Catherine Yass' latest work Waking Dream will be unveiled this week at the Wellcome Collection. The trajectory of her work uses the camera to distort and intensify the portrayal of her subjects, often using movement to create ethereal mesmeric worlds. She presents a new film that explores the intimacy of dreaming and waking from sleep by turning the camera on herself. The work is inspired by months of observation conducted at the National Heart And Lung Institute at Imperial College.

Hike yourself over to the other side of town to witness Yass' sheer versatility, from dreaming to dreamscape sequences, in her installation Lock (2006) at Alison Jacques (till 23/02). Shot at the infamous Three Gorges Dam in China, the film work depicts a journey along the Yangtze River and through a lock, as if experiencing it from the bow of a boat. The viewer is placed between two screens, one showing the bow of the ship facing us, and another showing the stern, behind, with the vast river stretching on to the watery horizon. The sheer scale of the lock is overwhelming and claustrophobic. China's cultural heritage and current economic prowess is synonymous with this structure. The vast walls contain a narrative of Empire and progress, yet this weighty context remains firmly at the sidelines. The other side of the lock means the freedom of the open water, wrapped in a cosy misty miasma that envelops the Yangtze, but the illogical and abstract experience of this surreal, dream-like space happily keeps such dogmatic readings at bay.

NB: this talk is in reference to her collaboration with the Wellcome Collection's current exhibition Sleeping & Dreaming (runs till 09/03). This event is free but you need to email events@wellcomecollection.org or call 020.7611.2222 to attend.

Norwegian songsmith Erlend Oye has a long track-record in metamorphosis -- having started out as half of quaint folk-pop duo Kings Of Convenience before segueing into solo electropop via an ever-so-cult DJ Kicks contribution. While the duo's 2001 release Versus saw producers such as Four Tet lighting a fire under the Kings' unplugged sound, there's a curious symmetry in the fact that Oye's new project, The Whitest Boy Alive, began as a programmed, electronic outfit and evolved into a live four-piece. The unifying thread in his previous work is the delicate lilt of his vocals -- which lend a melodic zen to even the most melancholy of tracks -- and they are as strong as ever. TWBA do strike a more optimistic note, though; they're backed by bass and drums of a subtlety that recalls Oye's later electronic endeavours. It's a seductive mixture, all delivered with the sort of Scandinavian modesty that made the Norwegian's geekish looks fashionable. Beware the queue at this one though -- their first solo gig in London was a roadblock and they've even been name-dropped in the Sunday Times Style magazine. Now that is a long way from cardigans and campfires in Bergen.

NB: support comes from Danish guitar-disco trio WhoMadeWho, who also play the night after at Modular Records' pool party.

As the film awards season builds to a frenzy, bookies are offering some of the shortest odds in Oscar-betting history for Daniel Day-Lewis scooping Best Actor for his magnificently explosive performance in Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood. Up for eight Oscars, the film is gorgeous, gripping and somewhat exhausting, with a main performance that is totally mesmerising. The God vs Mammon storyline -- the oil business battles it out with the hell-fire religious fundamentalist for the hearts and minds of the desert residents, one side promising new technology and a better lifestyle, the other offering a type of ecstasy in God (each as forcefully evangelical, and as greedy, as the other) -- is highly topical, despite its early 20th century California Dust Bowl setting. Day-Lewis' ruthless, volatile self-made tycoon Daniel Plainview stops at nothing in his lust for oil dollars, but as with PTA's earlier films (Boogie Nights, Magnolia), the film is also about families, whether real or created, functional or dysfunctional. Although overshadowed by the battle between money and faith, Plainview's painful struggles with the notion of kinship and his poisonous misanthropy lie at the heart of the story, offering multiple interpretations on the meaning of "blood".

NB: There Will Be Blood is released in London on 08/02. Other films of note released on the same day are Juno and Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell And The Butterfly.

