Tuesday 2 March (6:30pm)

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

Standing in front of one of Antony Gormley's beautifully silent works, the concept of collaboration doesn't spring to mind. It's all about being alone, or, "together alone" in the case of Field for the British Isles. On its 2003 installation at the British Museum visitors jostled, avoiding eye contact with one another, to get the "alonest" positioning possible to view the rows of little terracotta people. It can be a bittersweet pleasure to find common ground with Gormley's work because it so often involves a painful reminder that we really are individuals and if we want to go beyond that it's going to hurt. This talk then, between Gormley and the architect of his new studio David Chipperfield, is likely to reflect the tensions, differences and understandings reached between individuals who are willing to endure the initial awkwardness of collaboration to produce something that's larger than the sum of their parts.

NB: For those architectural flashers out there Willem Jan Neutelings is giving a talk on Thu 04/03 and Ben Van Berkel on Tue 09/03. Check the AA website for details.

Thursday 4 March (6:30pm)

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

Worked for Rem Koolhaas? Check. Built weirdly exciting buildings in boring bits of Holland? Check. Written frequently on the urban condition? Check. If you believe a bunch of people doing cool stuff around the same time in about the same place, constitutes an architectural movement, then Willem Jan Neutelings undoubtedly marches under the Superdutch banner. But life (and architecture) is not as simple as that. As one half of partnership Neutelings Riedjik, the practice's buildings are less Rem and more, well, just them. No fashionable minimal modernism here -- their constructions have a certain massiveness about them, and are full of referential symbols. A printworks features facades covered in typeface; the Minnaert building has a surface made from red spray-on concrete, and huge storey-height letters holding up one corner. Breda Fire Station is what a fire station should look like -- bright red, with Thunderbirds styling and a fab control tower. It's no wonder the buildings evoke such strong imagery -- Neutelings often presents his proposals to clients in the unmistakable aesthetic form of cartoon sketches, but this belies a complex and thoughtful architecture.

NB: For those architectural flashers out there David Chipperfield and Antony Gormley are giving a talk on Tue 04/03 and Ben Van Berkel on Tue 09/03. Check the AA website for details.

Thursday 4 March (8pm)

@ 291 Gallery, 291 Hackney Rd., E2 (020.7613.5676) Tube: Liverpool St./Old St./Bethnal Green

After a decade as a member of celebrated London classical keyboard sextet Piano Circus, Anglo-German composer Max Richter now ploughs his own furrow. The 38-year-old's poised, often achingly melodic music is all about the notion of time and the poignancy of memory. His debut "solo" outing for the BBC's Late Junction imprint, 2002's Memoryhouse, was a moving sonic portmanteau that ushered the listener through various key moments of 20th century history. It sounds a mite pretentious in print, but on record it's a seamlessly evocative modern classical voyage; recommended to anyone who finds Steve Reich's vaguely similar Different Trains a compelling listen. Richter has just released The Blue Notebooks through essential Brighton label FatCat's esoteric 130701 division. Referencing Franz Kafka's Blue Ocatavo Notebooks (with suitably deadpan readings from actress Tilda Swinton) and blending gently baroque strings with Richter's own luminous piano and subtle electronics, the album treads a fine line between ascetic classical composition and Rachel's-like palm-court-meets-post-rock soundscaping. This show will, regrettably, not feature Swinton, but Richter promises a string quintet and additional keyboards, and the 291's numinous atmosphere will undoubtedly guarantee an evening of redolent, meditative delight.

Giveaway: We have two copies of The Blue Notebooks to give away. They'll go to two randomly picked Flashers who can tells us which drum 'n' bass pioneer has Richter collaborated with.

