Wednesday 12 May (6:15 - 8:15pm)

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

Art world facilitation agency Artprojx is hosting a two-part evening of video art at the Prince Charles Cinema (great, but unconnected, Tarantino quote: "The day that Kill Bill plays at the Prince Charles will be the day that Kill Bill truly comes home"). The first part is a showcase of 15 Goldsmiths' MA students, an hour-long video art programme taking in the filmic, TV-esque and/or music video-like, and being, by turns, beautiful, political, outrageous, sad. For a primer of what's in store, some of the participants are: Anat Ben David, Rainbow Chun & Dan Davis, Lior Danzig, Doug Fishbone, Oriana Fox, Laura Gannon, Clare Gasson, Pearl Hsiung, Phillip Lee, Karin Ludmann, Michael Sailstorfer and Richard Walker. Following the screenings will be a panel talk "looking into the relationship between video art, music videos and other forms of commercial art", bringing together all-rounder Paul Morley, critic, curator, lecturer and Saatchi-interviewer Andrew Renton and Paul Hetherington, creative director of Nick Knight's SHOWstudio, chaired by Goldsmiths' critical studies leader Sushail Malik.

Wednesday 12 May (7:30pm)

@ The Lifthouse, 85 Charterhouse St., EC1 (020.7251.8787) Tube: Farringdon/Barbican

May promises an international cast joining to offer from piano-deconstructions to mellow electronic process passing through electronic collage in Sprawl's monthly installment. Marseille-born yet Paris-based Herve Boghossian, founder of the List label (which includes Mou, Lips!, Sogar, who played at Sprawl earlier this year), will be presenting his latest release on the fantastic Raster-Noton label. He has collaborated with Ralph Steinbruchel, Gunter Muller, and Jason Kahn, amongst others. The same bill will also include the beautiful piano manipulations of Adam Butler (aka Vert) from the Sonig label who only recently astonished the (almost) quiet Foundry crowd during the last Slow Sound System. Visiting from the other side of the continent, San Fransisco-based Wobbly will be offering his various collage sessions after recently playing at the Spitz alongside People Like Us with whom he has previously collaborated on a release with Matmos. Alexander Wendt -- from the post-millennial electronica radio magazine Frequenzen -- will be the last input of a line-up that promises to be one of the best Sprawls in recent times.

Thursday 13 May (7pm)

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

Why Not? We'll tell you why not, because it's far too close to '80s kids TV classic "Why Don't You?". Because they produce DVDs and books called Why Not? featuring the work of Why Not?. Because they are firm favourites, along with Mother and Tomato, for "the most up-their-own-arse, self-important, arty-designer-designed design companies ever to try and convince us that phone banking is life-affirming" award. And it's at the ICA -- which kinda settles it surely?! A positive aside here: they are also undoubtedly one of the best design agencies in the UK. But! This talk is about book design and the increasingly blurred boundaries between art and design. "Blurred" due to self-promotion and generic pretension KF wonders? Whatever, the most important thing about this talk is that it should also be a debate. Not "Why Not" telling you "Why So". To what degree is design art and art design, where are the boundaries, what do they look like and who put them there in the first place? It is your duty Flashers to get impassioned about this sort of stuff. We say get out there and care!

NB: Founder member Andy Altmann speaks to designers John Barnbrook and Sean Perkins (North Design).

Giveaway: We have one copy of Why Not Associates? 2 (Thames & Hudson) to give away. It'll go to one randomly picked Flasher who can tell us who was Bagpuss (hint: '70s TV).

Thursday 13 May (7:15pm)

@ Everyman Cinema, 5 Holly Bush Vale, NW3 (0870.066.4777) Tube: Hampstead

Love is most certainly the devil, especially when your other half is Francis Bacon. Perhaps England's most famous 20th-century artist, referred to in certain circles as "that horrible man", Bacon even as early as the '50s had already marked the art world with a certain existential angst. A keen gambler and decadent bon vivant, his sadomasochistic world allowed for some really sensational painting to occur is perfect for the film world's idea of the artist. Like Van Gogh, Basquiat and Pollock, Bacon's life was as colourful on the canvas as off, thus John Maybury's 1998 movie is yet another interesting, if at times cringe-worthy attempt to explore a certain moment of Bacon's life. Taking place between the '60s and '70s, it describes the rough and turbulent relationship between Bacon -- here played by Derek Jacobi -- and his lover, inspiration and frequent subject, George Dyer (Daniel Craig). With scenes inspired by Bacon's paintings, John Maybury's directorial debut will be introduced by musician, writer and general Pop misfit, George Melly.

