Wednesday 5 March (10:30pm - 3am)

@ The Ghetto, 5-6 Falconberg Court, W1 (020.7287.3726) Tube: Tottenham Court Rd.

Combining the pop nous of Grace Jones, the gothic undercurrent of Siouxsie, and the Banshees and the polyrhythmic dance front of ESG, Brighton's Spektrum is no ordinary band. As their acclaimed single "Freefall" illustrates, they're not just worshipping at the altar of Obvious Influences. Like The Rapture and Radio 4, Spektrum is spinning the musical zeitgeist on its head and coming up with gold. Perhaps what sets them apart from their punk funk peers is vocalist Lola Olafisoye -- II parts Ari Up, III parts Patti Smith and V parts unique. With Tiga, Weatherall and DJ Scruff as fans, it's with some sort of inevitability that the group play Nag Nag Nag. But is the most flamboyant night out in the capital ready for the most anticipated band? You'll have to find out for yourself.

Giveaway: We have two copies of "Freefall" to give away. They'll go to one randomly picked subscriber who can tell us which Canadian DJ recently played at Nag Nag Nag (hint: he likes to wear sungalsses at night).

Thursday 6 March (6:30pm)

@ Tate Britain, Millbank, SW1 (020.7887.8008) Tube: Pimlico

British-based, Italian born performance artist Franco B is at the cusp of what both the general public and critics perceive as credible art. The ritualistic mutilation of his own (much tattooed) body is his focus: his infamous live bloodletting performances can be seen as either gruesome self-harm, or passive comment on the role of pain and physicality within art. His aim is to make the unbearable bearable, to create images and movement of beauty out of the grim and unnatural. There will be no puncturing of veins here -- his "bleedings" are medically monitored and can only take place four times a year. Instead, this is chance to hear him defend his work, which is at best provocative and intense, and at worst, worrying. (For tickets call 020.7887.8888 or email tate.ticketing@tate.org.uk.)

NB: On Sun 30/03 Frank B will perform I Miss You! at Tate Modern -- part of the Tate's Live Culture series. Also on Sat 20/03 and Sun 30/03 (10:30pm to 6:30pm) there will be a two day symposium, Culture: Performance and the Contemporary.

Thursday 6 March (6:40pm)

@ Curzon Soho, 93-107 Shaftesbury Ave., W1 (020.7439.4805) Tube: Leicester Square/Piccadilly

Acclaimed French director Patrice Patrice Leconte constantly plays with filmic styles but with his latest film (which won the audience award at last year's Venice Film Festival) it's tricky to discern which genre he's actually subverting. Is this a buddy movie? A modern day western? A Lynchian dream? It's really just a character piece looking at the unlikely friendship of two completely different men, who meet by chance. What fleshes the film out is the funny and occasionally poignant dialogue and the two leads - the virtuoso actor Jean Rochefort (a Leconte regular, last seen here in Lost in La Mancha) and the French pop icon, Johnny Hallyday. Depending on who you talk to, Halliday is either France's Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen or... Cliff Richard but his rugged face is perfect for a moody bank-robber and Rochefort is wonderful as the retired school teacher who wishes he'd lived more. Despite the rounded detail and humanity of these characters, it is when Leconte tries to make big statements, or ups the tempo, that the flimsy nature of the storyline shows through. However the moments where the characters chat about life, laugh at themselves, or egg each other on to change, are just simply charming.

NB: This is a special preview and director Patrice Leconte will be on hand for a Q&A after the film.

Giveaway: We have one pair of tickets for this screening to give away. It'll go to one randomly picked subscriber who can tell us the name of Leconte's last film.

