Perhaps it's just good fortune, but the timing of the AA's Barkow Leibinger exhibition on fabrication techniques -- which coincides with the Barbican's blockbuster Le Corbusier show and the RA's Palladio retrospective -- seems rather appropriate. While the big institutions are busy showcasing the mantras of proportion and prescribing materials and forms, Barkow Leibinger and indeed the AA itself, have demonstrated that contemporary architecture is more interested in looking forward. With huge digitally milled steel tubes in one corner, an undulating ceramic wall made from glistening tessellating tiles, 1:1 cardboard models of hexagonal roof structures hanging from the ceiling, the young Berlin-based practice show that for them, the modular is neither necessary or desirable. On every table, a small selection of iterations of form and material provoke and stir the imagination. From the faceted mirrored windows on their Seoul office tower to the honeycomb-like roof in their campus restaurant and Gatehouse, the architects display a sense of adventure and curiosity on the possibilities of constructing using digital techniques. These are not university experiments, but real life. "We are not building Prada boutiques" says Frank Barkow on one of the looped videos that is played in the forecourt of his latest buildings. This is architecture for offices, institutions, apartment buildings. Their real-time experiment in forms, materials, fabrication and construction continue and we watch their progression with interest.

NB: runs till 27/03.

Afghan Star is fascinating for two overarching reasons. Firstly, it is not often one sees positive stories of unity and collaboration emerging from a "hot" warzone. It feels taboo to suggest that as we hear of tribe battling tribe, violence and destruction, a media sensation could be uniting warring factions toward a common goal. And we come here to the second reason -- it seems totally absurd that this unifying totem should be a budget version of the Simon Cowell brain child X Factor / Pop Idol, the titular Afghan Star. As the documentary digs deeper into the stories of the show's producers and stars it becomes clear that in post-Taliban Afghanistan, where singing and dancing were once outlawed, the social significance of this televised celebration cannot be overstated. Despite the darker side of religious didacticism emerging, Afgan Star is an overwhelmingly positive and inspiring film in uninspiring times.

NB: Afghan Star screens at the ICA from 27/03 till 22/04. Also of note is the release of James Toback's Tyson, the special Mike Leigh Q&A screening of Grown-Ups (01/04) and DocHouse's mini documentary festival (29/03).

Women have earned the right to vote, to obtain equal pay for equal work, as well as equal representation in most professions and spheres of life. Since the good old bra-burning 1970s, we have also seen post-feminism, counter-feminism, post-backlash feminism and new feminism. It is now perhaps time to wonder what is actually meant by the term "feminism", and what its relevance might be in this day and age. The Annette Messager show at The Hayward is lending itself to such considerations. Often using domestic materials associated with the feminine realm of home making such as dresses, soft toys and fabric, Messager's work often explores the world as experienced from a feminine perspective. Elisabeth Lebovici and Griselda Pollock, two of the most respected feminist scholars and art critics, one from each side of the Channel, will perhaps contribute to further the contemporary understanding of feminist art by discussing the aspect of role-playing in Messager's work. Is feminism in the visual arts perceived differently in different cultures, and who is Messager -- the Artist, the Collector, the Cheater, the Trickster, the Peddler, the Practical Woman or all of the above?

NB: Annette Messager - The Messenger runs at The Hayward till 25/05.

Partly responsible for the Super Discount series, Etienne de Crecy holds a special place in the history of French house music. What's also special is the de Crecy live show, a 20-foot-tall ''cube'' constructed by revered French architecture collective EXYZT which mere video footage on YouTube does little justice to (think Daft Punk's pyramid but on a smaller scale). Applause goes to South London clubbing behemoth Matter then, for utilising the space afforded them in their main room by constructing de Crecy's "cube" in all its shiny intimidating glory and affording us mere London dwelling mortals the opportunity to catch the artist live in his proper element. Matter have curated the evening in two parts, with de Crecy's trip through the light (and audio) fantastic due to end at 10pm. Afterwards a decent line-up of DJs features Swedish house posterboy Style Of Eye, Bugged Out!'s Jojo De Freq and Gomma's Headman (whose new album is excitingly out soon). The low-brow house of Audio Bullys is also on offer but really the less said about them the better.