Thursday 13 May (Thu 13/05 to Sun 16/06 at 7:30pm)

@ Laban, Creekside, SE8 (020.8469.9500) Tube: Deptford/Greenwich

The hyperbole surrounding the work of Societas Raffaello Sanzio ("the company seems to be situated on the edge of the unmentionable") can seem somewhat imposing, as can the shamelessly overpriced tickets, but beyond this we should find a unique and wonderful show. There's certainly something daring and committed about this three-year "dramatic cycle"-- the London show will be the ninth instalment of an envisaged 11, never to be repeated and, we are told, different from each of those before. These serious Italians are known for their potent mix of public and intimate extremes, managing to be simultaneously blatant and subtle, reaching great sincerity via surprising outbursts of true comedy. However, their signature has to be a preoccupation with tragedy, and how to forge new meaning for it today via striking and deeply affecting imagery. Endogonidic Tragedy goes a step further with its attempt to form "a dramatic system in evolution" addressing the social, political and cultural life of whatever city it arrives at. Lastly, if you're wondering what "endogonidic" means, director Romeo Castellucci explains the word as referring to "those simple living beings that have, in their inside, the co-presence of the gonads".

NB: Endogonidic Tragedy runs for four nights from Thu (13/05) to Sun (16/05) and is part of the LIFT 04 festival. On Fri (14/05) there will also be a post-show discussion.

Thursday 13 May (9pm)

@ Jazz Cafe, 5 Parkway, NW1 (020.7916.6060) Tube: Camden Town

Oi Va Voi is certainly miles away from "va-va-voom", but at heart this Jewish group ("Oi Va Voi" means "Oh my God" in Yiddish) has put the va-va-voom back into the otherwise quiet London Jewish community. United by a mix of Eastern European music (Klezmer -- traditional, Eastern Jewish -- and Gypsy), the six-piece -- in a month when we're welcoming new Eastern European cultures to the Union -- revive, revise and update a folk culture. More importantly, since their formation in 1999, they have staked out the traditional while modernising its feel. There's even a Matthew Herbert remix complete with big band sound. Not being Topol nor Streisand, in a moment when Judaic culture is taking a beating for Middle Eastern politics, perhaps Oi-Va-Voi will help us remember the more pleasant complexities of their being.

Giveaway: We have three copies of Laughter Through Tears (Outcaste) to give away. They'll go to three randomly picked Flashers who can tell us for which awards have Oi Va Voi received two nominations.

Friday 14 May (10:30am - 5:30pm)

@ Barbican Centre and Tate Britain

Helen Chadwick, as we've said before, is an important part of the London, even British, art psyche. Perhaps slipping a little under the radar in the early '80s, by addressing that feminine understanding of ripe decay, events are conspiring to bring her back to the fore. A predecessor to the abject issues touched on more directly by YBAs like Sarah Lucas (a participant in In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and topic in this discussion) and Tracey Emin (to a lesser degree), Chadwick's art is more subtle than her successor's more personal iconography. But, like Lucas, the formal nature of the work, as well as perhaps the ideas, are distinctly of their time, and yet Chadwick's more abstract approach leaves her work in different ideological place. Sarah Lucas distinctly looks like a '90s "Blairite laddette". Now Marsha Meskimmon (author of Women Making Art: History, Subjectivity, Aesthetics) will be joined by curators Mark Sladen, Mary Horlock and critic Paula Smithard in this day seminar to look at the relations between Chadwick and Sarah Lucas.

NB: The day will begin at the Barbican galleries with Chadwick's work while the afternoon half will be in Tate Britain. Fees include entries to the Chadwick retro and In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Also continuing on Wed (12/05) is the third British Art Talk on Political Art with Phil Collins, a series dedicated to the British-based artist.

