On the 6th of March, Britain will be invaded by the brilliance of Bernard Stiegler -- the French philosopher and Director of the Department of Cultural Development at the Centre Georges Pompidou. So come indulge yourself in a verbal explosion and you will leave with a greater knowledge of our society that is going "Towards a European Way of Life" and possibly a love for the arts in our contemporary technologies, which Stiegler is a master of. His best-known work is Technics And Time, 1: The Fault Of Epimetheus. Stiegler's work focuses on key themes including technology, time, individuation, consumerism, consumer capitalism, technological convergence, cultural digitization and Americanization and the future of society and politics, specifically new forms of democracy. You can also catch a glimpse of him in the film The Ister (2004) -- or in person at the Chelsea College of Art. His theories are guaranteed to keep you at the edge of your seat.

NB: this lecture is part of the London Festival of Europe 2008 and in collaboration with Chelsea's Critical Practice group. Drinks will follow the reception.

There is an intrinsic inter-reliance between the institution and its opposition; a relationship wherein one inevitably becomes or assimilates the other. The relationship can be seen in any notably progressive strand of history, in which a radical sub-grouping initiates change. The roles of religion and secularism tend to oscillate between their own etremes, historically swapping positions, vying for the minds and souls of this populous species who thrives on meaning as nourishment. What categorizes the space between the two is arguably the notion of progress itself. The secular social infrastructure identifies itself by its openness to, and even enthusiasm for, change -- at least this is the battlecry of the multiculturalist. Conversely, the religious extremist is defined by his staunch opposition to social change in favour of a return to more traditional means of moral sustenance. But, as religious fundamentalism becomes hyper-traditional, proposing new and radical social structures to counteract the implications of an amoralistic global heterotopia, we are faced with a question: is there an intrinsic relationship between progress and freedom? And within this new and complex paradigm, where do faith and free will fit?

NB: panelists inculde Rashad Ali, Dolan Cummings, Maryam Namazie, Andrew Scott and Alex Hochuli. This debate is part of the Institute Of Ideas' Secularism 2008 series.

The London Review Bookshop hosts the latest Man Booker Prize-winner, Anne Enright, in an event in which she discusses her new book, Taking Pictures. A collection of 19 stories, all but one of which is told from a woman's perspective (and regularly in the first person), they describe loss, confusion and damage -- snapshots of the body in trouble, in denial, in extremis, in love. These are unflinching, alarming pictures of women, and what men might regard as the minutiae of their lives -- friendship, courtship, babies, housework and longing. Enright herself has suffered from depression but these stories are not all doom and gloom. Angela Carter did, after all, teach her to write and Carter's combination of gothic flamboyance and level-headed joking has made its mark. Like Enright's The Gathering, the story of family's madness, marriages and shame, Taking Pictures is energised by a mixture of sadness, strangeness and comedy. Enright's The Gathering was the rank outsider to win the Man Booker: she was 12-1 to win and William Hill had only taken one bet on her in the UK. This event is another chance to see her validate her success.

NB: very few tickets remain so buy yours asap.

Chekhov was apparently very fond of the phrase "when they serve coffee, don't try to find beer in it". It's an expression that proves useful when trying to understand the apparently disparate concerns of the proprietors at Scooterworks in Waterloo. During the day, it is possible to drink an enviably red-blooded espresso while mulling over the two-wheeled mechanical miracles on display, while at night you are able to enthrall your senses with criminally good cocktails and on this particular evening, a slice of 21st century avant guard music that would make Luigi Nono proud, courtesy of Matt Yee-King (an electronic music producer and drummer who performs live with Super_Collider), Finn Peters (a sax and flute player, and a member of the F-IRE Collective) and the aficionados of Not Applicable. Those wishing to purchase spares for their Japanese scooter, insult their intestines with a Frappuccino or binge on Foster's while listening to Kiss, may risk disappointment.

These two programmes at the Tate Modern provide a rare chance to experience the exquisitely crafted films of Gregory J Markopoulos. Contemporary with and praised alongside experimentalists Stan Brakage, Jonas Mekas and others, Markopoulos was a significant figure in the New American Cinema of the '60s. In 1967, however, he moved to Greece with partner and filmmaker Robert Beavers and took his films out of distribution. Despite occasional presentations, his films, since then, have been very hard to view. Seen today these films retain the freshness, formal rigour and relevance noted at the time of their making -- perhaps precisely because of their absence from the cultural landscape. Markopoulos highlights the precise selection of his images through minimal but beautiful superimposition and an equally selective use of repetition and black frames to couch and exaggerate each placement. Everything is presented with striking aesthetic intent. The portraits in the first programme combine this strident formalism with presentations of numerous art figures of the time. The Illiac Passsion presented in the second programme uses images of Greek mythology, taken from his then new home, and a fragmented but vibrant homoeroticism.

