A collision of creative disciplines creates a wealth of possibilities at the best of times. With fashion and architecture, it is a marriage made in heaven. The success of Somerset House's Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices In Fashion And Architecture lies in its anti- narrative stance. Fashion greats such as Miyake, McQueen and Westwood share the space of architectural superstars Koolhaas, Hadid and Gehry. Conceptual leaps and dramatic envelopes are descriptions that frequently apply to both disciplines. Boudicca are one such maverick design duo whose collection Invisible Cities also features in the show. Described as the "thinking women's label", they have earnt their avant garde name both stylistically (through sharp tailoring and monochrome palettes) and via their politicised ideology and anti-establishment take on fashion. Penny Martin, writer, broadcaster and editor in chief of SHOWstudio (a website committed to unearthing the creative processes behind fashion) will join them in conversation. Watch out, creative sparks may fly.

NB: Skin + Bones runs till 10/08. Make sure you also climb the Hairywood tower (a 6a Architects/Eley Kishimoto collaboration) in Convent Garden as this week is your last chance (ends 20/07).

Earth was formed from the same Seattle molten core as the Melvins and an obscure band called Nirvana. Their early sound -- slow and sludgy -- later went on to inspire Sunn O))), practically an Earth tribute band (one of their songs is even named after Dylan Carlson, founding member of Earth) while they were on sabbatical. They have however returned, and have allowed their music to grow in different directions involving straightforward rock and even "dark americana" in their latest offering, The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull, which also features offerings from jazz great Bill Frisell on guitar. Despite these other influences, Earth "has always been concerned with repetition and the drone or the note" (Carlson) bringing a legacy from the likes of La Monte Young, and other minimalists but infernally printed in bigger, sludgier rock.

Olivier Assayas' Summer Hours oscillates between two very different spaces; a family home, become a repository for a century's worth of objects and memories; and the museum (specifically the Musee d'Orsay in Paris), a repository for the decorative and creative history of a nation. The film begins on a languid summer day, when three siblings and attendant offspring visit septuagenarian matriarch Helene in her beautiful country home, stuffed with precious antiques and original art. Worried about who will manage her estate once she is gone, Helene takes aside her oldest son Frederic and explains the importance of their inheritance to him. Unsettled, Frederic changes the subject; the families soon depart, leaving grandma in that all-too-familiar position of waving goodbye on her own at the gate. When the worst does happen, the siblings make the difficult decision to sell the home. What ensues is a very subtle and naturalistic portrayal of a family dealing with the weight of their pasts and the possibilities of their futures. Assayas' masterful family piece -- which has been likened to Chekhov, no less -- discusses homes and their souls, objects and their residues, and the idea of the museum as a mausoleum for objects rendered lifeless by their lack of use.

NB: post this screening catch Olivier Assayas and actor Jeremie Renier for a Q&A. Summer Hours is released in London on 18/07. Also of note this week is the release of Crazy Love, a new print of Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru screening at the BFI Southbank, and the screening of Birth Of A Nation followed by Jonas Mekas in conversation at the Curzon Soho on 19/07 (4pm).

The usually empty industrial facade of Tate Modern is teeming with scrawly eye-popping gestures right now, whose aesthetics sit on the kitsch side of political defiance -- and that's what the kind critics are saying. Street art's been waiting in the wings for its moment in the spotlight. First there was Bansky. His familiar tropes and infamous anonymity have long been providing fodder for arts columns. How can we read his recent self-curated show, Cans Festival, of 40 street artists in a London railway tunnel, as anything other than two fingers up to the establishment? Trying to assert, in a Courbet like gesture, some authority over himself and his compatriots? For some, Tate's populist exhibition is flying one wing low, without the media friendly star attraction. The people with real insight, through their longstanding involvement in graffiti art are the Wooster Collective, aka Marc and Sara Schiller. Their website, which began to record the graffiti in NYC has grown into a global hub for recording "ephemeral gestures" placed in streets around the world. They come to Tate to set the record straight for all those non-believers.