Thursday 6 March (7.30 pm)

@ 93 Feet East, 150 Brick Lane, E1 (020.7247.3293) Tube: Aldgate East/Liverpool Street

This event heralds the release of Susumu Yokota's first album for the PLAY label, Over Heard. Yokota's musical output has been described in the past as house, techno, disco and jazz --classifications which are pretty vague, especially when applied to music that is destined for the enclave of four-to-the-floor dancedom. Having said this, the simplistic drive behind Yokota's music is reinforced by the more worldly beats and funky grooves that nestle beneath these often light and uplifting melodies. The references of many musical styles that have been made with respect to Yokota may suggest some god-like mastery of all things musical, but in fact this really means that no single Susumu Yokota track will sound like the next --consequently, there is the potential to hold the interest of both home listener and club dancer. In the end, this is music from an experienced producer and DJ that suggests more depth and introspection than the twee commercialism of much more faceless DJ fodder.

NB: The DJ set of Yokota this evening is accompanied by Max Tundra, the Subculture Soundsystem, DJs from the PLAY label and XFM's Nick Luscombe.

Thursday 6 March

@ Barbican Centre, Barbican Centre, EC2 (020.7638.8891) Tube: Barbican

The Australian Film Festival at the Barbican has been a great asset not only to English cinema goers, but to Australian cinema as a launch-pad to wider ranging distribution within the UK. This popular festival is now in its 9th year. As usual, it offers a good range of feature films -- most of which are preceded by a well-selected short. Features include the best Australian films released within the last year, as well as several UK premiers. Of special interest are Lantana and Rabbit Proof Fence, both of which received general release in 2002. In addition, consider the gala opening Swimming Upstream, Crackerjack (the highest grossing film in Australia last year), and Australian Rules or the closing gala Black and White.

NB: Actress Kerry Fox, who stars alongside Robert Carlyle in Black and White, will be introducing the feature on Thu 13/03 at 8:45pm. For a full list of the programme and short synopsis of each screening, visit the Australian Film Festival website.

Friday 7 March

@ Various cinemas all over London

Imagine a perfect world, with perfect people who all have perfect lives, where the transcendent colour creates a pale purple sky and shiny, bright people. Sound like a Douglas Sirk film? That is what Velvet Goldmine director Todd Haynes has created in his new feature Far From Heaven, starring Dennis Quaid, Julianne Moore, Patricia Clarkson and Dennis Haysbert. As the title suggests, though this world seems wonderful, under the picture perfect surface, the protagonists lives are being torn apart. Being black or gay may not be such a big deal in the 21st century, but this is not the 21st century, it is '50s America. A world of prejudice, xenophobia and the notion that no matter what you may do behind closed doors, you never let society at large in. Todd Haynes invites you into this world.

Friday 7 March (9pm - 2am )

@ 93 Feet East, 150 Brick Lane, E1 (020.7247.3293) Tube: Aldgate East/Liverpool Street

Are you bored with the words electroclash and post punk, hmmm? Does your life need just that little bit more? Well take a deep breath and say with us: psychedelic hip hop blues old skool garage disco classic filthy ramalama funk electrocrash (you heard right "crash") boiling dub hop boogie groove rock n roll house funk. Phewee! This is just some of what you will get from Love Box at 93 Feet East this Friday, Goove Armada's residency. You also get the tallest man in showbiz (Andy Cato from GA) and the Grande Dame of the scene "The Underdog", Trevor Jackson. Add to the mix Jools Butterfield of Ragbull and Ross Clarke from 333's Off-Centre and you are sure to be professionally manipulated into having a very "hip" and brassy night. GA are taking Lovebox round Europe and New Zealand so go now, there'll be laptops and everything!

Saturday 8 March (Check RFH website for times and ticket prices)

@ Royal Festival Hall, South Bank, SE1 (020.7960.4203 or 4242) Tube: Embankment/Rail Waterloo

The Pythagorians in their love of numbers conjured up this elaborate number lore, but the ones that impressed them the most were those found in musical ratios considered to harmoniously represent the mathematical accord of the universe. Bach proved that orderly can be creative, and that the most pleasant sounds have risen out of simple mathematical relationships. The big band era of the '30s and '40s was born from the frustration of not having the technology to give music the power that we are familiar with today. So this year's Ether festival proves that music is a numbers game and has large ensembles 'organically translating work created especially for digital representation.' Highlights of the festival inlcude: on Sat 08/03 when the London Sinfonietta are interpreting works from Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada and Squarepusher, all artists signed to Warp Records. Also, Mira Calix, another Warp artist will perform her piece Nunu live with the London Sinfonietta on this night. On Wed 12/03 Matthew Herbert aka Radioboy, shows delight in challenging convention by presenting us his latest venture: the Matthew Herbert Big Band. (The Ether festival ends Fri 14/03.)

