Wednesday 7 May (6:30pm)

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

It is often so easy to diss engineers and mathematicians as boring geeks with their shirts tucked in and coloured pens in their pockets. Just like putting together the various musical bits and bobs that give the song "Leaving On A Jet Plane" its elan, some of these engineers have spent hours blending the mathematics and engineering, shaken with a large dose of imagination, to make the engines that allow jet planes to fly. Never forget that Leonardo, in addition to being one hell of a draughtsman, also dreamt of flying. Unlike Leonardo, Geoff Kirk has not only realised this dream, but as chief design engineer at Rolls Royce, he has brought us such small design wonders as the Trent 500 engine for the Airbus A340 and the Trent 900 for the new super-jumbo jet the A3XX (now called the A380). Have you ever wondered just how those things work?... and how we stay up in the air? Well here's your chance to ask. In any case, we bet Geoff has a really nice ride...

NB: For tickets call 020.7940.8783 or email talks@designmuseum.org.

Wednesday 7 May (6:30 - 8pm)

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

Marcel Duchamp was the undisputed champ of originality and contrariness. In his own words, he was "an artist, chess player, cheese dealer, breather, fenetrier". He had an almost childlike conception of the physical world, defamiliarising objects with his fresh vision. Turning a urinal into a sculpture simply by placing it in a gallery space was a truly revolutionary act as well as a joke -- with such "found" art, Duchamp sought to liberate artistic expression from what he saw as the tyranny of the hand. Tonight Sarat Maharaj (Professor of Art History and Theory at Goldsmith's College) speaks to the legendary Pop artist Richard Hamilton about Duchamp's legacy and influence on Hamilton himself. Maharaj has commented (in the catalogue to Hamilton's '92 exhibition at the Tate) that "all branches put out by Duchamp have borne fruit, yet no individual may claim to be his heir. He can have no progeny because his wisdom has led ultimately to neutrality." Hamilton is perhaps as close to an heir as Duchamp has got, and his continuing influence on Brit artists such as Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin is palpable -- even if they lack Duchamp's startling invention.

Wednesday 7 May (7:30pm)

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

The prolific contemporary poet, playwright, and analytical psychologist Peter Redgrove is a major twentieth century literary figure: having produced over twenty volumes of poetry, numerous radio plays, novels, and non-fiction works. The winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in '96, amongst many other awards and honours, Redgrove's style eschews verbal and prosaic accessibility, explicit narration, and direct confession; instead, he prefers to only communicate by means of agonisingly intense imagery, offering an intuitive clarity, and pictorial encoding of emotion. This event sees Redgrove paying a rare visit to London from his home in Cornwall, to discuss his new poetry collection From the Virgil Caverns with poet and critic Michael Baylev.

Wednesday 7 May (7:30 - 11pm)

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

Warp Records have launched a new project to nurture and foster new artists and initiatives in the UK's burgeoning electronic music community. The Logarhythm Electronic Music Consortium's first endeavour in attracting new audiences and increasing the exposure of electronic music is a nationwide tour, taking in 93 Feet East, headlined by Warp inventors, Mira Calix and Chris Clark. The capacity audience who experienced the debut live performance of Calix's groundbreaking and beautiful work, Nunu (a live collaboration between members of the London Sinfonietta, Mira herself and a collection of chirping insects), at the recent Ether festival on the South Bank, were left enthralled. Her recent release, Skimskitta, is composed of tracks of similar organic soundscaping and experimentation. Chris Clark makes music of equal glitchy ingenuity. His forthcoming EP Ceramics is The Bomb (out 19/05), comprises five tracks of acid techno, click house, and ambient invention, promising an edgy, hard-hitting live set. Accompanying them on this date of the tour will be Warp DJ N.E.D. and Touchin' Bass' Andrea Parker -- whose excellent electro set at the last Lost on Easter Sunday kept Heaven's dancefloor happy right into Easter Monday....

Giveaway: We have one copy of Skimskitta, and one copy of Ceramics is The Bomb to give away. They'll go to two randomly picked subscribers who can tell us how many full-length releases does Mira Calix have.