NB: these special screenings take place on both 07/03 (7pm) and 08/03 (7pm).

Since Valery Gergiev sold out the Barbican in 2006 with his year-long centenary survey of Shostakovich, it became clear that he would be persuaded back for another season to fill the London Symphony Orchestra's coffers and hopefully seal their reputation as the only seriously dedicated orchestra in London. Following Shostakovich, there would seem to be little choice other than Mahler, who Shostakovich himself admired immensely, even though compositionally they operated in two completely different zones. Keen observers of the 2006 performances will note that Gergiev's greatest successes with Shostakovich, although at the Barbican were not with the LSO, and judging by the first reviews of the cycle, it appears that something gave Gergiev a few problems. It will be interesting to see how the cycle shapes up and whether Gergiev will again draft in his comrades from Russia to "save the day".

NB: the Barbican Valery Gergiev Malher season runs from 06/03 till 10/07. The Symphony No 5 (06/03) and No 2 (20/04) dates are already sold out so get your tickets quick.

Whether or not you thought Fabric's decision to reject Justice's twee pop attempt at a Fabriclive mix was an act of courage or snobbery, there's no doubting that many of last year's purveyors of dirt-infused beats are cleaning up their act, sonically speaking. But for Fabric's editorial policy, Das Pop would have appeared on the lost number 37 in the Fabriclive series. Lamentably, they were replaced by a dubstep mix. Very bad luck, you might say, but then three quarters of the foursome have the good fortune to hail from Ghent, home to the unavoidable Dewaele brothers. So with the moustachioed maestros currently in the studio producing Das Pop's latest album and Justice inviting them for the occasional support slot, it's no surprise that the boys are getting some hype. A minute or so into their bouncy number "Fool For Love" you'll understand why they make Gaspard and Xavier want to hang up their fuzz boxes. The ever-reliable Adventures In The Beetroot Field gang provide further warm sounds in the shape of Ladyhawke, yet another Modular signing from Down Under whose Peaches-esque vocals get twisted around a curious mixture of '80s yacht rock and scuzzy electro.

New Shoreditch venue East Village purports to be a misty-eyed return to club land's simpler times. Doubts over the accuracy of such a statement aside, any attempt to break the over-flogged monopoly of endless electro house nights in East London deserves at least a golf clap. Especially the launch of Sweatshop, from the minds behind secretsundaze, with a music policy that promises to segue between cosmic disco, jackin' house and angular punk funk. Providing the perspiration inspiration are two seminal figures in house music. Maurice Fulton has been making and playing music for feet since forever and is a firm favourite among them that know, and with a Syclops album due to drop on DFA very soon, it appears his talent will finally get the recognition it deserves. Joining him in the basement is Chris Duckenfield from Swag, longtime pioneers of the wonky house sound that seems to be popular right now. Keeping things lively up in the bar are Skull Juice, rapidly becoming part of London nightlife's furniture with popular residencies across London -- no mean feat for two art school kids who less than 18 months ago were playing house parties in Camberwell and writing sillyness on their blog.

The first internationally known British-based reggae poet of this century, Linton Kwesi Johnson, will be hosting an evening of words, "dub poetry" -- a term that LKJ coined to show the way reggae DJs mixed music and verse -- and reggae by artists from LKJ Records. He first made a splash with his landmark book/record Dread Beat An' Blood and is without a doubt the father of the groovy poetry, having been at the forefront of Jamaican and British experience since the '70s. He was born in Chapelton, Jamaica, attended Goldsmiths and joined the British Black Panther Movement where he helped organize a poetry workshop and worked with a group of poets and drummers. In 1974, he joined Race Today Collective, who published his first book of poems and in 2005 was honored by the Institute of Jamaica who awarded him a Musgrave Medal. It's no surprise that the renowned British reggae producer/artist Dennis Bovell will join LKJ Sunday night, the two having collaborated on some dub-reggae poetry in the past. Other guests include Jean Binta Breeze -- a brilliant performer, playwright and poet -- and Winston Francis, master of Jamaican, ska and reggae music.

NB: this event is part of the Barbican's The Harder They Come season (06/03 till 05/04).