Free rave? Friday night? Central Shoreditch? Any takers? Old meets new as '80s originators Ratpack are set to tear-through how it was back in the day, whilst rave-resurrection artist Zomby is on hand to spin the contorted face of modern dance floor rudeness. Widely accredited with leading the wonKy scene, Zomby has been a firm favourite with the dance-bloggers since he started twisting dubstep's rhythmic grid into a mutant form of unstable beats, grimy synths and air-horns. By the end of 2008, well-thumbed copies of his piano-rave homage Where Were You In '92? were being passed to everyone from sentimental, mortgage-paying parents to packs of capped teenagers in crammed cars. The oldskool and nuskool theme continues down the roster with support from tipped-newcomer Hot City and Castlemorton-royalty Ed Real. Given the hype surrounding Zomby, the fact's it's free and being held in London's busiest after-dark district on a Friday night, we would bet our white gloves it's going to be popular. Cargo opens from 6pm onwards and unless the prospect of queuing on Rivington Street fills you with uncontrollable excitement, we would suggest you get there the right side of the witching hour.

Lace, spiderwebs, sprawling moss or leaves count among the many forms that populate the strangely haunting collection of doilies on display at Sadie Coles HQ. Painted on glass and superposed on dark backgrounds in large formats, Simon Periton's works are more old lace and arsenic than grandma's tea party. Intertwining realism and abstraction, the interpretation of these memento mori of sorts is infinitely malleable. They are also beautifully decorative, as were his earlier paper cuttings from which they appear to have naturally evolved. This fifth show at Coles firmly confirms the commercial potential of Periton's work, which was, shortly after his graduation from Central Saint Martins, dismissed as craft. This has not deterred Periton from producing his own highly recognisable art while also contributing to the fashion world by collaborating with Junya Watanabe, Raf Simons and milliner Philip Treacy. Who's to say you can't be a serious artist and make pretty things?

NB: runs till 28/03.

Madlib's spinning the output and apparently Derrick May loves them, less than a dozen releases in and things for the UK house imprint, Prime Numbers, just keep getting better. The Manchester-based label seem to be remarkably good at having the Quentin Tarantino effect on fading artists and incredibly resourceful at discovering fresh talent. Which let's face it, aren't bad traits for a young British label trying to establish itself in a genre still largely dominated by Americans. Leading from the front, label boss Trus'me (aka David Wolstencroft) has been in the thick of the action right from the start, laying down killer slabs of raw Detroit house such as "Good God" and "W.A.R Dub". With word spreading fast, the Prime Number's top boy has recently secured a Disco 3000 residency at New York's high-profile APT club and has already played in Miami, Florence and Munich in the second half of March alone. The East London-based Runsounds crew bring Manchester's finest back to the UK this Saturday for a headline slot at their popular Rungrooves night, before he jets off for dates in Australia and Canada. Theo and Kenny who?

NB: also of note on the same night is Ricardo Villalobos and Jus-Ed at Fabric.

If Maida Vale is London's mini Venice, then Vauxhall is becoming London's mini Berlin, thanks to The Lightbox venue and its trend for hosting the big names in techno. With Mathew Jonson, Kevin Saunderson and Minologue all gracing the DJ booth within the last month, the Filthy Gorgeous team now line up Finland's finest export Kiki (aka Joakim Ijas). The notoriously systematic producer first came to attention at the mulleted peak of electroclash in 2002 when his escalating, gothic epic "Luv Sikk" appeared on Damian Lazurus' second installment for City Rockers' Futurism series. Since then Kiki has remained largely monogamous to Ellen Allien's leading imprint BPitch Control, which is a standing testament to both the artist and the label (which incidentally is 10 this year). Supporting the Fin is a very rare London appearance from Irish melodic techno wizard Chymera (aka Brendan Gregoriy). Now based in Barcelona, the ambient-minded producer is still largely unsung in the UK despite a heavy release schedule including stunning tracks such as "Ellipsis", "Arabesque" and "Parelo". One month on from flying techno originator Saunderson over for their Lightbox launch party, the Filthy Gorgeous promoters now demonstrate shrewd awareness with this lesser known, yet perfectly balanced pairing.

