At the beginning of his strangely beautiful novel Steppenwolf, German-Swiss writer Hermann Hesse's alter ego Harry Haller is given a ticket to a "Magic Theater", in which he later finds himself participating in a series of fantastic, drug-induced, hallucinatory episodes, including a discussion with Mozart and the fatal stabbing of his friend Hermine. Whereas Dutch architect and UNStudio founder Ben van Berkel's Theatre Of Immanence may not offer such labyrinthine delusions, it does promise to have a "multidisciplinary character" and investigate an "interchange between ideas, theories, and communications of artists, architects and a cultural theorist" in a "continuous world of emerging realities". Immanence, as you'll remember from your Latin classes, comes from in manere -- to remain within -- a concept that thinkers have used to describe a divinity that is inseparably present in all things (one can find God wherever one seeks). An educated guess is that van Berkel traces a philosophical trajectory from Spinoza to Deleuze (who called his final essay Immanence: A Life) on the stage of his theatre. The question, it seems, is whether the electronic sign above the entrance will echo that above Hesse's delirious playhouse: "Magic Theater. Entrance not for everybody. For madmen only!"

NB: also of note is Sean Griffiths of FAT who gives a lecture at The Bartlett on 30/01 (6:30pm).

Set in France and based on a true story, One Two Another follows a group of young musicians. Through vivid flashbacks it tracks the events that lead to the untimely death of Pierre, the lead singer of a punk band. Focusing on the experimental sex lives and friendships within the group, it pivots around the intense relationship of Pierre and his sister Lucie. Devastated by the loss of her brother and soul mate, Lucie sets out to explore what happened the evening that Pierre set off into the quiet, forested countryside and never came back. Impossibly beautiful actors bring to life the heady passions of being young through irreverent gesture, poetic dialogue and cool attitude. "Deprived of youth, man becomes the accomplice to his own death," writes Lucie from a book. The film is directed by screen actor Jean-Marc Barr, who is best known for his collaborations on Dogville and Breaking The Waves with Lars von Trier and as Jacques Mayol in Luc Besson's Le Grand Bleu. He will take part in a Q&A with co-director Pascal Arnold.

NB: the film will be shown in a double bill with the 2004 comedy Cockles And Muscles starring Jean-Marc Barr. Also of note this week is the release of The Savages, Our Daily Bread and Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street.

You can't overestimate the importance of what people read in their spare time. Whether design icons, soapboxes, lifestyle dictators or celebrity gossipmongers, every magazine projects its own social reality. The one you choose to peruse depends on the reality you're after. We've now got magazines for every possible category of enthusiast, pundit and aesthetic, plus enough celebrity news to distract us 24/7. The sharpest magazine designers join social historians and speakers from some of the more iconic glossies; Wallpaper*, Eye, New York, Monocle, to discuss the phenomenon and state of the magazine. Expect a varied programme, some social history, highlights from the last 40 years in magazines, interviews, the latest on design, and some discussion on the direction magazines will take now as they compete for our attention online.

Written and directed by Tamara Jenkins, Laura Linney plays Wendy Savage, a budding playwright, fantasist, self confessed control freak and sister to Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a somewhat morose academic and writer of books about the theatre. Both are ensconced on the East Coast while their estranged and enormously cantankerous father, beautifully rendered by Philip Bosco, has succumbed to the ravages of dementia and been kicked out of his "retirement community" in Arizona (after writing his name in his own excrement on their walls) and dropped in the siblings thoroughly dysfunctional laps. A beautifully scripted and bleakly hilarious film that, exemplified by outstanding performances by the three leads, caused us to check out health insurance for our parents and ourselves that would cover us in the event of a similar scenario. It made us laugh, contemplate and consider.

NB: The Savages is released in London on 25/01. Other films of note released on the same day are Our Daily Bread and Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street.

In the space of four short years, Adventures Close To Home have come along way from the humble beginnings of a monthly night at Camden dive The Barfly. Granted the status of official tastemakers for FACT Magazine and owners of a fledgling label that has brought to our attention Holy Hail and Free Blood. Oh yeah, they also appear to have a party every weekend of every month in London. All this was achieved despite having The Futureheads headline their first night! This Saturday the ACTH crew celebrate two years of parties at Shoreditch speakeasy Old Blue Last, and have eschewed the usual addition of up and coming bands to the line-up, instead inviting several of their friends to play records (or should we say whatever they ripped from The Hype Machine in the past week). This being Shoreditch there are some frankly silly names on the bill, Black Forest Ghetto a particular favourite. Amongst the amusing monikers however, you will find splendid mp3 blogger Headphone Sex, whose DJ sets are as excellent as his blog and all too rare these days.