Edwin Lutyens' reputation has enjoyed something of a revival over the last few years. Perhaps the only way was up, from the low point of his centenary in 1969 when arch-brutalists Alison and Peter Smithson wrote that he had "perverted the course of modern English architecture", and funds couldn't even be raised for an exhibition (planned for the RA, as it happens). Nowadays he's no longer viewed as part of that "fusty" Edwardian tradition, not a hard-line anti-modernist like Reginald Blomfield, but as a genuine original. He's argued by many to be the greatest of all English architects, whose finest achievement would have been his design for Liverpool cathedral, which sadly got no further than the foundations (although the huge model has been recently resurrected as part of Liverpool 08). Even so, every person who thinks of themselves as a Londoner should know something about Lutyens' work, from his more "classical" mode (the BMA's headquarters in Tavistock Square) to buildings in nobody's style but his own (the chequer board flats round the corner from Richard Roger's Channel 4 building on Horseferry Road). Virtually every part of London has a familiar building you probably didn't know was his; this is a chance to know more.

NB: also of note is the Lacaton & Vassal lecture at the Bartlett on 12/03 (6:30pm).

We know Ken Adam as a prolific movie set designer, most memorably for the Bond films (Moonraker -- worst movie, best sets). Yet you could argue that Adam was as much an "unbuilt architect" as he was a set designer; there were great architects of the 20th century whose projects remained mainly on paper, but not so many whose projects lived entirely on screen. Like early modernist architects Erich Mendelsohn, or Hans Poelzig, he was a German Jew (born Klaus Adam) who emigrated in the early 1930s to escape rising fascism. The two worlds overlap heavily; these pioneers were no strangers to set design (Poelzig for one was responsible for the expressionist sets of The Golem) and Adam actually trained as an architect at the Bartlett. A certain Norman Foster has cited him as an influence more than once (which makes a lot of sense: compare and contrast). Christopher Frayling, author of Ken Adam: The Art Of Production Design, is no stranger to interviewing our man; most recently in conjunction with a screening of Kubrick's classic Dr Strangelove, where the set of the war room is a virtual part of the cast. Frayling and Adam make an obvious, but excellent, choice as part of the RCA's Double Take lecture series.

NB: to attend you must call 0207.590.4281 or email architecture@rca.ac.uk. Also of note is the Lacaton & Vassal lecture at the Bartlett on 12/03 (6:30pm).

Two Germans are sitting naked in a bath in Bangkok... not the start of a joke, but the set-up of Ridiculusmus' daring new work, where this brilliant duo eschew the role-swapping mania of past work. These two Germans swap stories, with nervous Martin teased and prodded to reveal ever more to lacksadaisical interrogator Stefan, who promises to act as a ghostwriter for the other's tales. But the two men are more comfortable skirting round their experiences and histories, teasing each other and therefore us, slipping nervously into the spaces between Sharon Osbourne and genocide, brutal anomie and The Constant Gardener. It's resolutely anti-theatrical: nothing happens, and you may start to swoon as the hypnotic drama unfolds. But its form contains perfectly what it is: nothing but discussions about something else, distracted by sex, gore, celebrity and shame. And its conversational casualness is rigorously sculpted to conjure a negative space between two people, gradually filling up with excruciating tension, a piece of ghostwriting indeed. What it does to your imagination is like channel-surfing before the Apocalypse. This is tough, certainly not nice, but astonishingly resonant theatre.

NB: runs till 15/03 and is part of the Barbican's Ridiculusmus' retrospective (till 15/03).

Chicken farming, tea, gap-toothed women, garlic and American tourists are among the many strange topics that director Les Blank has turned his lens to over the years. From his impressive catalogue comprising 40-odd films directed and produced since the '60s, Seventeen gallery is currently presenting Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980) based on -- you will have guessed it -- the legendary German director's consumption of footwear on camera following an infamous bet he made with fellow director Errol Morris. Indeed, if you are not already familiar with the events that led to Herzog chomping on leather, this 22 minute video sheds light on his wager that Morris would never complete his first feature film, the brilliant-odd foray into pet cemeteries Gates Of Heaven. What could have become a joke is actually more of a manifesto from Herzog who advocates artistic creation at all costs and is willing to demonstrate how far he can go to promote this way of life.

NB: runs till 22/03. For those of you that cannot make it to Seventeen, see the film on The Criterion Collection's Les Blank DVD Burden Of Dreams, a documentary on the near five years it took Werner Herzog to complete Fitzcarraldo.

