Like Jonathan Lasker and Shirley Kaneda, Andrew Bick is a painter concerned with the building blocks of the painterly language. Perspex and wax, his core materials, are cool matter, and that is also the approach that Bick takes to thinking abstraction. Concerned with the polarities of painting -- geometric and organic, painterly and flat -- Bick's approach is a "cool" questioning of painting's possibility. There are no Whirling Dervishes here; however, given that his last effort in Basel was a "tranquil" and elegant affair, an orgasm of flying triangles greets us. This helter skelter approach to composition and multiple perspectives is akin to the crashing of the Enterprise. Yet Bick's method itself is no train crash but is more structured than it appears: each painting is based on the same design, and it is through repetition that difference is achieved. Entitled Systems Of Hesitation, he thinks in that space of hesitation -- that is, in between. It's abstraction, Jim, sort of like you know it!

NB: runs till 20/06. Andrew Bick will be in conversation with Jon Wood and Jeffrey Steele on 18/06. Also catch Bick's work in Slow Magic at the Bluecoat Gallery in Liverpool.

The BFI and the Brittannia invite us to enjoy an outdoor screening of this grubby little gem from legendary British low-budget movie mogul, Arnold L Miller. London In The Raw provides a snapshot of the seemy side of early '60s London low living. In tone, the film owes much to Mondo cinema: brash, trashy, exploitative and fascinating. It reveals much about the simple everydayness of urban living, what we have lost, what we have gained, what has changed and the far greater bulk, which remains unnervingly germane. Plus ca change... The interiors really are a treat: we get to peek in at the dullness and shabbiness of what for many was still post austerity Britain and exposing what at times seem rather tame vices, hidden away by that now seemingly distant notion of shame. Though the narration by David Gell may sound charmingly stilted now, its content is often quite apposite. The section that deals with drug addicts is a case in point, current pathologising of what are basically bad habits and bad choices are exposed as patronising and ironically self indulgent. With beats from veteran choonbuster Andy Weatherall, everything looks set for a rather lovely summer evening.

NB: this event kicks off the Britannia's Flipside season which runs from 18/06 till 03/09.

This weekend of talks celebrates the vibrant diversity of foreign and translated literature, with a little help from several distinguished authors. The programme considers works translated from Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, French and Russian, from their origination at times of political oppression to the job of turning one language into another, while retaining its fluency of expression.

The event places centre stage the vital role of the translator with a panel of influential names: Independent Foreign Fiction Prize-winners Anne McLean (with Javier Cercas for Soldiers Of Salamis) and Anthea Bell (WG Sebald's Austerlitz) join writer, editor and translator Daniel Hahn and Frank Wynne, who won the IMPAC prize in 2002 for Atomised, his translation of Michel Houellebecq's Les particules elementaires. They will consider the ethos, aims and practicalities of the job, and tackle the perception of international literature in the UK today, at a time when only three per cent of books published in English are translations.

Personal and political struggles come to the foreground, with leading Lebanese writer Hanan al-Shaykh considering women's role in society, while Esther Freud and Dubravka Ugresic (author of Baba Yaga Laid An Egg) reflect on femininity with Lisa Appignanesi (President of English PEN). Ma Jian discusses his novel about the Tiananmen Square protests Beijing Coma; young French writer and film director Faiza Guene gives voice to Algerian immigrants in the banlieues of metropolitan France with the help of Sarah Ardizzone; distinguished Arabic writer Elias Khoury (who wrote Gate Of The Sun) takes up the cause of refugees with journalist Jeremy Harding; Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti (best-known for his autobiography I Saw Ramallah) looks at home and homelessness with prize-winning poet and great-great-grand-daughter of Charles Darwin Ruth Padel; and leading critic Marina Warner considers the importance of oral history in fairy tales and Platonov, with the eminent Russian translator Robert Chandler.

NB: runs from 19/06 till 21/06.

Expect a site-specific Orphean orgy from this Sound And Music and BBC Radio 3 co-production -- a two-day celebration of the sound artists and composers scaling unfathomable peaks in the name of sonic exploration. And where better to showcase the vast and varied potential of sound than in the lofty auditorium and derelict interior spaces of one of the world's oldest surviving music hall?