Friday 5 March

@ National Film Theatre, South Bank, SE1 (020.7928.3232) Tube: Embankment/Waterloo

Though he only directed a small number of films, Jean Cocteau's unique cinematic vision has had a lasting influence on successive generations of film-makers. His often extraordinary dreamlike images and playful, almost home-movie approach to narrative and style not only linked him with the avant-garde but in many ways anticipated the French New Wave. This month the NFT celebrates the cinema of Jean Cocteau with a major retrospective (01/03 to 24/03) that includes a new print of his masterpiece Orphee (1950). In this updating of the Orpheus legend to post-war Paris, Cocteau replaces Hades with a mysterious chateau ruled by a strange and ruthless princess, divine messengers are bikers in leather, and messages from the gods are broadcast on a car radio. Much of the film's success derives from Cocteau's childlike delight in cinema's magical potential; slow motion, reverse projection, and mercury vats in place of mirrors are some of the simple but effective techniques used to depict Orphee's journey between this world and the next. As Godard said: "Jean Cocteau tirelessly demonstrates that in order to create cinema we must rediscover Melies, and quite a few light years are still necessary for this."

NB: The Institute Francais is holding a special day of free events focusing on every aspect of Cocteau's work with Claude Arnaud (Cocteau's biographer), director Claude Pinoteau (Cocteau's assistant on six films), Kerry Fox and Tim Woodward (Sat 06/03 3 - 7pm). For other Cocteau films, check BFI site for details.

Friday 5 March

@ Various cinemas across London

Sometimes a blink of the eyes can change your life forever. How much does life weigh? So goes the subtitle to the new film from Amores Perros (2000) director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Less epic in scope than his first film, this work nonetheless drives hard in its relentless study of the human spirit, weighing life so to speak. Shot almost entirely with hand-held cameras, strong performances are turned in from Oscar nominee Benicio Del Toro (an ex-con who has discovered faith), Sean Penn (a mathematician who is waiting for a heart transplant), Oscar nominee Naomi Watts (a woman who donates her dying husbands heart to Penn) and Charlotte Gainsbourg (Penn's girlfriend), 21 Grams, like the fragmented story structure of Amores Perros, unfolds as a singular tale. To what ends does man drive himself? What can love and debt do to you? How far can life push you before you crack? These Shakespearean themes and many others pervade this film, but it is the strength of casting and the unfolding visual structure of this narrative that captivates you from start to finish.

Friday 5 March (Fri 05/03 to Sun 07/03)

@ Various venues see LUX site for details

A weekend-long event curated by Mark Webber of Lux in collaboration with the Candid Arts Trust, The Wire magazine, and CARTE. This retrospective brings the two pioneers of "electronic video-making" back to the UK for a second time. The event will feature performances (including Steina's live adaptation of the 1970 piece Violin Power) and lectures (Woody will present an illustrated lecture on audiovisual relationships in early video and cathode ray tube experimentation). There will also be a free continuous screening of their previous work at the Candid Arts Trust. The couple -- originally from Czechoslovakia, now living in New Mexico -- are considered to be, alongside Nam June Paik, the founders of contemporary video art. In 1971 the Vasulkas co-founded The Kitchen, an electronic laboratory for experimentation with sounds and images that became one of NYC's artistic centres, presenting screenings, performances and concerts. Having asked the 17-year-old Rhys Chatham to promote the music venue, they managed to invite La Monte Young on one special evening to present his forthcoming release. From then, as the couple put it, the Kitchen "had its place in the map". Highly recommended to both novices and video art passionates.

NB: This mini-Vasulka festival runs for three days (Fri 05/03 - Sun 07/03).

Friday 5 March (8pm till late)

@ Buffalo Bar, 259 Upper St., N1 (020.7359.6191) Tube: Highbury & Islington

From the people who bring you London's hottest monthly club night -- The Basement Club -- comes a special performance by New York institution, Lach. Originator of the influential Antifolk movement in NYC, Lach was a forefather of the scene's venues, labels and bands. With the creation of the Antifolk launch-pad, the East Village's Sidewalk Cafe Venue and Fortified Records, Lach piloted Antifolk to become a staple of the New York underground rock circuit, pushing the boundaries of modern music. Lach's own critically-lauded albums and live performances -- on his own and with his NYC backing-act The Secrets, who include Roy Edroso of the East Side's cult The Reverb Motherf**kers, and Billy Ficca of legendary punk-revolutionaries Television -- have influenced a whole generation of artists, including luminaries such as Beck. Of late, Lach has nurtured some of the hottest names in music including The Moldy Peaches, Regina Spektor and Jeffrey Lewis. Rising UK stars Paul The Girl and Artrocker DJs will be in support.