NB: this event is free and seated on a first-come, first-served basis. This event has been programmed in conjunction with Tate Modern's Street Art exhibition which runs till 25/08.

It is now a commonly accepted proposition that our characters are formed of a combination of innate traits and acquired characteristics over which we have variable degrees of autonomy. Frozen asks what should be punished as pure evil and what should be treated as illness? When a paedophile kidnaps and kills her daughter, Nancy's life comes to a standstill, revolving around the possibility that she might still be alive, followed by a need to confront her killer. All the while Agnetta looks at Ralph as the object that will verify a scientific hypothesis: some people are genetically predisposed to violence and can therefore not be held accountable. Bryony Lavery's masterful play, first performed in 1998 and then revisited at the National Theatre in 2002, deftly explores both the emotional impact of violence as well as attempts to explain it, deconstructing dichotomies of good/evil, abused/abuser, rational/emotional. This production by Fresh Glory uses spare set, lighting and sound to focus on the writing which seamlessly intersperses the gut-wrenching testimonies of loss with the manic delusions of an addled mind and some scientific discourse too. Quite a challenge for the actors, who nonetheless deliver powerful performances -- notably the scary and vulnerable Ralph, played by Jack James.

NB: runs till 20/07.

That great annual summer music festival -- the BBC Proms -- begins on July 18th. Forget about The Last Night and celebrate the incredible range of music being performed every night for the next two months, not only at the Royal Albert Hall, but also at the Cadogan Hall, and, of course, on radio and TV. Among the composers highlighted this year are Messiaen (02/09 and 07/09), Stockhausen (02/08), and Rachmaninov (12/08); while the usual glittering roster of visiting orchestras includes the New York and Berlin Philharmonics, and the West-Eastern Divan and Chicago Symphony Orchestras. For their traditional visit, the Glyndebourne Festival presents Monteverdi's Coronation Of Poppea. From late night Indian ragas to Bach, from jazz improv with a Polish quintet and Nigel Kennedy to a day devoted to folk music, ending with a ceilidh, the Proms are unrivalled. This year also includes the World Music Awards -- and all for only a fiver if you join the prommers on the night.

NB: runs till 13/09.

A love of the surface tension of oil paint coupled with the power of imagination and memory characterise New York-based Sacha Newley's exhibition The Blessed Curse. Painted obsessively over eight years the canvases reflect Newley's established career as a portrait painter and his personal history entwined with philosophical questioning and mythological and religious undertones. Each painting projects a different complex vision -- from The Cardplayers (Seven Deadly Sins) (2004) with its tortured figures and expressive poses, to the surreal Self-Portrait With Happy Family (2008), a scene from Newley's childhood with his mother Joan Collins and father Anthony Newley. In contrast, the writhing forms of The Temptation Of St Anthony (2005), with its hints of Bosch and Freud, tempts and repels while The Assassination Of Victoria Beckham (2008) merges Newley's personal demons with popular culture. In Farewell To Prospero (2005), we witness a poignant portrait of Newley's father baring his cancer scars like stigmata. Newley's evocative painted memories and imaginative mythologies in powerfully vibrant compositions reveal a world of contrasts, celebrating both the sensory power of paint and the fetishistic act of painting. These are compelling and seductive scenarios, drawing the viewer ever further into Newley's extraordinary visions.

NB: runs till 19/07. This exhibition was organised by The Catto Gallery.

To Jonas Mekas, cinema is a divine medium, its sole purpose to record and celebrate life, regardless, or in spite of commercial reward. Nowadays, if you were talking to a new filmmaker and they made that statement you would consider them to be hopelessly idealistic, naive or even a liar. Either way you would smile politely and excuse yourself. We live in London, you probably live in London: regardless of how ethical we are, there is no point denying that our lives require money. However, one cannot claim that Mekas is deceitful or naive. After escaping the Nazis and the Soviets in his native Lithuania, Mekas emigrated to New York in 1949. He spent more money than he had on a Bolex, spent some time in interesting places, made over 365 films and influenced every major independent film culture in the process. He has an infectious passion for film and sharing it with others, be it in the pages of the Village Voice, the legendary Film-Makers Cooperative or through the Internet. He doesn't do this sort of thing very often and we are presented with a rare chance to hear him in conversation after a screening of his 1997 film Birth Of A Nation.