Somewhere amidst the mind-bending film compositions from Nicky Hamlyn, improvised soundscapes from The Domestic Appliance Audio Research Society, and an audio-visual performance from Brandon LaBelle, is the featured artist Alvin Lucier. The leading composer's disorientating body of work remasters the interdependence of time, sound, objects and space -- from the marriage of a digital delay system and the sound of a ticking clock in Clocker, designed to create the illusion of time expanding and contracting, to the eerie sounding out of space in I Am Sitting In A Room which sees the artist narrating a simple text in a room, recording it, playing it back, and re-recording the recording repeatedly until the shapes of the words disappear into the resonating frequencies of the room itself -- it's the acoustic equivalent of a hall of mirrors.

You can also hope to see (and hear) radical sound experimentalist CM von Hausswolff -- co-founder of the "virtual kingdom" Elgaland-Vargaland, creator of the Red installations, and navigator of the same acoustic metamorphoses first recorded in the electric voice experiments of Friedrich Juergensen. Earlier this year Hausswolff revisited Juergenson in 1485.0 kHz; interpolating a dinner party with a 1485.0 kHz radio to simultaneously record and transmit the overt and imperceptible layers of communication. His amplified take on "Maggots" and "Rats" (musak for Orwell's Room 101), gets our guts dancing on a tightrope and this weekend's collaboration with John Duncan promises to be dark, and illuminating.

NB: runs on 19/06 and 20/06.

Now well into his 80s and still directing, Polish filmmaking legend Andrzej Wajda's most recent film both depicts his country's history, while at the same time confronting his own personal place within that history. Katyn tells the story of a WW2 massacre of thousands of officers and soldiers being held in a POW camp after the German and Russian invasions of Poland: Wajda was 14 at the time, his father was a Polish military captain and because of official denial over the incident, his mother spent the rest of her life (futilely) waiting for her husband to return home. Told mainly from the perspective of the waiting women -- wives, sisters, mothers -- the film delves into what for a long time was officially forbidden history, as both the Nazis and the Russians denied knowledge the massacre. Still capable of sparking heated debate, the incident was re-examined in the early '90s after the fall of Soviet rule in Poland. The film is a beautifully shot with some scenes on an epic scale (2008 Oscar nominated), although the final (extended) sequence of the massacre -- a conveyor belt of detached, systematic genocide -- is quite a difficult watch.

NB: the noted historian Adam Zamoyski will give an introduction to the film. Katyn is released in London on 19/06.

With nu balearic cosmic disco (delete as appropriate) so hot right now it seems odd that the genre's two most celebrated sons (Lindstrom and Prins Thomas) don't appear more often on the line-ups of London clubnights. This week the Capital is lucky therefore that the music industry PR machine dictates that they both appear within a week to highlight the release of II, their critically lauded second album together. For those unfortunate to have missed Lindstrom's only live London appearance at Deadly People's Camden discothon last week, there is a further opportunity to bask in the warm fuzzy cosmic musical glow the Norwegian duo emit down Curtain Road. A whole six hour window of opportunity as Warm have handed DJ duties for this month's Plastic People party over to Mr Prins Thomas. Excitement. With the somewhat laidback nature of II in mind it is hoped that the music progresses towards the chugging sound of Thomas' trademark diskomiks remixes as the night goes on.

A few years back Kitsune was a natural byword for the avalanche of glitchy electro-pop acts that were breaking from the undergrowth. A fair few of them proved they had plenty of other gears (Klaxons, Hot Chip, Metronomy) and went on both to cross over and move up. Not quite the same thing could always be said for Kitsune's compilations, which seemed to plough the same furrow a little too long. It's hard to blame them for being the victims of their own success though, such was the surge in soundalike bands that they unwittingly provoked. Luckily they did finally snap out of that rut with the Tabloid series last year, initially a little tentatively with Digitalism embracing the odd dollop of disco-flavour and more bodly with Phoenix's rock scrapbook effort this year. In that vein, it's pleasing to see the debauched disco grooves of In Flagranti getting another live outing here and blissful disco downtempoists du jour Aeroplane on DJ duties. Yes, there are also some less adventurous electro acts also in the frame here in CHEW LiPS, autoKratz and Delphic, but the other pair will definitely be more than capable of whipping up a lather that feels fresh.

