the result is pure theatrical magic. The music is very Glass -- it was composed in 1980, and is perhaps a bit dated. His more recent film stuff is more accessible -- like the brilliant score for Notes On A Scandal. But perhaps to ask for every work by Glass to mean something is to defy the concept of Satyagraha.

NB: Satyagraha is also performed on 25/04, 26/04, 30/04 and 01/05 at 7:30pm.

A new night from the combined brains of the excellent Werk label and Glasgow's Numbers crew, Donna! launches this weekend at the best little rave hole in London, Corsica Studios. Why Donna!? Your guess is as good as ours to be honest. Still, if you put together a line-up like this you've probably bought yourselves a little nominal leeway. Headlining the night are Rome's dark techno legend Lory D and Berlin's finest hack and paste artist Errorsmith (aka Erik Wiegand), a hefty European one-two combination that should guarantee a sizable turnout of happy electronic enthusiasts. It's not all about the headliners though as there's quality all the way down the line-up with the likes of Actress, Lukid, Jackmaster and plenty of others spinning everything from techno to crunk, via electro, dubstep and some full on party tunes. The perfect antidote to most po-faced electronica nights, expect plenty of people to get with Donna! on Saturday.

New School meets Old School in Fabric this Saturday. Sure, there's been umpteen articles written about Acid House pioneers A Guy Called Gerald and Baby Ford. And why not, in the fickle world of dance music, here are some artists with history behind them. Gerald with his early work with 808 State and then finding chart success with his definitive "Voodoo Ray". Baby Ford following a similar trajectory with early acid house hits "Oochy Koochy" and "Chikki Chikki Ahh Ahh" before releasing 2003's seriously underrated Basking In The Brakelights long player on the legendary Perlon label. But we at KultureFlash think that tonight's Funktion One sound system thrills will come from Stefan Goldmann. Having released quality house and techno from a variety of labels since 2002, it wasn't until 2006's Sleepy Hollow EP that everyone took notice. Teaming up with production duo of the moment -- Ame (y'know, they did that track "Rej") -- resulted in a seriously epic, filmic take on minimal techno. Needless to say, his set should be bursting at the seams with suitably widescreen selections.

A rare chance to see one of silent cinema's truly great practitioners on the big screen accompanied by one of Britain's most prolific and experimental soundtrack composers. Working in a sprit of heady idealism later termed Constructivism, conceived of a Dziga Vertov completely new vision for cinema. He was inspired, like his contemporaries Kazimir Malevich and Vladimir Tatlin, by the prospect of forging a new cultural base for society in the wake of a stagnant imperial legacy, that is, simply by looking at everyday life in a new, un-cluttered and un-stigmatised manner, Vertov's film Man With A Movie Camera is a great poetic testament to this enthusiasm, and his series of documentary style films titled Kino-Pravda are a further exploration of this theme. Michael Nyman is no newcomer to revolutionary cinema, having cut his teeth creating accompaniments for Peter Greenaway's early films (although he is most acclaimed for his work on Jane Campion's The Piano). Hailed as one of the great voices of minimalism in this country, it will be interesting to see how he will bend his art to the challenges of an entirely silent film setting.

Directed by Zhang Yimou (Raise The Red Lantern, Hero, House Of Flying Daggers) and starring the phenomenally beautiful and perfectly formed Gong Li alongside the wonderful Chow Yun-Fat, this is a humongous medieval, breast heaving, bodice ripping, magnificently lurid costume epic that, reminiscent of Kurosawa's Ran, is set in the times of the corrupt Tang Dynasty. And in terms of sheer, size, spectacle and execution it outdoes anything that Hollywood has ever produced. Betrayal, back stabbing, assassination, adultery and family tragedy are all par for the course here injected into a plot that, almost Machiavellian and certainly Shakespearean, takes no prisoners what- or whosoever. One might describe such a film as "big", one might describe such a film as "exceptional" but above all it is well worth the admission price.

NB: films of note released this week are Distant Voices, Still Lives, Half Nelson and Hacking Democracy.