Giveaway: We have five tickets to give away (one per Flasher). They'll go to the first five Flashers who call Tate Modern ticketing office on 020.7887.8888 and quote "KultureFlash" (please do not call before 2pm Wed 12/05). Tickets for the Chadwick exhibition may be purchased by calling the Barbican box office on 0845.121.6828.

Friday 14 May

@ Various cinemas accross London

"This is England's worst nightmare. Enjoy it." So says The Football Factory's incendiary blurb. With a feast of football forthcoming on the small screen, kicking off with the FA Cup, through the Champions League, and climaxing with Euro 2004, a film about football violence seems cynically timed but maybe appropriate. Based on the best-selling novel by John King, talented Brit writer/director (Goodbye Charlie Bright) Nick Love delivers a well-cast, entertaining and humorous yet frightening film that's as much about violence -- albeit non-gratuitous -- as it is a social commentary about misguided male passion and bonding in Blair's Britain. Yer average Mail reader and the FA will find it abhorrent, but it's a fascinating insight into a substrata of an affluent working-class society, all similarly disposed to "kicking f!*k" out of rival hooligan "firms". The fighting and fashion have been scrupulously researched for authenticity; and the cool-as-you-like soundtrack, (including The Streets, The Jam, The Libertines, The Rapture...), supervised by Spiral Tribe/Drum Club founder Lol Hammond, punctuates and paces the film. The good folk of Cardiff and Portugal may wake up in hot sweats, but cinemagoers will enjoy this amoral tale.

Friday 14 May (10pm - 6am)

@ secret location see website for details

Electronic avant-breakbeat duo Icarus celebrate their new album on Leaf, I Tweet the Birdy Electric, with an unmissable free all-nighter in a secret location in Hackney (click here on the day for details). Permission to use the word unmissable! Flashers still kick themselves for overlooking Icarus' last release party, played from inside a Fiat 500 over an FM transmitter to hundreds of radios in the Arcola Basement. Anyone who witnessed the staggering Icarus set at the Coronet last week with Fennesz and Four Tet will have understood the extent to which their performance has by now transcended all gimmicks and, indeed, sober attempts to describe how it sounds. Listen instead. Joining them will be impressive jazz trio arthurs.dakiz.westerhus (reminiscent of Chicago Underground Trio). On the decks: DysFunct!onal Beats founder Bedouin Ascent, Leaf headman Tony Morley, and long-time film and ARG! collaborators Laurent Duriaud, and Woof Wan-Bau. Oh, and Kieran Hebden (Four Tet) is playing a set too!

NB: For venue details go to Icarus' site for details.

Saturday 15 May

@ The Horse Hospital, Colonnade, Bloomsbury, WC1 (020.7833.3644) Tube: Russell Square

"I had to make her suffer / So I ate her head for my supper" snarl the TV monitors in the Horse Hospital gallery, showing footage from Norwegian Black Metal concerts, while reinforcing the stereotype of this notorious musical genre -- extreme misogynistic violence. And if it's a voyeuristic peek into the contemporary world of Satanism you're after, then there is certainly plenty in Peter Beste's photographs of its Norwegian exponents to turn you on. Seductive portraits of longhaired Viking-types, besmirched with elaborate face-paint, faeces and blood, posing against mystical and remote landscapes are accompanied by interviews describing the desecration of 14th-century Christian churches and the shockingly brutal murder of Euronymous by fellow band-member and arch-rival "Count Grishnackh". Appropriately for a movement which prioritises individuality, however, this exhibition gives voice to the many strands of the scene, from the more moderate (who seem to be in it for the anarchic freedoms it provides and, let's face it, the fabulous costumes) to the extremely political, sometimes neo-Nazi, members, who see in Black Metal an expression of nationalistic roots, harking back to a pre-Christian, Old Norse era. (Runs till Sat 15/05.)

NB: All that crazy gothic fancy-dress making you want to buy some new clothes? Don't forget to head downstairs (mind the near-vertical ramp!) to the Horse Hospital's vintage treasure-trove. Boys: we spotted a fabulously nasty Marilyn Manson T-shirt for a tenner. Girls: polka-dot ra-ra skirts and I'm-still-a-virgin prom dresses.