The birth of music blogs may have breathed new life into the art of remixing. Although, as each site battles to out-hype the other, the word "talented" has slowly become a complement far too meagre for stylised-newcomers deemed to be "the next big thing". With the American Apparel generation all to eager to lap-up the manic-hysteria and spread the message as gospel truth, several artists have found themselves sharing the tag "genius" with the pre-blog likes of Mozart and Miles Davis. Raising questions such as: "Is fidget house not just Brighton big beat in a New Era cap?" or "Is Flying Lotus actually anything more than a mere baton-carrier for the late great J Dilla?". The latest poster-boy of "speak no evil, hear no evil" blog-hype is a former BBC library producer, and his debut album was The Strange Dreams Of Paul White (packaged in a limited-run, hand-stitched pillow case -- if you were fast enough). However, unlike most LPs from these supposed modern-day musical saviours, Paul White's (hand-stitched) journey into electronic-psychedelia is actually worthy of all the buzz. So therefore, we can add little more than suggest you side with the scencesters on this one, and head for the launch-party.

Being a resident DJ can entail being a largely unsung cog in the dance-music machine. After the endless hours of spinning week in, week out you learn exactly what the regulars want, often resulting in a sixth-sense for crowd-pleasing, something the big-name guests have to just guess. This commonly results in the little-known resident ironically being the evening's outright-highlight, only to slip back into relative obscurity the very next day. At T Bar you get the best of both worlds. Due to the admirable way the club's been run by owner, Jamie Ritchie, and Programme Manager, Derren Smart, the T's never had to rely on minnows. Instead thanks to Derren's excellent programming and contacts, punters have had the luxury of an endless feast of well-known names dropping their usual fees and taking up residencies. Long-serving (four years) and much-loved Sunday-night hosts Dig Your Own Rave throw a special closing party. The close-knit line up of friendly faces includes Rob Mello, Dave Congreve, Dyed Soundorom, Jamie Jones, Craig Richards and a special guest. Add to the bill an air of in-house celebration for both the recent return of T Bar and Derren's birthday, and you're guaranteed the best end-of-week night in the Capital. Happy birthday Derren!

Perhaps we can blame the migration of prozzies north to Camden, following the zhushing up of King's X... at least that could be one explanation for why Camden's Volsteadean councillors have driven Boom Boom Club's weekly night of rockabilly and northern Soul flavoured fun out East. With all that sexual tension blowing on the breeze they must have been getting hot under the collar. Still, we're not complaining, since Boom Boom's new location is the New Broad Street Turkish baths. Yes honey, you read right, Turkish baths. The revamped and refurbished Victorian bathhouse gives a nod to the scene of many a gloriously debauched evening at Piccadilly's much missed Cafe Royale, with its scene stealing gold birdcage for a DJ booth and grand piano, while the vintage erotica papered walls make the perfect mise-en-scene for Boom Boom's burlesque starlets to twirl their titties and kick off their knickers. And to heighten the decadence, the metamorphosed night has moved to Sunday -- the perfect retreat for adventure and excitement junkies.

Fresh from the special mention for their acclaimed exhibition The Collectors in the Nordic and Danish Pavilions at the Venice Biennale, Elmgreen & Dragset will head to London to participate in the Architecture Foundation's curated series of talks at Tate Modern. The duo has built a reputation for transforming architectural environments through their site-specific installations, cleverly interrogating the social and political aspects of space and location: what happens when a luxury-brand shop is situated in the middle of the Texan desert (Prada Marfa, 2005)? In a time of increased gentrification, virtual networking platforms and mechanisms of social control, what remains of places for social interaction (Too Late, 2008)? How does identity inform the kinds of environments we inhabit, the spaces we create for ourselves (The Collectors, 2009)? Joining them in conversation will be architect Jamie Fobert, renowned for his work in high-end residential, fashion and gallery design, including Givenchy's boutique in Paris, the converted Melnikov bus depot of Daria Zhukova's Centre For Contemporary Culture Moscow and the forthcoming extension of Tate St Ives. With design critic Alice Rawsthorn chairing, the evening will undoubtedly provide a lively look at the intersection of architecture and art.