The latest show from Southbank Centre Artist in Residence Rafael Bonachela promises to be a satisfying contemporary dance experience in every way, boasting intense, muscular choregraphy, high-tech imagery and cool music. For this new show, he continues his collaboration with production designer Alan Macdonald, whose film career includes Love Is The Devil and The Queen and for the first time works with composer Marius de Vries who has produced Bjork, Madonna and the soundtrack for Moulin Rouge. The extraordinary international company of dancers includes Amy Hollingsworth, Annamari "Viivi" Keskinen, Adam Linder, Cameron McMillan, Sarah Storer, and Paul Zivkovich. Bonachela's choreography has a powerful muscularity and is coupled with acute emotional sensitivity. The piece explores how memory shapes humanity. Bonachela is known for his perceptive blends of contemporary culture and high art. Yes, he's the one from Rambert who worked with Kylie, but that seems like ages ago given his recent prolific credits, including CandoCo and Carmen Jones.

NB: Rafael Bonachela performs at the QEH for two nights, 07/02 and 08/02.

Never ones to rest on their laurels, Modular have ditched their ever-so-popular weekly jumpoff in favour of promoting big events whenever it takes their fancy -- under the nom de plume of Modular Irregular. The inaugural event at Shoreditch's Club Aquarium is worth the admission alone for a live performance by Danish wonky punkfunk act WhoMadeWho -- known to many for that cover of "Satisfaction" but with so much more to offer. The fun doesn't stop there with whiteboy soul revivalist Primary 1 from the ace Phantasy Sounds label, and rising Glaswegian art rockers Make Model also taking to the stage. Providing the dancefloor heat for the night is man of a million guises Herve, who will no doubt treat the assembled masses to a heady dose of exclusive remixes and productions. Ably assisting on the deck duties are Matthew Stone from the !WOWOW! collective, a rare DJ set from the always splendid Metronomy, and Ladyhawke, Modular's secret weapon from down under. Be sure to take advantage of the swimming pool and hot tubs at Club Aquarium too, but leave the speedos at home -- it's not a good look.

A co-production with Glasgow's Arika and the London Musician's Collective, this Beaconsfield space event asks: "Can sound auto-destruct, can it cancel itself out in the process of it's own creation?" And does every new invention create a new accident waiting to happen? These are questions inspired by artist Gustav Metzger, who in the '50s and '60s addressed the very same ones in his "Manifestoes for Auto-Destructive Art". In collaboration with Metzger, improvising harpist Rhodri Davies has gathered a group of musicians to investigate this path of auto-destruction. Davies is joined by John Butcher, Mark and John Bain's oscillators and seismographs, Michael Colligan's hot metal on dry ice (literally), Robin Hayward's sand-filled tuba, Lee Parterson's burning acoustics, and Sarah Washington's wind-up radios winding down. A visceral use of physics and acoustics, beyond the theoretical, with let's hope, no actual cancellations!

House music is an often misunderstood and occasionally maligned style of dance music. A many-headed beast with far-stretching roots, it can confound those who struggle to grasp its essence. Over the past few years, dance floors have been awash with so-called "Minimal" -- a new strain of House. More recently, the tide has shown signs of a turn. Perhaps in reaction to the stark aesthetic of much contemporary dance music, warmer, organic, soulful sounds have been re-establishing a foothold, and Room One at Fabric is as good a barometer of this as any. Having held the Room Three crowd in the palm of his hand on a previous visit, the signs are that Detroit's Omar-S will build upon his popularity downstairs by painting from an expansive palette of 4/4 music. Cassy Britton is a resident DJ at Berlin's Panoramabar, but tonight she'll be performing live. Her broad appreciation of classic US House is as evident as her love of Berlin's deep Techno history, and this informs both her production and DJ work. Completing the guest line-up is Jamie Jones, a London-based producer/DJ whose sound also pays respect to deeper strains of the genre. There's a further twist on the old school template in Room Two with Todd Sines' vintage jacking drum sounds that drag Chicago's early Trax Records releases into the 2000s.

Kneehigh Theatre's adaptation of Noel Coward's flim Brief Encounter for the theatre brings the classic 1945 weepie about adultery in suburbia back to its stage roots. Originally a one-act play called Still Life, Brief Encounter immortalised Coward's morally fraught, doomed lovers in bleak monochrome and is now regularly cited as one of the best British films ever made. Kneehigh's production yokes together the film's flourishes with the play's suffocating set-pieces, ably capturing the sense of entrapment felt by the protagonists, but with enough narrative innovations and impressive set changes to keep the drama from feeling staid. Its central characters -- simple housewife Laura and dashing doctor Alec -- are beautifully portrayed by Naomi Frederick and Tristan Sturrock, but as in the film it is the character of Laura that resonates most. Though Kneehigh dispense with the voiceover that propels the film, their version nonetheless emphasises Laura's experiences over Alec's. After saying her last goodbye to Alec, Laura returns home and plays the piano with abandon while a screen behind shows footage of a crashing seascape, in a haunting and moving image of a woman broken by love. But it's not all doom and gloom: a troupe of all-singing, all-dancing comic characters sprinkles the production with enough humour to -- just about -- keep the tears at bay.