NB: Held in the intimate Buffalo Bar, The Basement Club is a monthly co-promotion between The Strokes' producer Gordon Raphael and online music-magazine rockfeedback.com. The Basement Club always sells out, so reserve your advance entry by emailing thebasement@rockfeedback.com.

Saturday 6 March (10am - 6pm)

@ Middlesex University, White Hart Lane, N17 (020.8411.5898) Tube: Wood Green

Does the noise of aircrafts bother you? Is your washing machine an environmental menace? Do you consider radio static interference as a nuisance while listening to The Archers? Does most electronic music today too closely resemble unlistenable pulverising noise? Perhaps it's perfect timing to consider the emerging relationship between noise and music. Take a trip to the very end of White Hart Lane to attend Middlesex University's symposium, trimly titled NOISETHEORYNOISE#1. Are we shouting in block capitals? With speakers exploring Turbulence: The Art of War in the Art of Noise, Scrabbling at the Lock: Accepting Failure in Lachenmann, Autechre and Resplendent (among others), Goodbye 20th Century: Noise, Modernism, Aesthetics, and Why Hardcore Goes Soft: Adorno, Japanese Noise and the Extirpation of Dissonance, you can stall your call to the Noise Abatement Society to listen and consider these issues. Remember, none of the arts is entirely mute and John Cage focused on the idea of noise/music in his creations in order to "quieten the mind, to open it to divine influence". Esteemed artists Brandon LaBelle and Achim Wollscheid (Selektion) will curate a soundtrack to accompany the day. Ear plugs are entirely optional.

NB: The price of admission includes tea, coffee and sandwiches.

Saturday 6 March (Daily 10am - 5:45pm; Fri until 9pm)

@ Design Museum, Butlers Wharf, Shad Thames, SE1 (0870.833.9955) Tube: Tower Hill

Last year's inaugural Designer of the Year award was won by the 36-year-old wunderkind and iMac Daddy Jonathan Ive, whose visionary genius lay in the fact that he could make a stereo feel like a cigarette pack in your pocket. Judged by Ive, alongside architect David Adjaye, Brooke Hodge, Neil Stevenson, Design Museum director Alice Rawsthorn and a cool-as-a-cucumber British public, this year's line-up features He-Who-Made-The-Boot-That-Jonny-Wore. It also runs the gamut from computer games that are poetic and sensual digital animations (Daniel Brown) through steel, 3D MIKROmen (Sam Buxton) to polystyrene cups which have been reinvented as sculptural, almost lunar lights (Paul Cocksedge). Slouch along oh-so-nonchalantly in your Paper Denim & Cloth jeans and cast your vote.

NB: Runs till 13/06. Winner announced on 24/05.

Saturday 6 March (Sat 06/03 to Thu 18/03)

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

Another year, another Ether festival... 2004 stylee. KultureFlash likes to keep things strictly intellectual, so, fingering our 1911 encyclopaedia, we came across this beautifully apt reference to ether imbibing: "The principal symptoms of chronic ether-drinking are an awakening of the activity of the special senses, most notably sight and hearing". There you have it, and essentially the promoters of the festival look to achieve the same effect through their innovative and quality-laden musical programmes. The annual Ether festival is a chance for the best and most groundbreaking artists in electronic music to strut their diverse talents and captivating performances in front of the London cognoscenti. Each year, the underground is trawled for artists of cult and legendary appeal. The common thread is an excess of talent, though the sounds this year will vary between the sparse Teutonic electronica of Kraftwerk (Thu 18/03), the captivating space age pop of Jean Jacques Perry (Mon 15/03), the orchestral but synthetic landscapes created by Tangerine Dream as they perform a live soundtrack to Dante's Inferno (Sat 06/03), the warped electronica of uncompromising artists like Luke Vibert (Sat 06/03) and Squarepusher (Fri 12/03), and, perhaps most excitingly of all, the return to the London stage of maverick and legendary composer David Axelrod (Wed 17/03), conducting his 20-piece orchestra in his own inimitable style. If all this is not enough for you ungrateful punters, Ethereal is an associated series of workshops, lectures and free live performances throughout the day (Sat 06/03); yet another interactive element of Ether '04. Let's hope the events get the support they deserve...

