This evening's line-up celebrates the recent release of When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence -- the new album from ex-Jedi Knight and Global Communication man Mark Pritchard. Pritchard is returning to the UK from Australia, and coming to Britain to expose the eager ears of sub-bass devotees to this new project. The album, released under his Harmonic 313 moniker, explores UK bass music in detail, taking in glitchy hip-hop, synth-drenched dubstep, machine-funk techno and quirky ambient sonics; what better place, then, to experience the music in a live environment than Plastic People, one of London's dubstep meccas? The venue's legendarily loud soundsystem will be tested by Pritchard's bass-heavy, ponderous electronics: expect big things from the support acts too, both of whom are set to make East London vibrate to their basslines. The rest of the evening's entertainment comes from Deep Medi/Digital Mystikz/DMZ dubstep legend Mala, whose pioneering grooves have won followers from across the globe, and Marco Passarani, founder of the Final Frontier collective, whose recent releases on Peacefrog have found him fans in the soulful house and techno camps.

A savage indictment of the Academy Awards is that Gran Torino has not received one nomination when it was in fact one of the finest, funniest, most poignant, relevant and well scripted films of the last year. It's a film that should not even be mentioned in the same sentence as the manipulative and corny Slumdog Millionaire, or the good but rather dull Benjamin Button, both of which received multiple nominations, as it quite simply shits all over them. It's directed by and stars Clint Eastwood (whose comic timing is unexpectedly superb) as a gnarly, totally non-PC old Korean War veteran who drives a Ford Gran Torino. His neighbourhood has been invaded by "gooks" and "wetbacks" and he lopes around a cussing and a cursing but when the chips are down he delivers the goods in defence of the Korean family next door. This film proves that Eastwood, aged 78 is, one of America's finest filmmakers, and that the Academy does not know its arse from its elbow and that truly great films can still be made.

NB: Gran Torino is released in London on 20/02. Also of note is Steven Soderbergh's Che: Part Two, Claude Lelouch's Roman de gard and and Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys.

Harun Farocki is all over London this year. For starters, there is the video and film programme Three Early Films at Cubitt serving up rarely seen works from the '60s. The live events accompanying these special screenings bring together critics and curators for public discussions on the representations of pedagogy, and the limits of documentary film, with reference to Farocki's work. Three Early Films is more than simply an exhibition of his films. Rather, it is a theoretical space opened up for the critical analysis and exploration of the documentary, Farocki's film works and the subsequent impact these have on filmmakers today. His vast creative output re-presents images of contemporary culture found in media and holds it under scrutiny, dealing critically with politics, conflict and education. Approaching subjects including the Holocaust, Vietnam, industrialisation and consumerism, he often uses archived footage as a form of visual archaeology. The exhibition and events programme at Cubitt whets the appetite for the forthcoming show at Raven Row. This will be a more comprehensive survey of Farocki's oeuvre, bringing together older and brand new works in film and video. To finish Tate Modern will screen a selection of his films from the '60s onwards, previously unseen in the UK at.

NB: catch Harun Farocki for a Q&A on 20/02 (2pm). Three Early Films runs till 22/02 with a talk at the Goethe Institute 19/02 and a Q&A back at Cubitt on 20/02. Against What? Against Whom? at Raven Row and the Tate Modern screenings will both take place in November 2009.

After the success of their launch night last month, the experienced Warm team venture back down Plastic People's dimly lit staircase for the second installment of their monthly residency. Over the last decade the shrewd promoters have delivered a number of in-vogue international artists such as Lindtsrom, Maurice Fulton and Peter Kruder to the capital's haunts. Now they stage what is effectively a take-over night by the red-hot Running Back imprint. After six years of output, it was 2008 that became the Frankfurt based label's watershed year. As the backlash against cold, stripped-out microhouse continued, Running Back started turning bored heads with a number of deeper releases that nodded back to the vintage sound of Chicago jack. The label's biggest track was the three-part, eleven-minute epic "Heidelberg Gals" by deep house veteran Move D, who's topping the bill for this event. Joining him is label mate and soul-minded Mark E, whose work for the imprint includes last year's atmospheric anthem "Slave 1". The brains of the organisation and co-owner Gerd Janson (you might have seen some of his numerous interviews for the Red Bull Music Academy) joins the Warm Residents to complete this quality line-up.