NB: runs till 22/06.

Another over-hyped low-budget left-of-field indie flick? Hmm. And this one's got so much incandescent chatter around it, it's almost off-putting. It's even written by an ex-stripper, for that extra bit of media-friendly spin. But, to be quite frank, it's entirely justified -- just don't expect too much (always the case in these situations) and you'll love it. In short: plucky pregnant teen refuses to become a victim. The longer version: 16-year-old Juno (Ellen Page) seduces her weedy classmate, gets pregnant, searches in the local Penny Saver magazine for a nice-looking set of adoptive parents, finds some, meets them, and bob's- your-uncle, problem solved. Well, almost. What makes the film hysterical hype-worthy though is Juno's cooler-than-a-cucumber-however-it-may-be-used humour. Deadpan, droll, ironic, cynical and sarcastic -- Juno is anything but self-pitying. Bloody hell, the girl?s got style. Her caterwauling call-to pregnancy-arms is "ThunderCats are GOOOOOOO!" Respect. That's all we can say.

NB: Juno is released in London 08/02. Other films of note released on the same day are Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell And The Butterfly and Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood.

The worlds of architecture and film collide in the modern city, as artists grapple with new concepts of time and motion, sliding across our fragmentary lives. Digital technologies are part of the architectural toolbox and computer-generated imagery is integral to the making of film. So, can architects play a role in making films? And will filmmakers direct actual environments? This dialogue between John Maybury and Bernard Tschumi promises to address the questions arising from this crossover of disciplines. Maybury started out as an artist, music-video director and experimental filmmaker before attracting acclaim for his painterly feature about the life of Francis Bacon and his lover, Love Is The Devil (1998). He is now working on The Edge Of Love, a vibrant exploration of Dylan Thomas' wartime romances. Tschumi has shaped the outlook of a younger generation of architects through projects at the interface of film and architecture, such as The Manhattan Transcripts and the Parc de la Villette in Paris, a 125-acre public park, complete with a cinematic garden. He has just completed the New Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece. Together, they promise a fascinating talk on the dynamic interplay between architecture and film today.

NB: this event is free but you need to email architecture@rca.ac.uk or call 0207.590.4281 to attend.

Next week see Mr Charles Thompson dropping in at KOKO. Though well-known by his Frank Black moniker, under which he's signed off the bulk of his solo work, the pseudonym Black Francis probably holds more allure. This is undoubtedly because it's also the stage name he adopted while fronting one of the most influential rock bands of recent decades, The Pixies, and it's this title that he returned to for last year's Bluefinger album. This February's European tour is in support of a more recent release, however. Svn Fngrs, his new seven track mini-album, comes out in March on the Cooking Vinyl label. It's expected that the live incarnation will feature a stripped-down line-up consisting of Thompson/Black/ Francis, his wife Violet Clark on bass and trusted drummer, Jason Carter, who also produced the new release. On his last tour, he opted to forgo playing the guitar in favour of providing vocals only, so this time you'll get more Black for your buck.

NB: support from XX Teens and Ipso Facto.

Katherine Hamnett doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve; she realised long ago that it's much more effective to get the media-friendly fash pack to wear it across their t-shirts -- and so the '80s witnessed the birth of her super-successful slogan t-shirts. Hamnett is all about actioning against injustice, protesting and surviving, and her pioneering and much-copied t-shirts have spoken out against political (NO WAR, BLAIR OUT), environmental (CLEAN UP OR DIE), social (CHOOSE LIFE) and health (USE A CONDOM) issues -- and all by way of 100% organic cotton. Arguably the most famous design is the one Hamnett wore to meet Margaret Thatcher at Downing Street: 58% DON'T WANT PERSHING, referencing British anti-missile sentiment during that time. Hamnett continues to be an important voice in the global ethical fashion forum and this conversation with broadcaster and critic Miranda Sawyer promises to be a rallying experience. In an ironic twist of fate, it is amusing to note that whilst Hamnett discusses whether fashion can save the world at the V&A, down the road at London Fashion Week's finale, it is highly likely that Julien Macdonald is getting a pelting from some equally riled anti-fur activists -- most probably sporting Hamnett's NO MORE FASHION VICTIMS Ts.