Saturday 15 May (Sat 15/05 and Sun 16/05)

@ Sadler's Wells, Rosebery Avenue, EC1 (020.7863.8000) Tube: Angel

While hip-hop's rappers and DJs went platinum, its b-boys (that's breakdancers to you uninitiated) stayed underground where their moves evolved and proliferated into a not-for-sale art form. That is, until they surface in Clerkenwell this weekend where Jonzi D teams up with the "ballet bods" at Sadler's Wells to curate a dance festival of who's who atop the hip-hop heap. The legendary '70s group Electric Boogaloos usher in LA's latest krumping craze where kids' clowning meets ferocious masked trance-dance. Then there's hip-hop theatre pioneer-genius Rennie Harris, who spawned the likes of French-Algerian Compagnie Kafig, and Parisian Vagabond Crew, alongside the UK's own fine artistes: Robert Hylton who splices hip-hop with contemporary dance, body-popping bard Benji Reid and the visionnaire himself, Jonzi D. So if you don't know your East Coast rocking from your West Coast popping, don't despair. Two days of performances, workshops, films and discussions will set you straight. And anyway, as b-boy philosopher Kujo says, it's not about who invented what style, where and when, it's about funkdafying the moves and keeping them real.

NB: Breakin' Convention runs for two days (Sat 15/05 and Sun 16/05). On Thu 13/05 (7:30pm) a screening of Clowns in the Hood (directed by David LaChapelle) kicks off the festival -- it is followed by a Q&A with Tommy the Clown, the man who brought "clowning" to the world.

Saturday 15 May (7:30pm)

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

If you believe the hype of the weekend literary supplement, all it takes is a leafy address between Hampstead and Highbury and a modicum of ambition to pen an international best-seller. This will in turn attract a baying pack of Hollywood producers eager to snap up the film rights of your chef-d'oeuvre. Not so fast, say Tracy Chevalier, Esther Freud, Blake Morrison and chair Jon Cook, whose discussion of the art of re-writing rounds off a day revealing the secrets of publishing for aspirant authors, organised by The Literary Consultancy at the RFH. These three know the meaning of success: Morrison has over a dozen works of fiction, biography, criticism and poetry in print, and is best known for his obdurate examinations of his parents' lives, particularly the Things My Mother Never Told Me Of (2002). Freud has five novels to her name, and the film of her first, Hideous Kinky, won star great acclaim, not to mention found her a first husband. Chevalier's slim historical novels hop off the shelves, but tills really rang when Girl With A Pearl Earring employed Scarlett Johannssen and her pout to full effect playing Vermeer's winsome muse. Remember, it's all about method, not famous fathers nor family closets to plunder for lurid skeletons.

Saturday 15 May (8pm - 1am)

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

This event presents a rare opportunity to hear new Accidental Records signings collaborate on stage to showcase their talents -- and slap our thighs as we're all invited! There's little chance of attendees starving for variation because the mix of artists is pleasantly diverse. With tracks in the vein of Lonely Mountain, Mugison offers up some calmingly introspective efforts of raw, spliced guitar trickery, sleepy vocals and scratchy-trash percussion, with all the remaining spaces filled by a blethering cacophony of curious electronic and acoustic noises. For the minimal-minded among us, there is the electro-baroque (yes -- a brave new genre!) of Max de Wardener that may be reminiscent of a timid Mike Oldfield, but should serve to calm the soul with its finger-like organ monotony. Add to this the beguiling vocals of Mara Carlyle (a significant contributor to Plaid) and the ambling, chirrupy, dance-friendly Andy Brooks and nearly all tastes are catered for. With DJ support from mastermind Matthew Herbert and the Werk crew conjuring implicit rhythms and melodies from a synthetic cloud of raw and buzzing electronica (think: Commodore 64 sound chips and drum machines), you may wonder as to how all this may be squeezed in by the 1am closing-time.