Nick Moran directs the film of his play about Joe Meek, firebrand music producer of the '60s responsible for hits including "Telstar", the biggest No 1 of its day. He baffled and thrilled people with his weird sounds and unconventional studio techniques from a rented flat above a shop in the Holloway Road. The road to sexual liberation is paved with the broken hearts, dreams and bones of people who unlike Meek left nothing to remember them by. Moran illustrates this in midnight visits to Hampstead Heath and Meek's vulnerability to opportunists like the now forgotten talent-vacuum Heinz, culminating with his arrest for cottaging -- commercial suicide in the swinging '60s. Con O'Neill's performance as Meek is consistently riveting and shows great range: from tender to psychotically furious. The supporting cast works hard and delivers, though Kevin Spacey as Meek's backer veers towards caricature in an almost perfect clipped British accent. More of Meek's music and more episodes like the Gene Vincent tour would have dispelled some of the film's staginess. This affectionate biopic charts Meek's hard-working tragicomic arc from giddy, arrogant success to amphetamine-fuelled paranoid despair. Meek stamped an indelible mark on pop from Hawkwind to Eno and far beyond.

NB: Telstar is released in London on 19/06.

Five committed performers bring the ferocious work of award winning choreographer Yasmeen Godder to the stage at The Place, the final work in The Turning World season. Born in Jerusalem and raised in America, Godder now divides her time between New York and Israel. Recently, the opening of a dedicated studio in Jaffa has provided a base for her research and development activities, classes and workshops. Her work typically deals with the self and the performing body. Singular Sensation depicts the search for an authentic, informed consciousness; the movement is raw and fearless, at times overwhelming, a startling and exciting piece of dance. Audiences tend to react strongly to the often violent, controversial themes of her work, unsure of where her performances sit on the gradient line from dance, to physical theatre to dance theatre. "Pushing boundaries" is a fairly tired phrase, but justifiable -- the primal intensity of Godder's work is refreshing.

NB: Singular Sensation is performed on 23/06 and 24/06.

Danish artist Tal R's new show, armes de chine (Chinese weapons) is an open playing field of possible meanings. The floor is populated by a congregation of odd sized objects in mismatched colours and materials. Here's a giant pinkish hairball, over there a purple hanging jellyfishy thing, both made of woven cord and bicycle wheels. Standing to one side is a gleaming ceramic mushroom the size of a ming vase -- or is it a giant dildo? Primary coloured flags laid out like picnic rugs make you want to sit down and strike up a surreal conversation with one of this cast of enigmatic characters, as they seem friendly and welcoming. There's nothing of the implied violence of their formal origins, they seem only distantly related to the clubs, swords and implements of ingenious cruelty that apparently inspired them. Sketchy drawings lying flat on little tables tell stories about their lives -- a turtle, a clawed hand, milled objects of careful but baffling design -- they are from a slightly different dimension and obey an unfamiliar set of rules. Walking through this crowd is like finding oneself part of a giant board game without instructions.

NB: runs till 25/07.

Everyone knows that occasional feeling, as your mind wanders in the Tesco queue or on a bendy bus into work, and ludicrously improbable thoughts gradually juxtapose in your head as everything goes just a bit surreal... say like when the guy next to you at the bus stop has the head of cow (but you pretend not to notice) or outside the window horribly deformed birds check their voicemail... Animated filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt, with his simple hand-drawn stick-like illustrations, accurately and hilariously captures those weird and warped secret nano-thoughts, adding a minimalist deadpan voiceover of absolute existential absurdity. Bizarre, melancholic and brilliantly funny, his films poke fun at the uses of animation (the Oscar-nominated masterpiece Rejected) -- or focus on the hapless everyman Bill -- coping with the quotidian complexities of life as he mysteriously undergoes some sort of unidentified "treatment" (Everything Will Be OK). Hertzfeldt's newest -- I Am So Proud Of You -- is the second in a trilogy focussing on the fragile Bill, delving into his family history and exploring his philosophical battle with life: poignant, astute, hilarious and as mad as a box of frogs. After the screening Hertzfeldt, in his first visit to the UK, will be interviewed.