NB: For the full schedule and ticket info see the RFH website.

Giveaway: We have one pair of tickets for the Soap Bubble Set on Tue 11/03 and 5 copies of Mira Calix's latest CD (Skimskitta) to give away. One randomly picked subscriber will get the tickets and a CD four other subscribers will get a CD. To win tell us the name of Aphex's twins.

Saturday 8 March (8:30pm)

@ Barbican Centre, Barbican Centre, EC2 (020.7638.8891) Tube: Barbican

Dziga Vertov, director of The Man With A Movie Camera (1929), was a man of the people, a proletariat protagonist of Soviet avant-garde film. His vision was two-fold: to link workers with machines, and to find an "absolute language of cinema" unencumbered by the legacies of literature and theatre. The film, split into nine syncopated movements, is a prime example of that vision, employing rapidly edited interpolations of machinery and men, his duteous ode to a typical Muscovite day. As part of the Barbican's Only Connect festival, Ninja Tune recording artists The Cinematic Orchestra have been brought in to provide the soundtrack to this originally silent film. Darlings of the leftfield and nu-jazz scene, they're the ideal choice for the job; there's definitely a parallel between the film's theme and a band that seamlessly interweaves traditional instrumentation with cutting-edge technology. Their down-tempo creations are sweeping, epic, many-layered constructions; evolutions on jazz with a marked rhythmic nod to Hip Hop. An new avant-garde for the old avant-garde!

NB: After the show, make sure you check out the club stage, where wacky Ninja Tune label-mates Homelife will be performing live, alongside DJ sets from Cinematic's front-man Jason Swinscoe plus Strictly Kev (DJ Food) and DK..

Giveaway: We have nine Cinematic CDs to give away. They'll go to three randomly picked subscribers (each winner will receive a copy of Everyday, Remixes and Motion) who can tell us in what year was the Cinematic Orchestra formed.

Sunday 9 March (1pm)

@ Curzon Mayfair, 38 Curzon St., W1J (0871.871.0011) Tube: Green Park

A one off screening of Gillo Pontecorvo's 1965 classic of radical cinema, Battle of Algiers, with an introduction by model turned actress Saffron Burrows. Why? Or there again, why not? OK, so la Burrows may not be the world's greatest actress (have you seen Deep Blue Sea?) and she is very, very pretty (have you seen Deep Blue Sea?) but KultureFlash utterly rejects the stereotype that being beautiful and not being able to act in any way precludes intelligence, or political commitment, or good taste. Her choice of favourite movie suggests she has all three. It's a landmark masterpiece of political film-making, a virtual set text of anti-colonialism, the mother of all mockumentaries (although Spinal Tap it is definitely not...) and particularly timely, not to say essential, viewing in these days of looming war... We say "Right on, Saffron!"

Sunday 9 March (6pm - 12am )

@ Shoreditch Electricity Showrooms, 39a Hoxton Sq., N1 (020.7739.6934) Tube: Old St.

NERD is a club for the electro-punk contingency of the Hoxton set. It is contained by a venue that may, from some points of view, form the apex of a trend that could be coined "utility kitsch" -- an attempt to realize beauty from otherwise mundane environments like offices, schools and factories. This may not immediately sound like an attractive proposal after a hard day's work in one of these locations, but from another perspective it provides a suitable environment in which to experience a semi-live/DJ set from the urban art-audio samplist Scanner (a.k.a. Robin Rimbaud). Prospecting the hidden depths of the city's audioscape for those golden nuggets of malleable ear-fodder and refining them into musical jewellery presents an interesting slant on the creative process of music, if only for the techniques employed in the generation of Rimbaud's artistic output. Scanner's exploratory sound spans pulling mobile phone conversations from the airwaves (hence the name), through a commission from Artangel to part of an exhibition for Tate Audio. In such projects, he's been known to execute elaborate schemes in order to source the material necessary to create a challenging but progressive listening experience.