NB: Ether '04 begins Sat 06/03 and ends on Thu 18/03.

Giveaway: We have a pair of tickets to the Tangerine Dream performance on Sat 06/03 to give away. It'll go to one randomly picked Flasher who can name two artists that played in last years' Ether.

Saturday 6 March (Symposium 2 - 6pm; Concert 6:30 - 11pm)

@ Royal Academy, Burlington House, Piccadilly, W1 (020.7300.8000) Tube: Piccadilly Circus

As much as Philip Guston's art elicits laughter and sublime joy, there's also a melancholy taint through his work. From the early angry protest paintings to the "empty" Ab-Ex brushwork to the more existential later paintings, Guston's oeuvre touches on those sad Sundays or late-winter solitude. It's with such spirit that Guston painted composer and friend Morton Feldman's portrait. Having been introduced by John Cage at a DT Suzuki talk on "the Void", the composer and painter would eventually drift apart after Guston's seismic shift to cartoon-like figuration. Still, Feldman found inspiration for the structure and improvisation of his compositions the first time he set eyes on a Guston. The result is the passionate cult classic, For Philip Guston. This evening of performances in front of the late works will hopefully reconcile two kindred spirits. The evening will be introduced by Guston's daughter and biographer Musa Mayer, Norman Rosenthal of the RA and conductor Richard Bernas; and performed by Mario Caroli (flute), Richard Benjafield (percussion) and Nicolas Hodges (piano).

NB: This performance cumulates an RA Guston day. The Culture of Painting: Guston and History will include talks by art historian David Anfam, curator Joseph Rishel and Guston's daughter and biographer Musa Mayer, all chaired by Norman Rosenthal of the RA. (from 2- 6pm at Geological Society Lecture Theatre, Burlington House.) Check RA site for details.

Giveaway: We have two exhibition catalogues and two pairs of tickets to the concert to give away. They'll go to four randomly picked Flashers who can tell us the name of Guston's main dealer.

Saturday 6 March (8:30pm)

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

A veteran of the Ocean Club (a Berlin club/radio station that is a forum for electronic "musica obscura" from around Europe), Thomas Fehlmann has appeared on a list of musical collaborations as long as your arm, including Erasure and The Orb. As a DJ, musician and producer -- the difference between these roles being quite blurred within the genre -- Fehlmann presents a laid-back, mushy concoction of electro-dub. The low frequencies glide beneath filtered whooshes, shuffles and bleeps, and are complemented by the sumptuous underpin of pulsating beats. This rare live show gives us the opportunity to see how Fehlmann has moved beyond the soothing monotony of his Visions of Blah (2002), with support from Sprawl's Si-{Cut}.Db.

Sunday 7 March

@ Various Cinemas across London

Gus Van Sant's latest movie is not about the Columbine high school massacre per se, although it does show the ordinary morning of a high school and its inhabitants in the hours before, and the minutes of, an unimaginable event which in the real massacre left twelve students, one teacher and the two pupil/gunmen dead. Elephant won the Palme d'Or at Cannes last year (and Van Sant won Best Director) -- the film's long and slow camerawork, non-professional actors, and un-scripted performances give it a dreamlike quality which presents an almost hyper-normal reality and transports the viewer deeply into the lives of the characters. Some parts of the film would be flashy if they weren't done so well -- elaborately but gently interwoven narratives, the fact that the first gunshot is not heard until well past the halfway mark, and that it makes only the most passing attempts to explain. More, therefore, for the art-movie viewer than the psychologist. It differs hugely from Michael Moore's excellent Bowling for Columbine, and you can tell from their enigmatic titles. Moore refers to the boy-killers' activities the morning before while Van Sant points to the "elephant in the living room". That is, something enormous which, if left undiscussed, you can eventually adjust your life around.