In Shakespeare's time "nothing" was pronounced "noting" and "to note" was "to overhear". Contemporary audiences would have understood that they were going to see Much Ado About Eavesdropping. Wilful misinterpretation and misunderstanding are key to the plot and humour of Shakespeare's much-loved comedy, and both are well-handled in Tim Sheeder's lively, light-hearted production. Samantha Spiro gives a spirited, charismatic performance as Beatrice: she allies the raillery to a limitless physical energy that makes her a pleasure to watch as she bounds around the stage. Philip Witcomb's sinuous set of ramps and slopes offers plenty of opportunity for hide-and-seek humour, while the citrus trees and clever lighting bring the Messina sun into Leonato's orchard. Much of Much Ado is set outdoors. The play lends itself well to balmy summer evenings in Regent's Park: some of the surrounding trees have been trimmed since last year and the effect is a gentler accompanying rustle in the light breeze that follows sunset. Go and see this notable production: you'll feel the younger for it.

NB: runs till 27/06.

Although considered London's most famous jazz club, Ronnie Scott's has hardly been a bastion of experimentation in recent years, settling for a cosier, less threatening programme. All of which makes tonight's line-up of Erik Truffaz, Murcof and Talvin Singh the more surprising. The French jazz trumpeter and Mexican electronica producer collaborated on last year's Mexico release. Mexico is part of Truffaz's Rendez-Vous series wich also comprises Benares and Paris. World renowned tabla player Singh joins the pair on stage for a series of dates promoting the Mexico project (see a clip of their 2006 Montreux Jazz Festival performance here and here). This newish endeavour will perhaps lack some of the cosmic grandeur of Murcof's 2007 planetarium and Corsica Studios soundtracking shows, but should still electrify this relatively intimate venue, as the three very different yet equally talented musicians, recreate the sound of Mexico's vibrant, bustling capital city deep in the heart of Soho.

Ah, Jeff Koons, he of the obscenely large sculptures and auction prices -- from the giant flower puppy to metallic hearts, Easter eggs and balloon dogs. Regardless of whether you love or loathe his kitsch vision, its hard not to be just a little bit dazzled by the sheer scale and market bravura of his output. If anyone was going to persuade the Los Angeles County Museum Of Art to shell out a cool $25 million in the current economic climate for a reproduction of a stream train, it was Koons -- a man who has cavorted naked in his own artworks with his Italian porn star (now sadly ex) wife. It's been a long time coming, but the first public exhibition of undiluted Koons in Britain is coming to London; this summer the Serpentine Gallery will focus on the Popeye series, featuring the spinach-loving cartoon icon and a variety of inflatable animals in a series of works that, in part, offer comment on the economic crisis (Popeye was invented during the Depression). If nothing else, it will be interesting -- and perhaps telling -- to see what an artist who has insisted on the superficiality of his work, and whose ascent has been closely linked to buoyant markets and easy money, has to offer in more straightened times.

NB: Jeff Koons: Popeye Series runs at the Serpentine Gallery from 02/07 till 13/09.

A theatrical rendezvous with stifled families and a fish falling out of the sky makes the Almeida's production of When The Rain Stops Falling, at first, a jagged little pill indeed. The play presents snippets of the lives of five seemingly unrelated families living in Australia and England in the 1950s-2030s. However, time and place are of little importance, and Miriam Buether's set instead is black and bare, using projections to emphasize the atmosphere of the relationships. Marrying familial mundanity and outlandish happenings (enter fish) mean you spend the first part of your evening puzzled, not absorbed. However, as this fly-on-the-wall style story unfolds and the threads of the different subplots start entangling themselves, a very vivid narrative comes together, motored by a gripping mystery and a powerful ensemble. Without realizing it, playwright Andrew Bovell has given his audience a blow by blow account of how behaviour is unknowingly inherited and how unexplained character traits can be traced back generations, making you in fact a victim of a past you're not even a part of. Following a successful Sydney run in 2008, Bovell's play makes its European Premiere at the Almeida in a production directed by Artistic Director, Michael Attenborough.

NB: runs till 04/07.

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