NB: also of note on the same night is Ricardo Villalobos and Jus-Ed at Fabric.

DocHouse rounds up the best of the 2008 international documentary festivals for a day-long pick of the fests. Politically charged, Pray The Devil Back To Hell chronicles the point when the women of civil-war-torn Liberia decided they had had enough of the warring men. Coming together en-masse -- putting religious differences to one side -- they launched a white-clad, calm and resolutely non-violent protest, eventually forcing peace talks and ultimately contributing to the election of Africa's first female Prime Minister. Like a motorway version of the Eurovision Song Contest, Corridor #8 humorously looks at the difficulties of co-coordinating Balkan co-operation over an international highway in the region. Also screening are Up The Yangtze, examining the effects of the Three Gorges Dam on the millions of Chinese residents displaced by the gargantuan hydroelectric project, and Renzo Martins' controversial Enjoy Poverty 3. But the highlight of the day is a preview of the new Werner Herzog doc -- Encounters At The End Of The World. Always an event, his latest film visits the fantastical landscapes and oddbod individuals who inhabit the scientific stations of the Antarctic. The films can be seen as afternoon or evening double-bills or -- recommended to truly replicate the full-on festival experience -- as an all-day docfest.

NB: also of note this week is the release of Afghan Star and James Toback's Tyson.

Peter Singer is renowned world-wide for his 1975 classic Animal Liberation, where he points out that animals suffer too and should therefore be respected. Needless to say he is a vegetarian. Following from Jeremy Bentham's incorporation of moral equality into a utilitarian system of ethics, that all beings should be treated as equal, Singer widens the net. Today this doesn't seem all that controversial given that we would be a greener world if we ate lower down the chain. Yet as Stephen Colbert so rightly points out, even the pigs in Animal Farm know that all animals are not equal. Needless to say Singer is a philosopher of ethics, and, no doubt, one of morals too! He is also no stranger to controversy. His latest offering tackles charity and donations. With our current global economic state, charities are suffering. Singer is proposing a thoughtful restructuring of how we approach our monies. So lets set our self-interests aside and see what he can offer us. Better than quantitative easing, maybe this is another kind of qualitative easing...

Perhaps one of the finest and most revealing boxing documentaries to date, Tyson, tells the story of maybe the greatest, and certainly the most controversial, boxers of all time. Director, James Toback first met the pugilist at an orgy in former football star Jim Brown's Hollywood house in the early '80s, kept in close contact with the man all through his career and as such is the only man who could have made this film. Featuring rare home movies, incredible fight footage and an incredibly frank interviews, we see Mike Tyson go from being an overweight bullied Brooklyn kid with a lisp (whose mother was an alcoholic and father a pimp) through approved school and on to be the youngest ever winner of World Heavyweight Champion title fight, aged just 20. Subsequently he becomes undisputed world champion winning all three belts (with 19 knockouts -- 12 in the first round), loses to underdog Buster Douglas, is convicted of rape, imprisoned for three years, turns to Islam, regains a title by beating Frank Bruno, bites part of Evander Holyfield ear off and having squandered nearly $300 million in fight fees and finally files for bankruptcy in August 2003. Simply put, this is an unbelievable tale told incredibly well.

NB: Tyson is released in London on 27/03. Also of note is Afghan Star, the special Mike Leigh Q&A screening of Grown-Ups (01/04) and DocHouse's mini documentary festival (29/03).