Half Nelson (mercifully it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with wrestling, despite the clunky title) follows the ever-popular indie tradition of the coming-of-age film, but set apart by the fact that the two characters are a generation apart. Ryan Gosling was nominated for an Oscar for his role as the charismatic history teacher Dan, who uses unorthodox (and officially unwelcome) methods to inspire his 13-year-old, too-kool-for- skool students, but whose private life is a train-wreck of Class A drugs, failed relationships and neglected cats. Latchkey kid Drey (Shareeka Epps) is his old-before-her-time student who ends up educating the teacher. As his two personae begin to overlap, Gosling is an ever increasingly quivering wreck. Meanwhile the wonderful Epps is casting her cool gaze over life, maintaining her zen-like calm whilst pulled between the two opposing pseudo- father-figures in her life -- Dan and his equally charismatic drug dealer Frank (Anthony Mackie) -- as both object to the others' influence, each citing her best interests for their objections. A film about friendships, responsibility and maturity that argues that age doesn't necessarily dictate when you "grow up".

NB: Half Nelson is released in London on 20/04. Other films of note released on the same day are Distant Voices, Still Lives and Hacking Democracy.

Sir John Tusa excels in the arts by freely navigating across a diverse portfolio of media organisations, sliding from TV broadcasting to managing cultural institutions. In his current role as the Managing Director of the Barbican Centre, from which he will soon to step down, he oversees Europe's largest multi-arts venue, showcasing theatre, dance, film and music. Previously, he has worked in a similar position for the BBC World Service and has been Chairman of the Wigmore Hall Trust and the Government Art Collection. However, he is perhaps best known to the UK public as a BBC2 Newsnight presenter, who frequently broke the latest cultural stories. With such wide-ranging credentials, he is a brilliant commentator on the importance of the arts in our ever-changing, new-media world. As an insider, he has contributed journalism and valuable criticism on the arts, a collection of which has recently been published in the book Engaged With The Arts: Writings From The Frontline. If you would like to tune in to a moving picture of the arts, outside the box, off the page, and without museum walls, then attend this event at the Royal Geographical Society. It promises to offer a stimulating exploration of the vitality of the arts today.

Dazed & Confused, the lifestyle bible, appears to be the only magazine of its ilk to successfully embrace the internet age lovingly with both hands with the launch of Dazed Digital, a online culture community that is updated by a worldwide blogging collective, late last year. To complement this bearhug with the MySpace generation, Dazed started a new club night, DZD, in a suitably tacky Soho nightspot, Moonlighting on Greek St, which has already played host to some rather special nights -- secret Ed Banger parties, Mentalist Association invasions, and now this Tuesday they've invited some of freshest new bands around to play. Hot labels Moshi Moshi and Kitsune are represented in the form of Best Fwends and Thieves Like Us. Texan duo Best Fwends are notable for producing a remix of Spank Rock that surpasses the efforts of Dave Switch Taylor (a rare feat these days) whilst Swedish based NYC trio Thieves Like Us garnered a ridiculous amount of blog love before Kitsune duly snapped them up. Just to mix things up, DZD have also invited Hungarian weird beat in gym shorts band Agaskodo Teliverek. DJ support for the night comes from everybody's favourite remixer Metronomy and the Kitsune Amateurs.

Boom Bip, aka Bryan Hollon, is a Lex Records producer, a prolific remixer (having mixed artists such as Mogwai, Four Tet and M83) and musician who specialises in a particularly compelling form of electronic music. Bringing ambience, glitch, hip-hop and pop into a surrealist hypnotic mix, he has come to define himself as one of the finest electronic musicians of this age. Artists who he has toured with in the past -- Interpol and Super Furry Animals, for example -- illustrate his diversity and wide appeal to fans of guitar music. This gig will be a showcase for his new EP which will undoubtedly be a subtlety-crafted collection of electro-organic excellence. In support are two up and coming guitar bands: junk-pop collective Half Cousin and the highly tipped recent Domino signing Wild Beasts. Interesting stuff and another Eat Your Own Ears exclusive -- this will be Boom Bip's first London gig for well over a year. This should appeal to many: hardcore devotees, casual fans of electronica and even those willing to take a chance on something different.