Wednesday 7 May (Wed 07/05 to Sun 11/05 at 7:45pm)

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

In the '70s, well actually '81, Laurie Anderson did what many artists -- especially in performance -- so desperately wanted but feared to do; she had a hit single: Oh Superman! But anyone who has caught her performances will understand that what the New York artist has achieved is a unique blend of performance art, leftie politics, avant-garde music, funky hair and, most importantly, spinning a good yarn. Catch anything she's made and you'll see that the true power of Anderson's art lies in her ability to re-count a tale, and not model the prowess of her hair-dresser. Currently being dated by Lou Reed -- yes that one, and it is he who is gaining cred from her -- and part of that Gordon Matta-Clark generation, Anderson has maintained the politicised nature of her life-work by putting her name down on the Not In Our Name statement against the invasion of Iraq. Following the events of 9/11, she has placed herself in a series of different situations -- e.g. working in fast food -- and her new work pared of the hi-tech stuff, brings results like Happiness.

NB: Happiness will be performed over five nights Wed 07/05 to Sun 11/05 and is part of BITE03 the Barbican's annual series of performing arts.

Giveaway: We have two pairs of tickets for Happiness to give away (and you winners get to choose the night). They'll go to two randomly picked subscribers who can tell us the name of the album that Oh Superman! is on.

Thursday 8 May (6:30pm)

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

Scenes From a Marriage (1973), is one of those lost Ingmar Bergman pieces that disappeared in history under the weight of a wide array of Bergman classics such as The Seventh Seal and Cries and Whispers. This film may look brighter and livelier than most of his other work -- but it is as dark and brutal, honest and bitter as we have come to expect from Bergman. This screening will give Londoners a chance to experience Scenes From a Marriage, and a rare chance to experience its star: Liv Ullmann. She is Norway's most visibible international actress and also an established director. Ullman worked with Bergman on a number of occasions, and knew him intimately behind the scenes (their daughter Linn Ullmann, is the author of three novels that have all been critically acclaimed in a number of countries). Her last directorial project was Faithless -- a semi-autobiographical piece written by Bergman himself. She will be joined in this panel discussion by Bergman biographer Maaret Koskinen, and the Head of Music for Swedish Television, Camilla Lundberg.

NB: The event is part of the Barbican's mini-Bergman retrospective (runs from Thu 08/05 to Sun 11/05).

Thursday 8 May (7:30pm)

@ The Spitz, Old Spitalfields Market, 109 Commercial St., E1 (020.7392.9032) Tube: Aldgate East/Liverpool St.

The Rogers Sisters look like Sleater Kinney's more suave cousins: sleeker, uber-stylish and significantly more musically schizophrenic. Apart from the fact that bassist Miyuki, is in fact a boy and not related to sisters Laura and Jennifer, the New York power-trio sound like one big happy dysfunctional gene pool of influences. Appropriating the "party band to play at the end of the world" mantle from The B52's, the aerobic punk funk basslines from Talking Heads and the irreverent joie de vivre of Devo, it's a spritely take on New Wave's dirty washing. Touching more lyrical bases than The Moldy Peaches -- they have songs about Freddie Mercury and being a ballerina -- they're definately a breath of fresh air. Come with tongue placed firmly in cheek.

NB: Support from Lomax and C64

Friday 9 May (Fri 09/05 and Sat 10/05 11am - 6:30pm)

@ Tate Modern, Bankside, SE1 (020.7887.8008) Tube: Southwark/Blackfriars

Will we ever have digital rapture? Certainly we've passed that Tron moment, in fact it's more a Martrix-like infinity dream by William Gibson. Everything from porn, to theatre, to writing and war, the world has become more mediated and interactive: that is, user_mode! This is the theme to the Tate's latest and quite pertinent symposium, which considers this digital world but with emphasis on its humane, emotive aspects. That is what we add with our hearts to what our minds have built... In conjunction with this event, there is also an evening of music (Sat 10/05 8pm), with Montreal-based musician Akufen (aka Marc Leclair), sound artist/musician Janek Schaefer, and NY artist/composer Golan Levin, all of whom rethink and rework music and sound, with tools like mobile phones, vinyl records, microsamples of radio broadcasts... Prepare to be drawn into an interactive a simmering, pulsating evening, bleeps and all. Expect X-box game in near future!