It is said that the Phoenix rising out of electro's ashes for 2008 will be something disco-orientated and humanistic. Both Mike Simonetti, label boss at Italians Do It Better and Pilooski, lynchpin of Parisian editing supremos D*I*R*T*Y Soundsystem, have been quietly winning legions of fans in the last year by pursuing these two strands. Simonetti's take is the latter, playing host to the likes of Glass Candy, Mirage and Chromatics, whose debut Night Drive was a very sensitive and minimal take on Italo disco, swapping beats for synths and strings. If 2007 was the year you tired of the Trojan horse approach to remixing, Pilooski could be an ideal antidote, since while his song selections plough unfamiliar depths of early funk, disco and doo-wop, his edits are measured and beautifully constructed. His first full release at the end of last year is already a sleeper hit -- and also building the reputation of Tigersushi, whose back catalogue includes Ivan Smagghe, Optimo and Poni Hoax -- who do a persuasive impression of Joy Division on acid.

NB: catch Poni Hoax on 26/01 (10:30pm) when they play Kill 'Em All at The Barfly.

Pierre Klossowski was one of these philosophers that really made you work hard at understanding what he was all about and then left you feeling alienated about the state of the world in general and your own condition in particular. La Monnaie Vivante (1970), which shed light on an alternative economy stating that the body is the actual currency of daily exchanges, is now recognized as a seminal text for all wannabe post-structuralists. We're not referring to anything as simple as prostitution here, as the latest UBS Opening: Live will demonstrate. Indeed, for the duration of a weekend, dancers will perform throughout the museum as an attempt to explore notions of living objects, human presence, rules and social order. If you are not familiar with the musings of Klossowski, there will be a talk featuring the event's curator, Pierre Bal-Blanc, and Sarah Wilson. Among the artists contributing to this event will be Tania Bruguera, Prinz Gholam, Annie Vigier, Santiago Sierra, Lawrence Weiner and Franck Apertet of Les Gens D'Uterpan. Go and enjoy the utter feeling of dismay but any attempt to sell your own body will be frowned upon.

NB: this event runs on both 26/01 and 27/01. Also of note on 26/01 (10am - 6pm) is the CollectingLiveArt Symposium followed by (6 - 9pm) a launch event for CollectingLiveArt with a programme of works and live performances (more info click here).

The master of melodrama, Douglas Sirk, comes under focus this weekend as the Barbican screens his final major feature, Imitation Of Life (1959). A mid-century exploration of survival and racial identity, the film charts the story of a black homeless widow and her daughter, who take refuge in the home of a single white mother. A ground-breaking masterpiece of the genre, the film will be screened alongside a contemporary perspective on similar themes: Todd Haynes' Far From Heaven (2002), a beautiful, poignant homage to Sirk himself. Film historian Sandra Shevey will introduce the double bill by discussing the films' representations of race and underlying criticisms of small-town America. And if this screening whets your appetite for more Sirk, pop over to the ICA (27/01 at 1:30pm) as artist Emily Wardill discusses links between melodrama and politics with Whitechapel curator Ian White. As well as showing clips from Sirk's feature All That Heaven Allows (1955), the pair will host a screening of Fassbinder's love story, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974): a '70s take on the genre, also heavily influenced by the master himself.

NB: also of note this week is the release of The Savages, Our Daily Bread and Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street.

Counter-culturist and radio pirate extraordinaire Heath Bunting is presenting a sort of pseudo-tourist view of central London, whilst cagily dodging the Coppers on a trumped up hoax bomb charge. Despite having a reputation for watching the watchers or, perhaps more accurately, policing the Police, Bunting's subjective take on globalisation and law and order have earned him a unique place in the world of art and music. He is a relentlessly subversive presence, the various manifestations of his work constantly demanding that other seditious communities re-evaluate their terms and positions in relation to his bigger picture. Whether co-opting pirate radio (what do you call a double pirate?) and streaming it to a global market on the sly, or documenting the various means of slipping under the proverbial wire across international borders, the information Bunting produces and puts out is ambiguously neutral. He is at once subverting law and order and disclosing his procedures to the public, and, presumably the authorities: picking the lock then closing the gate, as it were. While this walk (also intriguingly vague in nature) doesn't necessarily promise a redistribution of power amongst the subversive as previous works may have, it is still worth catching the enigmatic Bunting as he tours the city.