When King Lear divides his kingdom between his two eldest, most manipulative daughters, and rejects the younger daughter, a devastating sequence of events ensues. Director Rupert Goold brings Shakespeare's epic tragedy into an '80s setting with references to The Troubles, proving that mankind never learns from the mistakes of its forefathers. With a variety of dialects and modern clothes, the cast catapult the play into a contemporary world. Pete Postlethwaite is captivating, lighting up the stage as Lear and perfectly dramatising the descent of the King from power hungry via madness to remorse. Playful scenes, such as Postlethwaite wandering around Dover in a floral dress, are a relief from the horror of the story, and provide a new interpretation of the language. Innovative choreography and video art lend the story a new twist, and we see Goneril hatch her evil plot with the help of a VHS tape. The ensemble acting is captivating, and the combination of the experienced heavyweight Postlethwaite, with a precociously talented younger cast refreshing. A comic turn from Forbes Masson as the Fool, and the rambling rants of Tobias Menzies as Edgar, alongside the heart wrenching disintegration of Lear, spontaneously combust to make almost four hours fly by.

NB: runs till 28/03.

So now that even cosmic disco has managed to find itself shoehorned into a socio-economic trend, the bandwagon hounds can surely smell fresh blood. What better time then, rather than fight to the bottom of the early '80s disco copycat crates, to indulge in disco's psychaedelic roots and experimental offshoots. A Mountain Of One's epic, sleazed out Balearic sounds feel like drugged renderings of everything from JJ Cale to Fleetwood Mac -- gently pounding, prog-tinged and pulling at those heart strings. Mo Morris' DJ sets are fittingly oddball but always driving enough to keep the party swaying, plus this time he's also launching the band's latest EP, Institute Of Joy. The boys behind Bad Passion (because no self-respecting collective wouldn't name itself after a rare Italo cut) have form too, having pulled in the likes of Mudd and Stevie Kotey in recent months. Plus amid the building cosmic excitement, soon you'll be hard pushed to find a night that stubbornly puts its pursuit of tunes above promotional glitz and refuses to pony up to the clubbing establishment.

NB: location has changed from the one advertised on flyer.

This cult 1971 documentary is rarely seen, but strangely captivating. Although living just 20 miles south of London, the Page family exist in splendid isolation, secreted away in a heavily wooded corner near the motorway. The isolation is not only physical -- the whole family appears to exist in a timeless bubble -- the ramshackle farm has no running water, electricity or gas, entertainment is provided by a splendid Victorian harmonium, and the only "technology" is the enormous steam engine contraptions that obsess the men of the family. Clearly on another different (higher?) plane than the rest of us, each of the Page family initially seem to be merely eccentric -- particularly patriarch Mr Page with his odd musings about kangaroos and the moon -- but in retrospect their concerns and observations on life are extremely prescient. An acknowledged inspiration, in both style and subject, to experimental filmmakers Andrew Kotting (This Filthy Earth) and Ben Rivers (This Land Is Your Land), it is an observant and humorous portrait of the family and their philosophies, shot in beautiful earthy forest colours. Director Philip Trevelyan (now a farmer in Yorkshire) will be in conversation with Rivers and Kotting (whose work will also be screened) as well as Molly Dineen (The Lie Of The Land) about sustainability, rural life and film.

The combination of this Mozart Piano Concerto and the great Berlioz's Te Deum will make for an interesting programme. The joyous Piano Concerto No 18, written in 1784, may lack the drama of the later piano concertos, but it is quintessential classical Mozart in its balance, poise and symmetry. Written for the young blind virtuoso pianist Maria Theresa von Paradis, the piece often feels like an exercise in technique more than an experiment in writing. It will provide a perfect contrast to the monumental Te Deum. Written in 1849, with musical roots in an earlier, unfinished symphony dedicated to Napoleon, this is one of Berlioz's most important and successful "architectural" works, in which the organ, the orchestra and voices amass to produce a vast spatialised acoustic (the first performance used nearly 1,000 musicians!). At 50 minutes long, and with its all-encompassing soundscapes, this is music that will engulf you in its intense and unyielding majesty (Berlioz himself called it "apocalyptic"!). Its density is a far cry from the uncluttered delicacy of the Mozart, which in the hands of the great pianist Richard Goode will be irresistibly delightful.

NB: catch the LSO perform this concert on both 22/02 and 23/02.

The first part of the Che biopic left quite a few moviegoers cold. Where was the mystique that has come to be associated with that iconic image of Che during the Cuban conflict? By choosing to focus on the historical context as a way to present how a young Argentinean doctor became became Che the guerilla leader, Steven Soderbergh lost a few people who expected an epic film and got a detailed account of the Cuban/American tensions instead. The fact that his attempts at sparking similar revolutions in the Congo and in Bolivia are not nearly as famous makes the second part so much more accessible. Indeed, part two focuses on his involvement in Bolivia and the analytical, fly on the wall style of the first part is infused with a lot more empathy as the cracks start showing in the hero's facade, making for a much more dramatic film. The scenes depicting his ill health and his attempts at leading a group of men through the jungle, with little to no means, are at times viscerally poignant. Benicio del Toro is of course carrying most of the whole epic, infusing the simplistic perception of Che as revolutionary hero with a great deal of subtlety and humanity.