NB: Call 020. 7793.0501 for info on Nerd.

Monday 10 March (6:30pm)

@ Geological Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, W1 (020.7434.9944) Tube: Piccadilly Circus

Mexican architect Enrique Norten has one of those textbook CV's that most designers can only dream of. A largely condensed version begins with a prolific academic career, him having been professor of architecture at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City as well as visiting professor at Sci-Arc, Columbia and Harvard. Following a string of honours, including the first ever Mies van der Rohe Award for Latin America, there is the magazine Arquitectura, of which he was a founding member, and of course his own practice, TEN Arquitectos, which has been running since 1985. One of their latest projects is the impressive Visual and Performing Arts Library of the Brooklyn Public Library, to quote Norten a "spontaneously evolving collage of space" due to open in 2007.

NB: For tickets call 020.7300.5839.

Monday 10 March (6:30 - 8pm)

@ The British Library, 96 Euston Road, NW1 (020.7412.7332) Tube: Kings Cross

To be blessed with a creative life is quite a wonderful thing, for it allows the private self to be re-generated into a public self -- no other has made more art out of his own life than Woody Allen -- yet Hanif Kureishi who has brought us such good reads as The Buddha of Surburbia, The Black Album and Intimacy, has also written such touching screenplays as My Beautiful Laundrette and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid. What his work has conveyed is a sense of how a second generation minority assimilates into a culture that, although foreign like a scar, becomes a part of the body. With his more recent work, race takes a back seat to more personal narratives. Just as Salmon Rushdie has moved away from Pakistan, Kureishi's voyage speaks for his English generation as much as his race. As part of the Orangeworld screenwriter's season, Kureishi will be speaking on such topics.

NB: For tickets call 020.7412 7332.

Tuesday 11 March (7:15pm)

@ Design Museum, Butlers Wharf, Shad Thames, SE1 (020.7940.8790) Tube: Tower Hill

The modernist period of architecture is usually remembered as a time of optimism and confidence in the ability of architecture and technology to right the world's wrongs. Since those halcyon days however, there has been considerable post-rationalisation with the received wisdom being that it was all a bit of a dream. But there was at least one group who were wide-awake at the time and well aware of the dystopian nightmares potentially in store for those dreamers. In some ways, Superstudio (founded in Florence in '66) were the anti-Archigram. Using the same classic tools of photo-montage, collage, film and cartoon, armed with similar visionary and imaginative abilities, the Superstudio collective imported one more weapon to bear: cynicism. The current exhibition of Superstudio's oeuvre will look back upon its work as well as trace its influences on subsequent generations from the Memphis Collective in '80s Italy through to the work of Rem Koolhaas and Foreign Office Architects. At a time when London is being flooded with the ideas of uber-modernist Mies van der Rohe, check out Superstudio's alternative plan to flood Florence -- literally. In 1972, as a response to the conservative Save the Historic Centres campaign, Superstudio proposed damming the Arno and flooding Florence, leaving only the dome of the Cathedral above the waterline.

NB: For tickets call 020.7940.8783 or email talks@designmuseum.org. Also, this talk coincides with Superstudio's Life Without Objects exibition at the Design Museum (ends 08/06).