NB: user_mode takes place over two days Fri 09/05 and Sat 10/05 (11am to 6:30pm). Participants taking part in the symposium are amongst others: Joshua Davis, Gary Hill and David Ross. For tickets call 020.7887.8888 or email tateticketing@tate.org.uk.

Friday 9 May (6:30pm)

@ Architectural Association, 34-36 Bedford Square, WC1 (020.7887.4000 ) Tube: Tottenham Court Rd.

Drawing can be many things, from stick-figures, to maps, to cutting lines right through a building (that is sawing a house in half). The art world has a very short memory, so often we think that the multi-medium artiste is really a creature of today or, at best, a product of a certain German culture. Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-78) is a classic '70s artist -- not a reference to his choice of bellbottoms or Night Fevering -- but the range of his exploration likes so many American artists of that period: films, drawings, photographs, performance, and yes cutting houses... Of course, he was part of that post-Minimalist exploratory generation that intellectualised process, and took a pragmatic approach to the creativity, but it is acts like Food, a restaurant set up in SoHo for the exchange of ideas between artists or to blur the distinction between art and life, and the building cuts that he is remembered for. Sure the cuts are considerations of time, drawing even architecture, a structural language, but imagine the consequences if he'd opened a Ramen bar instead...

NB: Gordon Matta-Clark: The Space Between runs till Sat 30/05. Lisa Le Feuvre is talking on his legacy on Fri 9/05, but most importantly, on Wed 07/05 Gumbo from his Food recipes will be served in the AA dining room (12:15 - 2pm).

Saturday 10 May

@ Varous cinemas across London

In this, his third film, Swedish Director Lukas Moodysson portrays the harrowing tale of a 16 year old girl left to fend for herself "somewhere" in the former Soviet Union. Coming on the back of the much acclaimed Show Me Love and Together, Moodysson continues his look at youth culture, but raises much darker issues of child abuse and prostitution. Camera movements are fluid, while slow motion and muffled sound grab the viewer at crucial moments. Euro-metal and dance encompasses the audience allowing us to feel Lilya's (Oskana Akinshina) overwhelming despair. The plot is simple and at times predictable, but it is this that makes the film the more powerful. Lilya 4-Ever, which was shown as part of the touring Human Rights Watch International Film Festival in March (check out KultureFlash issue # 37) and won in five categories at Sweden's 38th Guldbagge Awards, is a distressing tale of poverty and neglect. The portrayal of Lilya's friendship with 11 year old Volodia (Artiom Bogucharskij), who provides the only stability and enjoyment for her, is at times truly moving. There is nothing to dislike about Lilya and it is this ability of Moodysson, to capture the essence of a character that makes the viewer form an emotional bond and makes his work all the more compelling.

Saturday 10 May (Sat 10/05 and Sun 11/05 11am - 6pm)

@ The Drawing Room, 55 Laburnum St., E2 (020.7729.9333)

For the artist, drawing -- in addition to being a primal childhood act -- is one of the most accessible and direct forms of visual communication. For a basic medium consisting of a pointed object across a surface, drawing's range is incredibly broad: from Picasso's renovation of the modern draughtsman's language by reducing it to its basic structures, to Twombly turning the autograph, scrawl and scribble into a signature style to Matta-Clark's building cuts. However, drawing has constantly been marginalised -- check out its prices, you can still build a substantial and serious collection with very little; sorta the way Arsenal or Alan Curbishly has built-up his team compared to Fergie's finances -- until New York City's Drawing Center made significant gains for the medium with its fine balance of contemporary group shows and more classical exhibitions (e.g. mini-retrospectives of Kelly, de Kooning, James Ensor). Now under the auspices of Mary Doyle from the CAS, Katherine Stout of Tate Britain and freelance curator Kate Macfarlane, London is truly gonna be a world class city with its own space dedicated to drawing: the Drawing Room!