NB: Che: Part Two is released in London on 20/02. Also of note are Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino, Claude Lelouch's Roman de gard and Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys.

Following the successes of winning the Turner, and now a grand commission to put a giant fuck-off horse that will no doubt replace the Angel Of The North as the country's icon (Gormley eat yer heart out!), Mark Wallinger has become the latest artist to organise an exhibition for The Hayward's touring program. Instead of a group show, The Russian Linesman promises to be an interesting meander through Wallinger's thinking. Expect sport and art to dovetail neatly in this show -- after all Wallinger did once own a racehorse named A Real Work Of Art. His oeuvre is amusing and fun, but also intellectual and very, very clever; likewise, the man himself. Over the years, Wallinger's work has been pricking at the iconography of the British psyche: horses, football, Doctor Who, the underground, the Union Jack, Stubbs. Beginning with that controversial decision by an Azerbaijani at the 1966 World Cup final, the exhibition unfolds along this line. Or at least the idea of a line that divides; notions of boundaries and other liminal situations provide the scene for Wallinger to situate works as diverse as Durer with Vija Celmins, life masks, a Titian x-ray and Nuremberg dioramas. For this evening, Wallinger will be discussing football, art and such stuff with broadcaster, John Wilson.

NB: this conversation is part of a series of Blackboard Lectures. Like the exhibition they cover a range of topics, from football to artists and science. The lectures of note are Amie Siegel (20/02), Briony Fer (26/02), Gary Russell (27/02), Thomas Demand (28/02) and Marina Warner (01/03). The Russian Linesman runs at The Hayward till 04/05.

Kammer Klang's fifth installment of modern classical concerts opens stridently with a solo percussion piece by James Williamson, performed by Sarah Cresswell. Then pianist Laurence Crane, of ensemble Apartment House, performs his 1996 work Riis for clarinet, cello and electric organ. Its drifting tones are evocative of Tony Conrad and Brian Eno's '70s sound sketches. Casiotone player Kerry Yong tackles Giacinto Scelsi's piece Aitsi, building on its sustained shifting granular sounds, plus Stockhausen's Klavierstueck XVI (part of his Freitag opera and Licht cycle), which encourages free form piano and electronics. The climax of the evening is perhaps The Final Terror, who present their versions of Messiaen's transcriptions. Led by former Acoustic Ladyland member, saxophonist Pete Wareham, the group includes Leo Taylor on drums, Ruth Goller on bass, and Chris Sharkey on guitar. Messiaen was an ardent ornithologist, incorporating birdsong -- in his own "style oiseaux" -- into much of his work. The centrepiece, his Turangalila Symphony, is a large-scale piece of orchestral work that premiered in 1949, with conduction by Leonard Bernstein. A fitting multi-textural aural kaleidoscope of a showcase, which traverses classical extremities.

It is evident that Robert Mangold is more of a genre-busting artist than he might at first appear, when one learns that Alex Katz was an important mentor early in his career when studying at Yale University. His first public space exhibition in London at the age of 72 opens at Parasol unit on 25/02. Having been supported by the Lisson Gallery since first appearing there in a group exhibition in 1974, Mangold finally gets a measured consideration of his work concentrating on X, Plus and Frame Paintings made between 1980 and 1986. Mangold's particular blend of minimalism, geometry and an intuitive approach that prizes ambiguity, sets up situations where assumed symmetry is contradicted by close scrutiny of the paintings, and where the artist's idea of the rightness of an effect subtly tips paintings out of geometrical logic. If his work is about abstract classicism in the grand 20th Century American tradition, it perhaps leans as well towards earlier European constructive traditions where a rational blending of painting and drawing also give space to hesitation and uncertainty.

NB: catch Robert Mangold in conversation with Tim Marlow on 25/02 (7pm). X, Plus And Frame Paintings Works From The 1980s runs at till 08/05.

It's nothing new to be told that the modern media, with its pneumatic and perfected images of male and female bodies, fosters an often highly negative corporeal awareness among consumers. Susie Orbach's Bodies, however, develops this premise at a whole other level, charting a deeply troubling account of how "bodily instability and bodily shame" have become the unquestioned norm in late-modern capitalist society. Orbach, a psychotherapist, argued in the seminal Fat Is A Feminist Issue (1978), that complex social and psychological ideas were "tucked into" notions of thinness and fatness; this time round she traces an invidious network of influences designed to embroil us in bodily "dis-ease", even hatred. Advertising, cosmetic surgery, the diet industry, the internet and government hype about obesity epidemics bludgeon us with the idea that our bodies are our canvas, to be "fixed, remade and embraced." As society increasingly moves away from manual work, the body is "turning from being the means of production into the production itself" -- and we feel ourselves judged for the individual standard of production we achieve. We've all felt at least a twinge of bodily consciousness -- Bodies is a timely account of how we might challenge and contest it.