As we approach The Andipa Gallery in an exclusive enclave near Kings Road, passing various designer shops and "Chelsea tractors", it strikes us as ironic that Banksy, anti- establishment scarlet pimpernel of the streets, a Bristol-born aerosol artist who has been brandishing his spray can since the '80s, should now sell for up to £495,000 in a chi-chi London gallery. Banksy is so notorious that more than 2,500 people visited the gallery this past Saturday, yet the only people who can now afford a Banksy are local hedge-funders who might drop in after oysters at Bibendum. Banksy's response to his escalating prices, recently tipping $1.8 million at Sotheby's, was "Morons", a canvas depicting an auction, emblazoned with the words "I can't believe you morons actually buy this shit". Acoris Andipa has harvested an impressive collection from the secondary market: the strength of images exhibited proving Banksy's art is as iconic as Warhol's, whose Marilyn he channels in a screenprint of Kate Moss. Napalm, Banksy's juxtaposition of Kim, 1972 Vietnam war casualty, with Ronald Macdonald and Mickey Mouse is a genius comment on the hypocrisy of the American establishment. Basquiat, Warhol's contemporary, went from graffiti-ing streets to commercial galleries, while Banksy remains a maverick, rejecting involvement with galleries, and preferring to enlighten us with political comments in places as varied as the West Bank or the carpark of the Swiss Embassy in London.

NB: runs till 29/03.

Representing those who have made notable contributions to photography in the last year, this prize is about as good as it gets when it comes to international contemporary photography. Those short-listed for this year's prize stand to win £30,000. They are: John Davies (UK), Jacob Holdt (Denmark), Esko Mannikko (Finland) and Fazal Sheikh (USA). John Davies' series of flawless black and white prints of post-industrialist Britain are breathtaking examinations of the relationships between people and the spaces they inhabit. Jacob Holdt's slideshow United States 1970-75 is his depiction of an America at a time of great social unrest; a reflection on issues of racism and depravity, his work's inherent message still resonates in our current social climate. Huge frames surround the photographs of Esko Mannikko, but the chaotic presentation belies the subtleties of the work they contain. Portraying those who choose to live in isolation, Mannikko's work is at once both amiable and humorous. Fazal Sheikh's monochrome portraits (with accompanying texts) depict the grim plight of women in contemporary Indian culture. Interestingly, none of the exhibiting photographers were born after 1965; it seems that the future of contemporary photography requires a mature approach. Our vote goes to John Davies but go judge for yourself.

NB: runs till 06/04. On 06/03 (7pm) and 18/03 (7pm) catch Fazal Sheikh and Jacob Holdt respectively when they give talks at The Photographers' Gallery.

In this exhibition, German conceptual artist Thomas Scheibitz, who co-represented Germany at the Venice Biennale 2005, presents a lively conversation between brightly coloured paintings and sculptures at Camden Arts Centre. He strings sentences of unlikely forms together (stars, cubes, arrows, flowers, pyramids and keyholes), throwing geometric objects into relief, only to cover them in drips of paint and let them fade into abstraction. The title of the show, about 90 elements / TOD IM DSCHUNGEL evokes the 90 elements of the periodic table, indicating Scheibitz's tendency to merge the boundaries between art and science, culture and nature, space and time in his works. His art is universal in approach; his sources range from ancient Roman frescoes to comic strips, graphic signage and luxury goods advertisements. He thus traverses cultural strata, translating refined signifiers into popular, modernist illusions. Scheibitz succeeds in dragging art off its pedestal and into the everyday. These paintings and sculptures bounce to life in the light space of the Centre.

NB: runs till 20/04.

The experience of seeing much of Juan Munoz's work, as neatly summed up by the Tate's exhibition guide, is akin to unwittingly stepping on stage, or at least hanging back in the wings waiting to make an entrance, without quite being able to remember your lines. Creating minimal mise en scenes, liminal spaces and strange encounters with silently whispering dummies, Munoz's paintings, sculptures and installations have the power to simultaneously amuse and unsettle. A strong theatrical thread runs through the exhibition, a staged tension created by the curious situations the viewers find themselves in: whether traversing a tiled floor to reach a small bronze figure sitting on a shelf, or weaving through throngs of grey, grinning China-men. Perhaps the most intriguing dramas are those created by the artist in collaboration with actors, novelists and composers. Presented as a live theatre performance, the radio play Will It Be A Likeness is screened in the cafe outside the exhibition, where one can also listen to the seductive voice of John Malkovich giving a dramatic reading of an incredibly mundane text in A Registered Patent: A Drummer Inside A Rotating Box, set to a tense musical score by composer Gavin Bryers.

NB: runs till 27/04.

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