Tuesday 11 March (8.30pm)

@ Barbican Centre, Barbican Centre, EC2 (020.7638.8891) Tube: Barbican

Tabla Beat Science (Palm Pictures) started out as a studio collaboration between Indian-born tabla don Zakir Hussain and ambient experimentalist Bill Laswell. Hussain is a percussion phenomenon, the accompanist of choice for many of India's premiere classical musicians, and a protagonist of the early World music scene. Laswell, back in the '80s, worked with Brian Eno, David Byrne and Herbie Hancock; since then he's collaborated with, amongst others, Peter Gabriel, Mick Jagger, John Zorn, and Pharoah Sanders. He was also behind controversial remix interpretations of the works of Miles Davis and Bob Marley. For this Barbican concert (Only Connect Festival) he will be joined by a host of members from the loose-knit collective which Tabla Beat Science has grown to become, including Pandit Ganesh Iyer, Karsh Kale, Gigi and acclaimed Norwegian trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer. Indian rhythms, African vocals, modern electronics, low-end dub bass, swirling ambient soundscapes and frenetic drum patterns combine to form a unique intersection of sonic pathways. The interplay between the musicians -- their experiences and influences -- is devastatingly original, pushing music into uncharted territories, and sweeping you along on their journey.

Giveaway: We have one pair of tickets for this show and three copies of TBS' live San Francisco CD to give away. One randomly picked subscriber will get the tickets and a CD two other subscribers will get a CD. To win tell us who wrote the song "I left my heart in San Francisco".

Thursday 13 March (7:30pm)

@ Whitechapel, 80-82 Whitechapel High St., E1 (020.7522.7888) Tube: Aldgate East

Following it's centenary celebrations in 2001, the Whitechapel Art Gallery is poised to acquire the building next to it which will provide them with more space, hence better exhibitions, more archive facilities and most importantly, more public services. Note that the Whitechapel has one of the better public outreach programs in London. For this gala benefit event (all proceeds go to support the Whitechapel's education programme), avant-garde composer Michael Nyman is premiering his new score to Manhatta -- the first 9 min American avant-garde film (1921) directed by Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler -- as well as material from his new opera Facing Goya with singers Annett Robbert and Hilary Sumners. If that's not enough, there'll be a Champagne reception, cabaret-supper and a dessert of a silent auction. So let the moths out of your cheque book and put your glad rags on!

NB: For tickets call 020.7522.7870 or email JulieKoeltz@whitechapel.org.

Giveaway: We have one pair of tickets for this benefit to give away. It'll go to one randomly picked subscriber who can tell us where Nyman was born.

Ends Sunday 16 March

@ ICA, The Mall, SW1 (020.7930.3647) Tube: Charing Cross/Piccadilly

Like waves crashing upon the shore, the point in which art meets the public can be loud, wild and very wet. Publicness, the ICA's latest show is one of artifacts in that all the items on view really belong in the public sphere. That is... it's merely a display of interventions, signs, taunts, relics and jokes. Jens Haaning transposes the ICA's Bar chairs sent to Karachi for all to pick up; and a sweat shop displaced into an art gallery), while Matthieu Laurette's tests political limits, in his attempt to represent more than one country at the 2001 Venice Biennale by having Harald Szeeman -- esteemed Biennale curator -- write to all embassies asking them to present Laurette with citizenship. Aleksandra Mir on the other hand, with her painted Pink Tank in South London, proposal to build a monumental sculpture of "little people" in St. James' Park, re-sets the ideas of public sculpture. This is a show to be imagined out of the gallery and in a public context. See it, and take in the lesson that public art and maybe all art, can be serious and yet still fun, like waves crashing on the beach.

NB: Jens Haaning's Foreigner's Free is at the box office, this piece offers free entry to the ICA to anyone who is not British!

Ends Sunday 16 March (Daily 10am - 5pm)

@ Sketch, 9 Conduit st., W1 (0870.777.4488) Tube: Oxford Circus

Sketch is probably the most ambitious venue in London today. Created by Mourad Mazouz of Momo fame, Sketch is eatery, drinkery, scenery... a venue for all the senses with a price-tag to match. If what you put in your mouth is not artful, then there's plenty to feast your eyes upon. The largest room, Gallery, is the artworld equivalent of an IMAX cinema. A Four-wall overhead projection (12 projectors in total) and certainly one of the most expensive sound systems about, and an all white 2001aspaceodyssey decor (make sure you check out the bathrooms -- Schrager meets Alien), it's a fine setting for Jason Evan's and Ivan Seal's Heaven. A collaboration between photographer and sound artist respectively, Heaven simply is a black and white, close head and shoulders crop of 12 models -- Storm no less -- interpreting the stage directions they've been given. Francis Bacon grimaces these aren't, rather the "characters" run through a gamut of facial expressions. It's more an excercise in communicating with the face, and certainly with Seal's subtle soundwork -- a heavily filtered refrain "Oh lord, forgive us our foolish ways" -- it's a gesture towards the ugliness of beauty and the beauty of ugliness. Given the event nature of this place, curation will always be a challenge, but the results should be interesting if not quaffable!