NB: Susie Orbach will be in converstion with Lisa Appignanesi. Orbach's recent talk at the Southbank Centre sold out in advance so you may want to book quickly (020.7794.1098).

Revolutionary philosopher Alain Badiou investigates the impact that Nicholas Sarkozy is having on France and the Middle East, in conversation with author Andrew Hussey. Badiou shares with Zizek and Agamben a deep concern not only for the future of the Left, for but its present academic form's potential to allow a return to an hysterical and totalitarian system of governance in the West based on a series of jolts to the right in the last 10 years. Badiou is concerned with the politics of fear, and the nature of a general feeling of dread that has been instilled in the citizens of France and of Europe, which allows for Sarkozy to institute a political model that uses this fear as leverage in guiding France's involvement in the Middle East, as well as establishing the French profile in the international media. One of the seminal thinkers in philosophy and politics of the last 20 years, Badiou will take up key issues around Sarkozy's current celebrity and its broader diplomatic implications not just for France, but for the current global political climate.

NB: this event is close to selling out so book quickly.

Voodoo is not just about sticking pins into grimacing evil dolls. It is a universe of spirits, a creative act unleashing the fire and forces within primal man, and a religion practiced by over 30 million people. Combining the slave trade, psychedelic paintings, centuries of sacrificial practice from the deepest corners of the world, beeswax cauldrons, repetitive rhythms of beating drums, Adolf Hitler and more, the cosy Riflemaker becomes something of an educational centre, a chemical lab and your grandma's attic rolled into one. Whether it is visual, mental or nasal stimulation that you seek, the show fulfils that role with sensory tricks and spooky twists along the way. You can even practice a bit of voodoo in the communal wishing machine provided, without having to invest in one yourself like William Burroughs. Concerned with the mystery of the creative act, achieved through heightened states of consciousness (and unconsciousness) the rich variety of work on display encompasses the term art in all the senses of the word. Satisfaction guaranteed.

NB: runs till 04/04.

Le Corbusier has, arguably, shaped modernism more than any other 20th-century architect. He set out his pioneering vision in Vers une architecture (1923) and proposed that a house should be a "machine for living". Yet his functional buildings, characterised by pilotis, strip windows and roof terraces, such as the Villa La Roche in Paris, conceal a love of high art. While the architect perceived tower blocks as the economic answer to the postwar housing shortage, they signposted the route to a humane city in his much-praised Unite d'Habitation in Marseille of the 1950s. The painterly aesthetic of the forest-like spaces that intersperse the rational, modern grid of Chandigarh in India allows his masterplanned city to reach a spiritual realm. Despite his success, he is often derided for inspiring controversial housing estates like Park Hill in Sheffield and neglected Brutalist monoliths, such as St Peter's Seminary in Cardross. The contradictions behind Le Corb's destructive urban legacy and humanist project are among the issues explored by a panel of renowned architects comprising of Zaha Hadid and Winy Maas (MVRDV), who will navigate the ethical dilemmas of building during a time of economic crisis.

NB: Le Corbusier: The Art Of Architecture runs till 24/05.

This gig is very close to selling out, so consider this an early heads-up on a spring showcase by the wavery-voiced nabob of modern Americana, Will Oldham. His royal alias has become an increasingly lush, focused phenomenon over the course of recent albums -- the backwoods haze and studied amateurism of his erstwhile Palace identity now replaced by deluxe, folk-country arrangements, celestial backing vocalists and virtuoso soloists. Even Oldham's famously tremulous singing voice has evolved into a robust and reliable instrument -- he hits all the right notes these days, musically as well as emotionally. His forthcoming album, Beware (Domino) nudges him yet closer to the mainstream, its baker's dozen tracks nodding heavily in the country baroque direction of the Flying Burrito Brothers, albeit filtered through a jazzy prism of flutes, marimbas, trumpets and double bass. With titles like "You Can't Hurt Me Now", "I Don't Belong To Anyone" and "Death Final", Oldham is still purveying a uniquely dusty-booted brand of existentialism, although one track is called "Without Work, You Have Nothing", which alludes rather literally to his burgeoning Calvinist ethic. Latterly a pithy on-stage raconteur, and backed by a full electric ensemble, this promises to be a memorable night of neo-country affirmation.

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