NB: London Fashion Week Feb 2008 runs from 10/02 till 15/02.

This provocatively titled first of a free series of talks conjures up images of an up-to-date, if slightly sadistic notion of the impoverished maker in the garret. The word "emerging" alludes to an amorphous categorisation that covers a lot of ground between the artist-run space and the museum -- it's equally difficult to define at what point an artist has "emerged" from the sticky chrysalis of professional development. And when you consider how a strong art market stirs the competitive instinct in its players to discover the stars of the future before their feet have chance to graze the grey floors of one international scene or another, there is a case to be made for asking the following question: under which cosh might an artist produce their best work? University of the Arts London chair John Tusa will field a well-qualified panel through a discursive minefield likely littered with tricky words such as "value", "integrity" and "success". While the intellectual mix of guerrilla artist Mark McGowan, critic-cum-White-Cube-Exhibitions-Director Tim Marlow, Zoo founder Soraya Rodriguez and collector David Roberts promises a curious and potentially explosive inter-territorial debate.

NB: this event is free but you need to book a space via clicking here.

Rachel Howard's paintings use striking signature techniques: household gloss paint, pulled downwards by gravity; vibrant colours and a combination of figurative and abstract forms to create simultaneously static, meditative and minimal effects. Her subject matter -- which includes suicide and reflections on depression -- give the works a further dimension of intimacy. The layers of poured paint merge delineated landscapes with blurred figures, reminiscent of both Francis Bacon, Mark Rothko and perhaps, in terms of compositional skill, Patrick Caulfield. (There's also a more controlled nod to Damien Hirst's circular action work). This exhibition hints at the original source of material: images of suicide that Howard found by trawling newspapers and the Internet, something she describes as "prodding the inevitable". The larger gloss paint pieces are supplemented with some smaller ink-on-paper studies. Without the colourfields associated with the main pieces, these suggest a bleaker intimacy in which mortality becomes still-life, frozen in time.

NB: runs till 23/02.

The Lazarides gallery is under siege by a group of graffiti-scribbling Napoleonic soldiers and the battlefield is painter Conor Harrington's latest show. His warriors are caught in a time warp created by the anachronistic juxtaposition of traditional military garb and urban environment, but also by solid stripes of vivid colours zig-zagging across the picture plane to create a complex relationship between the foreground and background. The marks weave the protagonists into the image, sometimes covering parts of their body while leaving others untouched, entrapping them in a hard directional network that dominates the composition. These works mark a turn on the formal as well as symbolic level. Indeed, although the artist has explored representations of male archetypes for a long time, the inspiration for these weekend warriors lies in historical re-enactment. There is some irony in the fact that though the models show all the signs of masculine heroism, they boast none of the achievements -- and only the artist knows their secret. That is, up till now...

NB: runs till 23/02.

After its 2006 Broadway premiere, David Hare's new play has finally reached the British stage. The Vertical Hour is in a way a continuation of a debate that Hare started in Stuff Happens, but whereas in the previous work he approached the subject of the Iraq War on a high political level, this play deals with it in a "living room setting". This is a play about the war, but it is definitely more than just a war play. Hare takes the political argument surrounding the Iraq invasion onto a personal and very emotional level. His two main characters, Oliver and Nadia, brilliantly captured by Anton Lesser and Indira Varma, represent two completely irreconcilable worlds that collide together to create an almost ideal dramatic conflict. This is a powerful, convincing play about two peoples' personal journeys, their love and family lives, past experiences, personal failures and fears that shape the way they are and what they believe in. A strong piece of political and psychological drama, supported by a confident production.

NB: runs till 01/03.