Tuesday 9 March (6:15pm)

@ Prince Charles Cinema, 7 Leicester Place, WC2 (090.1272.7007) Tube: Leicester Sq.

Is Alain de Botton the greatest labour-saving device since the personal computer? He's read all the books we think we should have, and offers us a precis to make sense of our lives while leaving the sense of his sources un-diminished. In his bestseller The Consolations of Philosophy he digested and explained the great philosophers, giving us an executive summary for coping with our jealousies and the anxiety of being human. In his latest book, Status Anxiety, de Botton analyses the ox-coveting curtain-twitcher in all of us. Ours is an age where we spend it like Beckham even if we can't quite earn it, so the book and the TV series should touch a nerve. Part of de Botton's charm lies in his tacit admission that he suffers from the same shortcomings as his readers. With a talent for using humour to reveal shared human frailties his live gigs are well worth showing up for. At least there's a certain status in attending a self-improving London lecture. Alain de Botton, every home should have one.

NB: Flashfave AdB will also be doing a book signing at Waterstone's in Picadilly on the same day (8.30pm) and his TV program screens on Channel 4 from Sat (6/03; 7pm).

Tuesday 9 March (6:30pm)

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

Have you ever considered how pleasant it could be living with people yet somehow, not? To be able to choose when you live together and when you didn't? This is the theory behind Mobius House, UN Studio's logical and somehow mischievous design. Stemming from a belief that architecture is, or rather should be, a combination of utility and philosophy, Van Berkel builds structures which insist on functionality, yet appreciate the multiplicity and constantly changing nature of our needs. Launching Van Berkel and Bos Architectuur Bureau with Caroline Bos in Amsterdam 1988, the pair went on to found UN Studio in 1998. Creating "digital architecture", which saw the blending of computer technology and the latest investigations into engineering, the team prove a certain anti-technique stance to their work. Van Berkel embraces difficulties in design in the same way he embraces human complexity, allowing an organic form to develop and a harmony between the landscape, people and the building. With results such as Rotterdam's Erasmus Bridge and Museum Het Valkhof in Nijmegen under their belt -- highlighting an intense interest in the "Figments" in the architectural process -- they have been able to produce the complex, elegant and sometimes daunting with a playful twist.

NB: For those architectural flashers out there David Chipperfield and Antony Gormley are giving a talk on Tue 04/03 and Willem Jan Neutelings on Thu 09/03. Check the AA website for details.

Tuesday 9 March (6:30pm)

@ Hayward Gallery, South Bank, SE1 (020.7960.5226) Tube: Waterloo

Judging by the queues of families outside the Hayward gallery this weekend, it appeared that gallery-goers were expecting to see the kiddie-friendly, "Wham Bam" cartoony side of Roy Lichtenstein's prolific oeuvre. But this is no straightforward Pop show. The retrospective, spanning some 35 years of the late American giant's career, instead points to a man who was not so much questioning the ethics of Western consumerism but Western traditions in painting. If Warhol could turn an unassuming soup can into a modern-day icon, Lichtenstein could treat the brushstroke with the same, apparently ironic, detachment. Yet, despite the trademark humour in the latter's paintings, this was a man who, as he was to admit to David Sylvester, was constantly struggling to get Picasso out of his head. And Leger. And Monet and Miro, for that matter. If Picasso was already making pastiches of, say, Delacroix's paintings, what did it mean to make a pastiche of a pastiche? In attempting to explore these questions, Lichtenstein's paintings were to become somewhat convoluted, losing their earlier ease and directness. But no matter how tedious these postmodern issues of authorship might seem to us now, they remain frustratingly unresolved in contemporary art. The unlikely combo of painter Fiona Rae and Time Out art critic Sarah Kent discuss Lichtenstein's contribution to the debate.