NB: With 120 works from kids like Andrew Bick and Paul Morrison to London stalwarts like David Austen, Fionna Banner, Mark Wallinger and Rachel Whiteread the Drawing Room will be holding a one evening, sealed-bid auction to kick-off its new space on Friday 09/05 (6 - 8pm). Free viewing for the public on Sat 10/05 and Sun 11/05. KF certainly plans to swell its coffers by acquiring some cool scrawls!

Giveaway: The Drawing Room is holding 50 tickets for you KultureFlashers at the door on Friday evening, just use the magic words "kultureflash.net."

Sunday 11 May (7pm)

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

Remember back in the day when you would listen to De La, to Tribe, to the JBs? Listen to those cats sitting on your bed reading, throwing the b-boy stance in front of that mirror attached to the back of your wardrobe door, doing your homework? Remember how your mum would scream at you to turn that rubbish down, that this shit was rotting your cerebellum? Parents just don't understand. And for that matter, sometimes you didn't understand -- remember how you'd try hard as hell to work out what they were spouting half of the time (afterall it did take us while to work out what a Purdue chicken was from that 3 Feet High skit...). But that shit felt special, it felt fresh, it felt -- no it was -- uniquely yours. If Hip-Hop was once a way of life to you and if you don't know what the hell is going on with it any more, support Ugly Duckling like you'd support your own grandmother, because it's people like them that are keeping the art form alive.

Giveaway: We have a pair of tickets for this gig to give away. It'll go to one randomly picked subscriber who can tell us where Ugly Duckling hail from.

Tuesday 13 May (6:30pm)

@ RIBA, 66 Portland Place, W1 (020.7580.5533) Tube: Portland St./Regent's Park

Arranging a competition to have today's architects come up with a range of new suggestions and solutions for Athens, a city in which the Acropolis and its Parthenon still stand as principal icons of the proportional perfection that came out of the Periclean Age (which in turn has had a continuing influence on building styles for the last 2000 years), is a bit like having contemporary writers make some additions to the Bible. Freshen it up a bit. Edit out a few tedious parts. Make it a bit... funky. Yet this is exactly what the arrangers of Design Of Ephemeral Structures (D.O.E.S.) have done. The competition "offered the opportunity for architects worldwide to propose radical interventions into the urban fabric of Athens" and, quite remarkably, attracted 472 design schemes from 53 countries. The reason for choosing Athens is, of course, the transformation of the city that will result from Greece hosting the 2004 Olympics. In addition to their current competition exhibition, Athens-Scape, RIBA is arranging two talks to coincide with the exhibiton.

Part I -- Tue 06/05:
Speakers: Elia Zenghelis (architect and chair of the jury for the D.O.E.S. competition), Zaha Hadid (architect and Ephemeral Structures jury member), and Mark Cousins (director of general studies at the AA and member of the competition's programme team).

Part II -- Tue 13/05:
Speakers: Bernard Tschumi (architect of the New Acropolis Museum and dean of GSAP) and Professor Dimitrios Pandermalis (president of the Organisation of the Construction of the New Acropolis Museum).

Friday 16 May (See below NB for details)

@ Private West London Venue

We imagine deepbluemusic to be the Ford model agency or Gagosian of the DJ world, with the likes of Zack Frost pimping out, amongst others, Bert Bevans, Maurice Fulton and Simon Lee (Faze Action). Begun in Brixton in '95, dbm was simply a way to get the best underground DJs under one roof, last year they began West End evenings which have become legend and have been receiving kudos in Sleazenation and Jockeyslut. So with the excuse of the Norwegian national day, and one hip, house/electro party Bjorn Torske (Svek, Ferox and Telle Records) -- offical tour DJ for Royksopp (also their remixer and co-producer) -- add housemeisters Zak Frost and Dan Jordan, dbm are celebrating their first West-end anniversary. They're promising to party down Nordic style...

NB: This is an advance ticket only event. For tickets email norwayparty@deepbluemusic.com or call 07976.961.167.