The 8th March is International Women's Day -- a major day of global celebration for the economic, political and social achievements of women. Women do two thirds of the world's work, receive 10% of the world's income and own 1% of the means of production so official acknowledgment is significant. Leading up to IWD is a special gala evening of unique performance features, readings, discussions and new writing commissioned especially for the occasion by three renowned literary figures. First up is Jackie Kay, whose novels and poetry examine gender, sexuality, love and identity. Also attending is Ali Smith, whose fiction examines sexual ambiguity through jokes irony and double entendres. Likewise, Jeanette Winterson's work explores the boundaries of physicality and the imagination, gender polarities, and sexual identities. This event at the Southbank promotes WOMANKIND Worldwide's Speaking Out campaign, which aims to get women's voices heard and to promote human rights for women. A not-to-be-missed opportunity to hear these three ladies of literature support a highly deserving cause.

Best-known for her Truisms -- banal statements that have become completely integrated into consumer society, and which she projects onto prominent public spaces like billboards and building facades -- Jenny Holzer has ceaselessly explored the relation between the assimilation of information and the social space it occupies. DETAINED uses declassified US government documents concerning the abuse of Iraqi civilians by US soldiers to extend her preoccupations to the specificity of war. The show's literally dazzling highlight is a large LED configuration made up of 10 semi-circular components, onto which the statements, investigation reports and emails from the various case files of the accused soldiers and supposed victims are displayed. This information rotates on the screens, flashing violently and changes colour periodically, at times becoming blinding and impossible to look at. Holzer sensualises what had become impersonalised, and already assimilated "data". Her series of oversized paintings of the handprints of the accused soldiers are less successful, for they link her too strongly -- and perhaps inappropriately -- to a now over-familiar Warholian use of print to aestheticise and hence neutralise the image of terror. Holzer's originality lies, however, in her exploration of the interpenetration of images, verbal and textual communication, in a society now immune to its surfeit of information.

NB: runs till 15/03.

These days, the idea of an engineer who's also an architect is almost unheard of, as the world of building things becomes ever more specialised. So Jean Prouve's work signifies a lost age; metalworker, engineer, inventor, architect, furniture maker. His name is little known outside architectural circles, but his influence is huge, and arguably greater than Buckminster-Fuller's influence on the work of the British high-tech boys -- his fascination with mass-produced building systems is evident in the buildings of the young Richard Rogers. Interesting, then, that linked to the Design Museum's current Prouve show, one of his prefab Maison Tropicale housing prototypes has been reconstructed in front of Tate Modern. The house was designed for Brazzaville, in tropical west Africa (where it was rediscovered in 2000, in a bit of a state, apparently), so it may feel a little ill at ease in London's chilly surroundings. Mass-production never followed (it wasn't economically suited to its purpose) and this raises the question: is the house an unusually large museum piece, an example of Europe's attempt to impose its approaches on its former African colonies, or a genuine archetype for 21st century cities?

NB: Maison Tropicale is on view in front of Tate Modern till 13/04. The Design Museum's Jean Prouve retrospective also runs till 13/04.

Some bright spark at Kitsune thought it was a good idea to open the new Maison compilation with the comeback track from extrovert electroclash survivors Fischerspooner, coming across like an electro Maroon 5 with added brass. A definite duff note. Thankfully the rest reads like what's been hot in the last two months with music from Late Of The Pier, David E Sugar and Friendly Fires plus some superlative remixes from Vicarious Bliss, DatA and Gentlemen Drivers rave mix (notable for making the risible Teenagers listenable). Indeed several tracks in particular are worthy of extra praise -- the return of Alan Braxe should be feted from high, his dirty electro/R&B crossover track "Addicted" perhaps hinting he's been listening to Timbaland on repeat, paying a heavy and obvious debt to "My Love". The Silverlink remix of MIA's "XR2" cleverly flips the concept of Maya's lyrics by replacing the Baltimore House of the original with a riotous Hackney rave acid house workout. The only real criticism (Fischerspooner aside) is the inclusion of yet another remix of an old Digitalism track and the decision to plump for the CSS remix of Bitchee Bitchee Ya Ya Ya over the vastly superior Yuksek and Brodinski effort, but given the crossover appeal of both Digitalism and CSS it's a clear and clever move towards introducing the general public to excellent music that would normally pass them by.

To buy Kitsune Maison 5 online click here.

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