The reading of works from Martin Espada, Omar Perez and Andy Croft showcases both revolutionary Latin America poetry and left-leaning poetry from the UK. Introduced to Puerto Rican civil rights activism by his father, Espada's readings highlight the political impetus of his work. His first book of politically inspired poetry, The Immigrant Iceboy's Bolero, was published in 1982. Espada won the American Book Award in 1996 for his collection Imagine The Angels Of Bread. Espada is the Poet Laureate of Northampton, Massachusetts. A philosophical note running through Perez's early writing transmutes into a working relationship with Zen Buddhism in his later poetry. Born in Havana, he combines elements of rhythm and music into works that explore nationalist speech, transnational issues and the Cuban cultural identity. His first volume of poems Algo de lo sagrado (Something sacred) was published in 1996. Croft, who has published four poetry collections including Just As Blue, aspires to encourage reading through the use of poetical techniques. He teaches poetry in Middlesbrough schools and has written 19 books for teenagers about football, as well as extensive publications on the literary history of the British Labour Movement.

Like all Mike Leigh films, Grown-Ups is an early product of the director's free-form collaborative devising, and demonstrates the ability of a man able to attract millions to the box with a slice of life more real than a reality show. With an audience of around 4.5 million when first screened, this ironically titled, tragically funny tale provided the platform for the professional partnership of Leigh and Brenda Blethyn. At first, it seems a showcase for the strong divisions in the British class system with a compare and contrast presentation of the bad-mannered working-class Dick (Phil Davis) and Mandy (Lesley Manville), versus the well-ironed Butchers (Lindsay Duncan and Sam Kelly). However, the story slowly overthrows stereotypes in favour of an examination of relationships, revealing how apparent capability can disguise emotional incompetence and demonstrating the severe limitations of class-based judgements. To celebrate the forthcoming release of a DVD collection of all his BBC projects, Mike Leigh joins the drive to ensure the future of the ICA's independent cinema programme with a screening of his now digitally remastered Grown-Ups, followed by a Q&A with the director alongside the author of Mike Leigh On Mike Leigh, Amy Raphael.

NB: also of note this week is the release of Afghan Star and James Toback's Tyson, and, DocHouse's mini documentary festival (29/03).

Along with the Romeo Castellucci and Jan Fabre, we reckon Tim Etchells' work with Belgian company Victoria is probably the most exciting of the many ingredients combined in the SPILL Festival, London's biennial of experimental theatre and performance. It's been a long time coming to London -- so long in fact that the original cast of 8-14 year-olds have grown up and been replaced. With staggering restraint and a deep understanding of what it means for one group of people to be staring at another (and vice versa, as is often the case with Etchells' own work with Forced Entertainment), the kids stand, almost unblinking, and recount to the audience-as-parents an increasingly uncomfortable list of what we've done. It's a mystery how Etchells manages to illicit performances as strong as this from a group we'd normally think of as both vulnerable and unpredictable, but as a writer this is a great chance to hear him at his most lyrical and urgent. It's also a fascinating opposite to Ontroerend Goed's much feted Once And For All... working, as Etchells explains himself here for the Guardian, in a very different direction. Find out even ore through the entries about it on his unparalleled blog.

NB: That Night Follows Day is performed on 07/04 and 08/04 (part of this year's SPILL Festival which runs from 02/04 till 26/04). Both nights are more than half sold out so book quickly. Also part of the festival is Forced Entertainment's Void Story which runs at the Soho Theatre from 21/04 till 25/04.

There is no doubt that it's in art's power to transcend all borders. (That's why we love it.) This month Victoria Miro and Siobhan Davies set the stage for a meeting of art and dance, merging gallery space with dance studios, sight with sound, North with South. With choreographers acting as visual artists and dancers as moving sculptures, nothing is what it seems and it's hard to tell where the art ends and audience begins -- a positively refreshing experience. Exploring the theme of bodies within space, no body is left out, not even yours. At Victoria Miro, get lured into Narcissus Garden by the sweet but haunting voice of Susan Philipsz's absent dancer, enjoy the lovely outdoor terrace space, and don't miss the chance to climb inside Yayoi Kusama's endless universe of mirrors and balls and perhaps ponder over the infinity of the universe. Over at the RIBA Siobhan Davies awarded studios, surround yourself by Conrad Shawcross' dancing shadows and enrol for some kathak dancing classes while you're at it. Who said art and exercise can't mix?