There is no guestlist and there will be absolutely no admission on the door.

Giveaway: We have a pair of tickets to give away. They'll go to one randomly picked subscriber who can tell us who runs dbm.

Tuesday 13 May (7pm)

@ Underworld, 174 Camden High St., NW1 (020.7482.1932) Tube: Camden Town

A big tour to promote their miniature album Glass (released in the UK on 16/06), shows The Sea and Cake's commitment to their trade. Once again, we have the opportunity to be pleasantly basted in their clean, jazz-tinged melodia, even though this is the only date they have scheduled for the U.K. this time around. This is a chance to let the music of the guys from Windy City seep through you like the sipping of a refreshing drink on a roof-garden patio; high above the diesel-clogged streets of the city below. A swift skiffle of sweet guitars, meticulously blended with some inconspicuously-placed synthesizers should serve to cool the brow and lower the heart rate to a healthy summer mode. A welcome seasonal adjustment to hail the dawn of summer...?...

Giveaway: We have two copies of One Bedroom to give away. They'll go to two randomly picked subscribers who can tell us how many members make up The Sea and Cake.

Wednesday 14 May (8pm)

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

Unique he may well be, "successful" he is not -- but like all lunatic, genius typettes of the absurd he is an outsider to ya regular sized, homogenised, categorised, contemporary popular music. Seriously, this chappie has a career span to rival Madonna's, with more albums and an international following of those who like the uncommon. Momus is, as his name suggests, a mockery merchant, comically critiquing the world around us in some kinda futoromantic, music hall stylee. A new-ish album, Oskar Tennis Champion, and rare-ish performances in Berlin and our own ICA, give you the chance to get with his cabaret pop. Momus is the "most underrated man in pop", he is Vaseline compared to Oil of Olay, Absinthe (without the sugar) to a Lager. Erm... make sense...?...almost...

Giveaway: We have a pair of tickets for this gig to give away. It'll go to one randomly picked subscriber who can tell us his real name.

Ends Saturday 31 May (Tue to Sat 11am - 6pm)

@ Corvi-Mora, 22 Warren St., W1 (020.7383.2419) Tube: Warren St./Great Portland St.

Evidence of a real sex crime, murder, or abduction of a young woman are revealed in Andrea Salvino's latest show. An initial painting of a police file portrait indicates the victim. Reproduced in a mildly Expressionist manner, it is easy to read more into her blank stare once we scan the seedy tabloid images being read by an anonymous coach passenger in the adjacent scene. In the largest of the three canvases, used condoms litter a dank and shadowy woodland copse where sinister trees twist and lean, a blizzardy impasto at first obscuring this squalid spot. Salvino typically paints from an archive of photographs that record the social and political conflicts in Italy during the '70s. Revisiting these reports, he addresses the role of the media, how it constructs history, and informs the collective memory. Eschewing the blurry, black and white photorealism of Gerhard Richter's infamous October 18, 1977 series, Salvino adopts the respectable pointillism of late 19th Century social realist Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpeda, skillfully highlighting issues of class, taste and tolerance through his provocative accounts.

Ends Saturday 7 June (Mon to Sat 10am - 5pm)

@ Hales Gallery, 70 Deptford High Street, SE8 (020.8694.1194) Tube: New Cross

Appearances can be deceptive... Richard Galpin's objects first appear to be colourful Constructivist-like, rythmns of floating rectangles however, on closer inspection, they turn out to be photographs which have been scrapped down to the white paper, the remaining elements making up the image. Like Louise Hopkins, Jonathan Parsons and Ewan Gibbs before him, it is not the sheer consumption of time that entices one to Galpin's work, rather the photographs of London which form the basis of his object, which is then deleted to leave a delicate palimpsest of Modernist austerity, rides that tricky balance between conceptual chic and contemplative elegance. (Show ends Sun 07/06.)

NB: Galpin's work is also currently in Urban Space And What To Make Of It at the Angel Row Gallery in Nottingham with Graham Seaton and Jane Wilbraham. (Ends 21/06.)