Ends Friday 28 March

@ Various cinemas across London

Frida Kahlo together with her husband muralist Diego Rivera, are probably still Mexico's most famous international artists. Frida like her surreal, passionate, figurative retablo, is passionate and sad, funny and inspirational, warm and educational. The soundtrack is mixed but striking, and the actors -- with the possible exception of Geoffrey Rush as a rather bland Leon Trotsky -- all deliver great performances. Salma Hayek, a huge Kahlo fan, fought hard to get this project off the ground, the end-result being a biography probably more accurate than many others out of Hollywood. Julie Taymor, who is maturing into a very influential female director, clearly appreciates beauty in all its forms. The riveting splendour on screen is not limited to the range of many beautiful and talented women -- Hayek, Ashley Judd, Valeria Golino and less famous faces -- but it incorporates innovative, magical allusions to where life turns into art, and art turns into life without forcing interpretations on the viewer. And that, dear KultureFlasher, was the life of Frida Kahlo.

Ends Saturday 29 March (Mon to Frid 10am - 6pm; Sat 11am - 4pm)

@ Spruth Magers Lee, 12 Berkeley St., W1 (020.7491.0100) Tube: Green Park

The combined forces of Monika Spruth and Philomene Magers brought real art muscle to '90s Munich and Cologne, with classic American Minimalism and Conceptual art (Judd, Baldassari, Flavin) spiced along with younger players. Now with Simon Lee -- formerly of d'Offay's then 11 Duke Street on board -- they're gonna Vinniejones their way through London. First kick, in advance of next year's Tate survey, goes to Minimalist maestro Donald Judd (1928-94). Curated by long-time Judd collaborator Peter Ballantine around the colour brown, the objects span Judd's career -- some even from collections. Despite their simplicity, Judd came to his basic structures via painting, hence colour is not to be underrated as an aspect of his work. Today, it's difficult to appreciate the radical anti-painting but also anti-sculptural nature of these things. Yet with their matter-of-fact and fact-of-matter qualities, they produce their actual desired result: mass, structure, literalness and repetition, now all part of the modernist language yet so new in the '60s. So with an international line up that includes Fischli and Weiss (Swiss), Martin Kippenberger (German) and Barbara Kruger (American), is this the new Arsenal? If so which is Bergkamp, and is this year's Champions League final squaring up to be one of Arsenal vs. Real? Only time will tell...

Ends Saturday 5 April (Tue to Fri 10am - 6pm, Sat 10am - 1pm)

@ aspreyjacques, 4 Clifford St., W1S (020.7287.7675) Tube: Piccadilly Circus

"But what about love, But what about love", pleads Pam in an unending repetition of a moment seized from that quintessential American soap, Dallas. The monitor which has caught her familiar face, speaks to itself. Around it are scattered similar TV screens bearing the head and shoulders of Jock Ewing, Miss Ellie, Sue Ellen and Christopher, each character similarly caught in a never-ending video loop of repeated phrases, trapped through an inability to communicate beyond their own box. aspreyjacques, having been painted with avocado green walls, and fitted with wall-to-wall beige carpet, has become their natural habitat. For Diorama, Candice Breitz has transformed the gallery into a vaguely retro two-roomed domestic interior, complete with double bed, wardrobe and three-piece-suite. Played simultaneously, the maddening chatter coming from the monitors belies the true drama created by the still emptiness of an interior devoid of real human beings. (Show ends 05/04.)

NB: Diorama, produced during her residency at ArtPace (San Antonio, USA), is the artist's first solo show in London.