NB: runs till 09/04 and takes place at Victoria Miro Gallery and at Siobhan Davies Studios.

Had enough of the clinical white cube? Want some industrial action? Always wandered what it would be like to live in a trailer? Then this show is for you. Ashok Sukumaran's installation, The Neighbour, is all about the experience. Leave any formalist art theory / mind over body debates at home and just enjoy yourself. Relax. Feel free to make a cup of tea, listen to the radio, nibble on some Doritos, read a book -- even have a nap in the cosy bed. Addressing issues of infrastructure within human landscapes, Bombay-based Sukumaran is concerned with how we create our social networks. Most of us probably know our Facebook friends better than our next door neighbours. Scary. It's incredible that just across the road, frustrated tourists queue for the hugely overpriced experience of mingling with their favourite celebs in wax, when you can get so much more out of interacting with art. It's real and free -- and what better place to choose than the luxuriously industrial-looking P3, a 14,000 square foot space formerly used to construct concrete. On entry, a heightened sense of intrusion does prevails, but don't let that scare you away, seize the adventurous inner you and hop into the wagon, which actually moves. Maybe it's art and phenomenology that will save us all.

NB: runs till 09/04.

Kafka's Monkey has, paradoxically, been made in the image of its performer, with the text becoming virtually an illustration of her performance. Of course, this is the opposite of the case, but it is the impression made by Kathryn Hunter's moving impersonation of an actor, wanting to engage, if not to please, an audience -- the imagined members of an Academy being addressed by the eponymous monkey. Her sad, reflective smile creases her face at moments into a seemingly physical memory of pain. But herein lies the problem. Unquestionably recommendable for seeing Hunter's performance, one is left wondering about the basic decision of the production -- naturalising Kafka's satire on the "cultural level of the average European" rather than transposing it into a more challenging theatrical language. While this need not mean making explicit the moral accomplishment of Western nations in "outsourcing" torture, it does at least mean making the revelation of the performance not the ape-like nature of the ape, but the not so humane "nature" of the human.

NB: runs till 09/04.

Listening to School Of Seven Bells you are reminded of the subtle background tracks of all your favourite songs. Combining a soothing noise-scape with a rhythmic early '90s electro pop pace, SVIIB sprouts alternating heads like a musical hydra, flashing moments of shoegaze, My Bloody Valentine and M83, then Morcheeba, Goldfrapp, Royksopp and Kate Bush. The ever changing array of faces accompanying the music means the trip-like journey into each track is perpetually interrupted by a pleasantly nagging feeling of vague recognition, as though each face resembles some distant soundtrack to another time and place. But SVIIB is more than some hybrid band that never was, pulling influences from percussive tribal cadences to twinkly synth: the familiar feel to the music is not an antidote to its style. It's no surprise that their show at Cargo last month was a sell out, or that they should share the stage at Shepherd's Bush with Bat For Lashes.

Somehow this unlikely songbird has become the mournful voice of a generation and a slightly unwilling -- or at least irreverant -- super-starlet in the process. Bat For Lashes aka Natasha Khan has been swept up in a sea of screaming fans starving for more of her sweet and sad vocal stylings. She's recently been touted as something of a style icon, but has managed to duck the media noose that usually comes along with titles like this: her appearance, like her music, mixes a quiet prettiness with a slightly rough edge -- think manicured hands but dirty fingernails -- or something to that effect at least. Khan's eerie childlike package comes filled with sugared niceties hiding a sticky darkness that lingers long after the song is finished, and she is known for putting on one a hell of a show.

NB: the 17/04 gig is already sold out but tickets remain for 19/04 so buy your tickets now.

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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