A rare London show for The Marcia Blaine School For Girls as part of a Highpoint Lowlife evening. Travelling down from Glasgow -- where they co-run prominent monthly club, Numbers, alongside Stuff Records. The event will feature live sets by TMBSFG, The Village Orchestra (Ruaridh Law, one third of the band), Fisk Industries (Mat Ranson), and Mandelbrot, a guitar and violin duo utilizing an obscene array of guitar pedals and effects to create a powerful hybrid of noise and melody, closing with Production Unit DJing into the small hours. TMBSFG, a favourite of Radio One's Mary Anne Hobbes, have been building a solid reputation for unconventional electronics, rearranging elements of dancehall, techno, rave, hip-hop and minimalism, and moulding it together into their own distinctive sound. Their 2007 album Halfway Into The Woods gained some great praise such as "crunching electronica of the highest order" from Boomkat, and "beautiful melodic themes wrapped in lush electronic soundscapes, layered over crisp rhythmic pattern" from The Milk Factory -- in their top 20 of 2007. Their live set is a more fearsome affair, incorporating a dancefloor-related attitude, utilising turntables, broken guitars and whatever else they can lay their hands upon.

NB: for some more straightforward dance floor music on the same night check out M.A.N.D.Y. at Fabric and the UK debut of The Mole playing live at Cargo.

"There is a crisis in cinema today, a deep malaise, a feeling of artistic exhaustion, of pointlessness". So begins The Belgrade Manifesto, conceived by UK-based filmmaker Jon Sanders and launched at the Belgrade Festival Of Auteur Film last December. Devised as a rallying call to filmmakers and a two-fingered salute to the increasingly accountant-led bureaucratic systems of production and funding, the manifesto calls for filmmakers to reclaim innovative and creative filmmaking, and move towards new methods of distribution and exhibition. Sanders and writer James Leahy will discuss the manifesto, which has attracted the support of -- amongst others -- directors Aki Kaurismaki (Lights In The Dusk) and Aleksandr Sokurov (Russian Ark). The discussion will follow the premiere screening of Sanders' latest feature Low Tide, in which he put into practice the core idea of the manifesto of working outside "the system" -- or in the words of the manifesto: a film made "without permission".

NB: also of note this week is the release of The Savages, Our Daily Bread and Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street.

Daniel Barenboim usually conducts Beethoven, but he now takes on another challenge to the viscera: playing all 32 Piano Sonatas within three weeks. This man deserves that hackneyed word legendary. These will be the performances of a body formed by intimate knowledge of this music, both as conductor and player (he has played the cycle once before, in Tel Aviv in 1960). You can take it as read that they will be masterful. However, classical music does not complete the agenda: alongside this programme of concerts is the Artist As Leader series of talks. The attractive and imposing Barenboim is also concerned with the role of the artist in society, and this series explores that seam, as does his journal which is that of the first person to hold both a Palestinian and Israeli passport. Art is political, but politics is not enough in art: let the consummate performances captivate you as the talks inform you.

NB: this event runs from 28/01 till 17/02.

As the Americans give the green light to the production of cloned animals for human consumption, Tesco branches continue to spread like chickenpox at infants school and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall attempts to prison-break our poultry, more attention than ever is being focussed on our groceries and just exactly where they originate. Although with our new awareness of industrial agriculture methods have come some uncomfortable truths. On cinema screens, Fast Food Nation opted for melodramatic shock tactics, however Nikolaus Geyrhalter's Our Daily Bread takes the completely different approach of a clinically detached observer. Beautifully and poetically shot, this curiously fascinating film has neither narration nor soundtrack -- it relies solely on the images and on the ambient sounds of the apparatus: sometimes weird (the "salmon cleaning" machine), and sometimes oddly comical (the "chicken gathering" machine) which are an essential part of modern food production. It documents the mind-numbing routine involved in large-scale agriculture -- as pig carcasses slowly float by on an overhead conveyer belt, a bored woman nonchalantly clips off their trotters with a pair of giant bolt cutters -- and the extent to which we have become detached from traditional farming methods. Strangely compelling.

NB: Our Daily Bread screens at the ICA till 28/02. Also of note this week is the release of The Savages and Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street.

Eco-Gallerists Isabella Macpherson and Sigrid Wilkinson set up Arts Co in 2007 to work with environmentally aware artists. In the guise of ARTiculate projects, they have taken over an uninspiring space in Old Street and transformed it with a magical installation by young sculptor Claire Morgan. Morgan is part of a new generation of artists including Graham Hudson, Tessa Farmer and artist-taxidermist Polly Morgan, who find their materials amidst the detritus of nature and man. For her first London exhibition, Claire Morgan has constructed fragile sculptures from objects found in London parks. In The Chase a bird passes through a barricade of leaves in pursuit of a floating butterfly. The Fall is an invisible wall constructed by painstakingly threading leaves, seeds and flies through pieces of wire suspended from the ceiling, creating the words "The Fall". A bird skeleton lies beneath on a bed of leaves, conkers, plastic rubbish and rotten apples. Morgan's juxtaposition of decaying natural and manmade objects is reminiscent of Turner Prize nominee Anya Gallaccio's organic sculpture. Tension between traditional and natural materials highlights the tension between man and his environment: particularly polemical now with the increasing awareness of our carbon footprint, recent Live Earth concerts and emphasis on recycling.