Normally, these days punters are searched for dangerous weapons when entering a club night rather than being handed baseball bats and sledgehammers on the way in. Club nights also usually have music being played, either by DJs or live acts -- as opposed to the punters themselves providing the music. In these respects Scrap Club is different -- they're bringing in a heap of junk (including a light aircraft) and having the general public dismantle it, with force if necessary -- a bit like an Einsturzende Neubauten karaoke night, if such a thing were to exist (incidentally, they are playing KOKO on the 24th if you need any inspiration). On the other hand, maybe if you're getting a bit stressed at work, it's a nice bit of catharsis to "vent your spleen" -- you can even bring your own victims (in the form of appliances) and go "office space" on them. And as far as health and safety are concerned, there are two rules: 1. You do not talk about Scrap Club"...

NB: places are limited to 120, so make sure you book early to make sure you don't end up getting even more pent up stress.

Connections to Duchamp have long been apparent in the work of Mark Titchner and now these associations are not only formalised but also put forward for what they are, namely a straightforward old-fashioned meeting of minds. Central to this are a set of Duchamp's Rotoreliefs, purchased in 1965 from the artist by the Head of the then new Chelsea School of Art, Lawrence Gowing. Paradoxically these Rotoreliefs are the conceptual antithesis of the readymade. Having propositioned the everyday as artwork they attempt to return the artwork to the everyday. It is mass mantra rather than mass market that epitomises Titchner's work, from repeated slogans and rotating turntables to dream-machines and hypnotic whirls. Duchamp via Black Sabbath, the treasures of this show include a vinyl Vertigo Records logo framed in white so elegantly that it makes a mockery of any gold or platinum disc. Also on show is a guide to the set-up and running, including black velvet surround, of Duchamp's visionary machine. Shown opposite is a video by Titchner that highlights the versatility and invention of his visual, kinetic and sonic investigations. The CHELSEA space has developed a sense of laboratory, and here it continues to deliver.

NB: runs till 28/04.

Remember "post rock"? All those bands from the '90s like Tortoise, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and the home grown Fridge? Well, it looks like we might just be in for a bit of a revival of sorts this year -- although, of course a revival implies that it all stopped happening, when in fact most of the musicians just went off and did other things for a while. A Silver Mount Zion pre-empted all this kind of thing by going post "post rock" before it all stopped happening and therefore sort of jumped ship. Founded in 1999 by three ex-Godspeed musicians, their first albums were more experimental in terms of instrumentation (using cello, saxophones, piano and feedback electronics as much as guitars and often with no drums). They've since incorporated voice in the music and the line-up has expanded such that they now call themselves an orchestra rather than a band. The early records were always infused with a deep sense of atmosphere (think Tarkovsky's film Nostalghia relocated to Canada) and over time this has evolved into song structures that reflect this and shape it into epic narratives. Arcade Fire meets Jackie-O Motherfucker? Perhaps...

If you haven't seen Gilbert & George's Major Exhibition at Tate Modern yet, here is your chance to see it through the eyes of the creators. Every inch of space available is hung with the artists' loud, lurid creations, spanning the East and West galleries and including the space in between. Monday's talk with the artists, before an exclusive exhibition viewing, should help to illuminate the best bits of this humongous show. Living and working together in east London, which remains their primary subject matter, Gilbert & George have become as famous for their singular persona as their artwork. Appearing always impeccably dressed and distinctly unruffled, the artists speak and act almost as one so that it is hard to tell where the performance ends and the real Gilbert & George begin. Seeing them live promises to be an intriguing experience. The artists will be in conversation with writer, novelist and cultural commentator Michael Bracewell.

NB: Gilbert & George: Major Exhibition runs till 07/05.

Herzog & de Meuron is a Swiss architecture firm, founded and headquartered in Basel, Switzerland in 1978. The careers of founders and senior partners Jacques Herzog (1950) and Pierre de Meuron (1950), closely parallel one another, with both attending the ETH in Zurich. In 2006, The New York Times Magazine called them "one of the most admired architecture firms in the world". Herzog & de Meuron's early works were reductivist pieces of modernity that registered on the same level as the minimalist art of Donald Judd. However, their recent work at Prada Tokyo, the Barcelona Forum Building and the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympic Games, suggest a changing attitude. Though their commitment to the primacy of materiality shows through all their projects, the manipulation of form has gone from boxy modernism to volumetric prisms of equal if not greater presence. The architects often cite Joseph Beuys as an enduring artistic inspiration and collaborate with different artists on many architectural projects. Their success can be attributed to their skills in revealing unfamiliar or unknown relationships through familiar materials.

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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