NB: you can also catch Jonas Mekas at another Q&A screening on 17/07 (7:30pm) at Cafe 1001. Other events of note this week include the release of Crazy Love, the Curzon Mayfair Q&A screening of Summer Hours with director Olivier Assayas, and a new print of Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru screening at the BFI Southbank.

The original starchitect, Frank Gehry, having never hoisted timber in England before, makes his presence felt in the usually demure Kensington Gardens this year. His untamed, nightmarish, beautifully brittle Serpentine Pavilion was designed with his son Samuel, who argued for the dislocated glass butterfly ceiling panels, which sit atop spiky juts of wood and metal, seemingly thrusting out of the earth like hellish agents trembling with a frenetic, demonic zeal. It's certainly an audacious edifice and arguably a brazen challenge to what Gehry interprets as England's fearful approach to his designs. To open the series of Serpentine summer performances that Gehry's promenade-cum-amphitheatre will play host to this summer, is a concert by the maverick conductor and composer Thomas Ades (he of Powder Her Face fame, an opera about society heiress the Duchess of Argyll who was caught in flagrante with a mystery man). It's a fitting marriage of creative approaches; Ades' composition for this event intersperses his own music with that of other composers, including Conlon Nancarrow, in a piece that mimics the jutting columns of Douglas Fir, metal tubes and shards of glass of the pavilion itself.

NB: Frank Gehry's Serpentine Pavilion is open to the pubic from 20/07 till 19/10. The Park Nights programme runs from 19/07 till 05/09. For Thomas Ades fans and money to burn there is one performance left of The Rake's Progress at the ROH on 18/07 (7:30pm).

The secretsundaze crew are busy at the moment, having thrown a party south of the river this last weekend, and now co-promoting this three-roomed shindig up at the Scala. Earlier this same day they're also in charge of their own area at the Lovebox weekender, so this event serves as a bit of an afterparty. In the first room they've got German duo, Ame, with their warm electronic house and co-heading the bill, the formidable Cassy. Joining them and the secretsundaze residents is Lakuti, head of the Uzuri and Sud Electronic labels and club nights. The second room hosts a showcase from the Montreal-based Musique Risquee records, featuring a live set from Chic Miniature (the pairing of Guillaume Cotu Dumont and Ernesto Ferreyra -- both impressive producers in their own right). Ernesto will also play records on the night, along with label co-runner Vincent Lemieux -- another excellent DJ. East-London's LOOSE party collective take care of the third area, with all-round legend and card-carrying music aficionado, Greg Wilson guesting for them. Impressive stuff across the board.

NB: also of note, on Sunday post Lovebox, is the mulletover official Lovebox after-party with Mr C, Damian Lazarus, FB Julian and Geddes.

A repressed local government clerk's world crumbles when he discovers that stomach cancer has left him with only six months to live. Director Akira Kurosawa sends character Kanji Watanabe on a journey of self-discovery and redemption, played to measured perfection by Takashi Shimura. Starting by not telling his family, getting drunk and absenting himself from work, he regrets his 30 years of service, finding them pointless and wasted on a self-serving system. A chance meeting with a girl from work is his epiphany. Her friendly and cheerful nature is the antidote to his despair and he resolves to leave the world a better place. Gathering dust is a planning application for a children's playground in a deprived area, so our ailing hero navigates the labyrinthine and impenetrable bureaucracy he knows so well to make the project happen. The heart of this resoundingly human film beats with such themes as loyalty, truth, redemption, our choices in life and the ease with which we eventually turn away from our duties towards each other. There is hope too, and it comes when we need it most. A hymn to compassion and humanity, Kurosawa's masterpiece is a must for the uninitiated and a happy return for those who know it well.