NB: runs till 02/02.

Neil LaBute is probably one of the most interesting dramatic voices coming from America today. His film and theatre work usually explores the accidental nature of human emotional conditions in the extremes of every-day modern life. The Bush Theatre currently hosts two of LaBute's new short plays, both UK premiers, which together create a perfect, just under an hour long, theatre outing. Helter Skelter and Land Of The Dead both focus on modern relationships and capture just the right dramatic moment of their characters' existence. Although both set in America, they have truly universal feelings about them. LaBute captures the essence of relationship tensions in an amazing game of words that forms the backbone for his brilliantly observed and sharp characters. LaBute's text works in favour of his female characters leaving their male counterparts slightly short-changed and less powerfully observed. Patricia Benecke's ascetic production allows LaBute's dialogue to flow in the uncorrupted space of Sara Perks' design.

NB: runs till 16/02.

That Sarah Beddington began her career as a painter seems obvious in her treatment of the passage of time. Mercurial lakes of paint in these defiantly non-linear, sumptuously shot films, recall her recent experiences in locations such as China, Brooklyn and Turin. Beddington's films acknowledge both the way cinema has shaped public perceptions of place, and the impact of technological development on our appetite for the medium. Whether or not we experience the entirety of the slow-paced Shanghai Moon or can work out the varying lengths of the 30 vignettes of footage that make up the extraordinary Places Of Laughter And Of Crying -- perhaps the most successful use to date of Bloomberg's difficult balcony space -- doesn't seem important. It's as if Beddington realises that there's little point in trying to compete with the selective and personal nature of memory -- each individual will take away their own very specific edit of the places she has presented. There are certain scenes though, that will likely provide a collective trigger; a man hooking something gloopy from a restaurant sewer; a multicoloured swarm of umbrellas bobbing across a Shanghai thoroughfare; bleak, blue shop front signage that reads "Happy Events".

NB: runs till 23/02.

Known for his extraordinarily detailed pencil drawings of fantastic architectural sites, Pablo Bronstein's new show explores and mythologises the recent redevelopment of a real site in the city: Paternoster Square, St Paul's. The contested commission to regenerate the square did away with the '60s brutalist office block next to the cathedral, filling the void with a synthesis of historical built styles that aim to suggest organic architectural growth: a mixture of cafes, retail outlets, triumphal arches and Tuscan colonnades. Bronstein's ink drawing Erecting Of The Paternoster Square Column evokes the hubristic aspirations of modern building technologies attempting to replicate great structural design of the past: a gigantic faux Corinthian column is winched into place while miniscule workers and on-lookers admire this feat of engineering from far below. In the main space a four screen video installation explores the theatricality inherent in simulating and inhabiting classic built-form: the artist choreographs live the poses of a group of ballet dancers, dressed in emerald green leotards, amongst a sparse stage-set of objects aping classic architecture, designed by the Bronstein and the architect Etienne Descloux. A traditional grandiose painted record of the square, rendered in luscious dark red and brown oils hangs in the gallery's final space -- Bronstein's monument to imagined history newly created.

NB: runs till 24/02.

DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist's collaborative mixes; "Brain Freeze" (1999) and Product Placement (2001) have established a joint reputation almost as fierce as either their solo work (in Shadow's case) or Chemist's involvement with Jurassic 5. The frenetic pace yet super-smooth presentation of primarily old funk and soul tracks mimicked the revolutionary cut and paste style of old school masters Double Dee and Steinski, only in this case the composition was live, in real time -- put together with old 45s. 2008 will see the duo return with the third instalment in the series -- The Hard Sell -- once again destroying their rare vinyl collection for the listener's delight and, on 13/03 at the Roundhouse (their only UK date), for the exhilaration of the assembled crowd. Utilising eight turntables and guitar effect peddles, and once again made up entirely from 7" vinyl, the idea might sound like a wet dream for DJ nerds, but the resulting sonic blend should possess enough warmth, humour (apparently the selection is their wackiest yet) and aforementioned funk and soul to achieve broader appeal. Contrary to the title of the show, this event will sell out without any arm-twisting. You have been warned!

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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