Thursday 11 March (7pm)

@ London Review Bookshop, 14 Bury Place, WC1 (020.7269.9030) Tube: Holborn

Old Martin Amis said that "Julian Barnes said that novelists don't write 'about' their subjects but 'around' them"; well, the critics prefer "about" -- at least "gossiping about" these patriarchs of the literary world. Two thirds of "the big three" (add McEwan for flavour), their litany lingers conspicuously ahead of every fresh-leafed novel, the young bucks queue up to challenge them in savage displays of published derogation (Tibor Fischer and Dale Peck) and they remained locked in a loveless marriage by articles like this. Yet, they are both loved, Barnes perhaps a little more so; especially, it seems, by the French, who lavish a level of adoration that would embarrass any true Brit. On his homepage he looks the archetypal English gentleman (in a large and "youthful" portrait) but his reciprocal Francophilia is well documented. He is, for want of a less cliched metaphor, a godfather amidst the English literary mafia. Heavyweight novelist, journalist, do-gooder, short-story teller, foodie and lastly the psuedonym'd creator of rampant bi-sexual '80s pulp fiction ex-cop "Duffy", Julian Barnes will be reading from his latest collection of short stories, The Lemon Table, and taking question in the appreciable LRB intimacy.

Friday 12 March (7:30pm)

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

When Stravinsky premiered The Rite of Spring in 1913 Paris, the jeering began within seconds and soon the audience's outraged howls threatened to drown out the orchestra. A riot ensued, despite Debussy's vain pleas for calm and a one-man standing ovation from Ravel. In attendance was a young Edgard Varese -- the Franco-Italian composer whose experiments with electronic tape and rhythmic abstraction would prefigure the work of John Cage and Steve Reich. Now the London Sinfonietta assembles to celebrate these visionaries, whilst championing the current exemplars of contemporary electronica -- the Warp label. Offering an edited history of electronic music, the evening is divided into three. Part one includes Varese's Ionisation (1929-31), George Antheil's Ballet Mechanique (a 1929 work for sixteen pianos -- now sequenced with MIDI technology) and new works by Aphex Twin and Squarepusher. Part two sees videos by Warp artists Chris Cunningham and Plaid. Part three offers music from Cage and Reich, and a live-set from Jamie Lidell before concluding with the London Sinfonietta's meticulous transcription and re-interpretation of the Aphex Twin's 1992 Polygon Window. Highly recommended.

Ends Saturday 20 March (Tue to Sat 10am - 6pm)

@ Victoria Miro, 16 Wharf Rd., N1 (020.7336.8109) Tube: Old St.

Raqib Shaw's paintings are an assault on the senses. Plucking from a range of Eastern and Western sources, from the Kama Sutra to Chris Ofili, the artist creates work that is both pleasingly familiar yet at the same time surprisingly unique. He crafts together a combination of car enamel, glitter and semi-precious stones to make canvases that are brightly-coloured, at times almost gaudy, and crowded with what seem to be mythical creatures, part-human, part-animal, part-amphibian; all playing in a highly sexually-charged underwater paradise both chaotic and exhilarating. The resulting works are excitingly fresh paintings from an artist who, judging by the fact that his first London solo show is already completely sold out, is clearly a face to watch.

NB: Runs till 20/03.

Ends Wednesday 31 March

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

"We all indulge in the strange, pleasant process called thinking," said writer Virginia Woolf, "but when it comes to saying, even to someone opposite, what we think, then how little we are able to convey!" Just what would Woolf have thought of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, whose literary theory of deconstruction has permeated the study of her work, alongside many other great novelists of the twentieth century? And, how would the feminist author have rated his ability to voice his controversial opinions? Well, an award-winning documentary film, now showing, offers a rare glimpse into the mind of this brilliant literary theorist. The film kicks off the Thinking Aloud season at the ICA this month, showcases the likes of linguist and political analyst Noam Chomsky, psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (France's answer to Freud) and philosopher Slavoj Zizek. In a time in which terrorism is the most significant threat to world order Chomsky certainly provides a clear and pragmatic critique of US politics in the 21st Century while Lacan and Zizek consider universal belief structures, which lend us a fragile stability. These films present diverse and engaging perspectives on the world. Watch, listen and think as these intellectual icons explore life's "luminous halo".

NB: Thinking Aloud runs till 31/03. See links above or the ICA website for full programme.