NB: this new print of Ikiru screens at the BFI Southbank from 18/07 till 31/07. Also of note this week is the release of Crazy Love, the Curzon Mayfair Q&A screening of Summer Hours with director Olivier Assayas, and the screening of Birth Of A Nation followed by Jonas Mekas in conversation at the Curzon Soho on 19/07 (4pm).

Cy Twombly is the last of the giants from "When Big Lashings of Paint roamed the Earth". Of his generation -- that is Rauschenberg and Johns -- Twombly was the one to take up the existential gesture from the Abstract Expressionists and move it into a more poetic vein. But unlike the others, his brush strokes were not ironic; rather they morphed into a scrawl resembling writing and graffiti, while evoking poetry and mythology. (Living in Rome will do that to you.) Mostly, it's like Dylan: you either like his tone or you don't. With his Tate Modern retrospective, entitled Cycles And Seasons, it seems appropriate that the conductor Richard Bernas, and Tate's music consultant, has organized a concert inspired by the artist's oeuvre. Including the UK premier of John Cage's late work Fourteen and one of our more versatile mezzo sopranos Sally Burgess singing Monteverdi, "fugue" would seem an appropriate word for the evening, but with Twombly as a guiding light it's probably going to be more modern and, let's say, roguish.

NB: runs on both 20/07 and 21/07. Cycles And Seasons runs at Tate Modern till 14/09.

A riveting documentary that fully illustrates the way life can be stranger than fiction. Director Dan Klores' excellent, Crazy Love, tells the tale of the relationship betwixt Burt Pugach and Linda Riss that, in 1959, hogged America's tabloid headlines for months. In 1957 the 30-year-old Burt -- a married, rich, successful and notoriously slippery lawyer -- meets 20-year-old Linda and immediately infatuated, embarks on an affair. He lies about his marital status and promises marriage. Linda's Jewish Orthodox mum is having none of his toe-rag fibs, checks out his divorce papers and without a by-your-leave discovers they are fake. Accordingly Linda flees the nest and gets engaged to another man. Ipso facto Burt stalks and threatens her but to no avail. Consequently he hires journeyman leg breakers -- led by Walter "Preacher" McMillan -- to throw lye in her face and so blind her. As a result, barking Burt ends up in prison, slashes his wrists and survives. The twist in the tale is that after his release and despite her being disfigured, they marry and prove that Linda is as radio as he is. A film that poses all manner of questions regarding obsession, love, dishonesty and treachery it is, above all, a hoot par excellence.

NB: Crazy Love is released in London on 18/07. Also of note this week is a new print of Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru screening at the BFI Southbank, the Curzon Mayfair Q&A screening of Summer Hours with director Olivier Assayas, and the screening of Birth Of A Nation followed by Jonas Mekas in conversation at the Curzon Soho on 19/07 (4pm).

Rachel Whiteread had the great success of winning both the Turner Prize and the K Foundation's art award at the same time in 1993; a nice bit of symmetry given that the K Foundation had put up the same amount of money as the Turner for the worst artist. This seems appropriate given that her work in one way or another is about the ghost or mirror image. In football, that would be considered a Cup Double. For the critical, Whiteread has made a career out of a footnote from the oeuvre of Bruce Nauman, however for her supporters, it is the poetry evoked by this sense of loss and alterity that imbues these "grey things" of hers with an elegiac presence. It is perhaps her 1993 House and 2000 Vienna Holocaust memorial that stands best for this particular train of thought. At The Hayward her collection of dolls houses, Place (Village) has moved her work in a slightly eerier, Gothic direction. All interiors lit by tiny lights, the hundreds of dolls houses put new emphasis on the meaning of the words "ghost town". Given his interest in the psychogeography of cities, it seems appropriate that Iain Sinclair should be in conversation with her.

NB: this event has been programmed in conjunction with The Hayward's Psycho Buildings exhibition which runs till 25/08.

DJ Spooky (aka Paul D Miller) will talk about his new book Sound Unbound and the art of the remix this week. Cynics might point out that, while there are many examples of "remixing" (in the non-"sound art" sense) that have helped spawn whole new genres of music (Grandmaster Flash, The Art Of Noise, Danger Mouse, Nine Inch Nails), Miller's general practice of splicing breakbeats and effects on anything and everything, sadly doesn't quite rank up there with the cream of the crop. Perhaps this is why Miller has chosen to focus on the broader context and by also working as a writer/editor/curator. His strategy is clearly working, as Sound Unbound is his second instalment. The downside is that two books may be one too many given the obviously lax brief for the sequel. Nevertheless, Miller is nothing if not a passionate ambassador for a cause and fortunately, the remix and its not too distantly related cousin -- the concept of Creative Commons -- is something that desperately warrants a decent debate. However, the question remains as to whether this is what Miller is interested in or whether he is more concerned with furthering his brand of "remixing" by churning out pop-academic books that are increasingly beginning to look like coffee table fodder for pseuds.

NB: DJ Spooky will be in conversation with both Scanner and Andrew Missingham.

Sensual curves, enticing lines, powerful engine. All characteristics that could be attributed to the female form, save one: the mechanics; and the mechanics of desire are what's at work in Men And Motors. The clever juxtaposition of the paintings of Jo Wilmot and Deborah Gough offers a survey of longing from an essentially masculine and consumerist point of view. Wilmot uses her fleshy paintwork to render animalistic depictions of luxury vehicles. The fragmented views of cars, focusing mostly on headlights and bonnets, are at once enticing and foreboding. Her technique, generous verging on sarcoid, lends character to the vehicles and leads to the question of whether we want these cars more than they want us. Gough approaches the coveted object in a more literal way, depicting scenes strategically taken from narratives at the very moment when events take a turn for the sinister. Will a camping trip end in rape? What happened during this birthday party for a person to be lying on the floor? Her flat style and muddled colours contribute to the disquieting quality of the depicted scenes. As a whole, Men And Motors is a deft illustration of the way our desires determine us more than we shape them.

NB: runs till 27/07.

Field Day festival returns to Victoria Park for its second year, sporting another expansive smorgasbord of a line-up; mixing up live bands and DJs plucked from the trendier side of the leftfield canon. It's a single afternoon/evening shindig, as the name suggests, featuring over 50 acts across five stages, curated by Eat Your Own Ears, Adventures In The Beetroot Field/NME, Homefires, Bugged Out! and Blogger's Delight, respectively. Some of the larger acts appearing include Foals, Mystery Jets, Richie Hawtin, Simian Mobile Disco, The Notwist, The Field and Modeselektor, but the inclusion of a new "Village Mentality" area this year suggests a desire to broaden the entertainment outside of the purely musical realm, which should be a success if the weather plays ball. Last year's event was spectacularly "haircut", but a great deal of fun nonetheless, and the ticket price is pretty reasonable for an event this big. Get 'em while you can.

Giveaway: we have a pair of VIP tickets to give away to someone that can tell us which act above had their LP recently reviewed on KultureFlash (hint: not from the UK).

This great exhibition of four new works by Robert Morris is also a kind of retrospective of American art -- especially Jasper Johns. Many of the elements of Morris' assemblages are recycled from previous work, displaced here into images of the American war machine, glimpsed through critical reflection of its flag-bearing art history. Each piece bears an inscription naming a state of "terror", but we should be wary of how to read these "titles" -- given that Morris, in earlier works, "reads" such philosophers of language as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Donald Davidson on the difference between propositions and metaphors. In a dialogue Morris performed at the Whitechapel in 2003, he had Noam Chomsky respond to the idea that, despite the American "imperialist unconscious" being dedicated to erasing history (especially in its client states; witness the indifference to the ransacking of the Iraqi National Library), a society's values are read through the art that it leaves to the future. "If we want to consider this question seriously, we should recognise that in much of the world the US is regarded as a leading terrorist state, and with good reason," says Chomsky. Perhaps this is also a good reason to go to see Morris' new work.

NB: runs till 24/09.

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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