Saturday 15 May (10pm - 7am)

@ Fabric, 77A Charterhouse St., EC1 (020.7344.4444) Tube: Farringdon

It's a fair indication of how highly the electronic music fraternity prizes sass and personality that our most revered artists are four middle-aged cycling enthusiasts who sing about how lovely the roads are in Germany. So when Miss Kittin and The Hacker's "Frank Sinatra" arrived at the offices of International DeeJay Gigolos, with its chorus of "To be famous is so nice / Suck my d!*k / Kiss my ass", DJ Hell must have done one in his bum-less leather chaps. Miss Kitten (Caroline Herve) stuck with The Hacker to record The First Album (2003), before talking dirty (and monotonously) to a queue of gleeful producers including Sven Vath and Felix Da Housecat. While others rubbernecked Electroclash's mangled remains, Herve increasingly began to resemble her alter ego with a host of international DJing residencies and a new solo album -- I Com (out 17/05 on Mute). If only everyone were so fortunate. While our heroine heads up the Haywire room this Saturday, the likes of Har Mar Superstar will be trawling the snugs of Soho, wiggling their arses for a pint pot of change.

Sunday 16 May (Tue to Sat 10am - 5pm; Sun 12 - 5pm)

@ Modern Art Oxford, 30 Pembroke St., Oxford (01865.722.733)

As you enter Mike Nelson's new show, you find yourself in an octagonal red room, mirror-lined with glass doors that resemble a cinema foyer. This antechamber anticipates three succinct "chapters" in Triple Bluff Canyon, exploring themes of geometry, alchemy and politics. The first has the atmosphere of an imaginary stage set. An artist's studio showcases a cabinet of curiosities, inspired by Albrecht Durer's St Jerome in his Study. On the wall, a monochrome film is projected allowing a conspiracy theorist to voice ideas of how governments control society through fear, eerily familiar in our post-9/11 world. Finally, a desert landscape of golden sand dunes engulf a dilapidated woodshed while a chilling breeze swirls around the brightly lit space. The scene pays homage to Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 film Stalker in which the characters' hopes of uncovering the incredible secrets of "the Zone" are shattered. The show also presents a re-politicised reading of Land Art, encapsulated in the art of Spiral Jetty creator Robert Smithson and work that was notoriously linked to '70s US student anti-war protests. This powerful solo exhibition lays art open to personal interpretation and confirms Nelson's place as an artist of international stature following his 2001 Turner Prize nomination and selection as Britain's representative in September's Sao Paolo Bienal. (Runs till 04/07.)

NB: On 15/06 (6:30pm) catch Mike Nelson chatting with artist and writer Jeremy Millar and Suzanne Cotter, Senior Curator, Modern Art Oxford. And on 16/06 (7:30pm) catch a free screening of Stalker.

Monday 17 May (7pm)

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

Remember when CDs were the new technology? Heck, remember the 8-track! And when was the last time you used a cassette, let alone vinyl. The technological revolution has taken the world by storm yet we seem to forget that we can read emails and shuffle tracks all at the same time; kids today don't buy music they just devour it online. It's no wonder that we have need for an "ambient music theorist". Ambient or not, digital sound is very much apart of our world, and unlike Strauss' Blue Danube which kicks off Kubrick's future in 2001, 21st-century sound is very much of a different ilk. Enter David Toop, musician, critic, theorist and even occasional music curator. A regular contributor to The Wire, Toop's books are part-memoir, part-travelogue and all theory. Speculative writing is about looking at the present with the cold eye on the past and a foot in the future, but Toop has brought far more to his speculation, he is a creator as well. With a new book out, forget walls of sound and prepare instead to be swept into an ocean of sound.

Tuesday 18 May

@ Various cinemas across London

Had a bad day and need to put your life in perspective? Go and see Bus 174 and experience true Hell. For the street kids in this documentary, which charts the 4 1/2-hour hijacking of a bus in Rio de Janeiro on 12 June 2000 (Valentine's Day in Brazil) by troubled orphan Sandro, life is almost mediaeval -- desperate, brutal and, for many, extremely short. The film is expertly pieced together from accounts by eye-witnesses -- the increasingly hysterical hostages pleading with police officers themselves immobilised by the paranoia of being caught on live camera -- and interviews with those providing biographical and psychological clues to Sandro's crime motives -- his favourite social worker, his aunt, his adoptive mother, fellow street kids -- set against the unbearably tense live countdown to the end of the siege. Director Jose Padilha focuses less on graphic violence than the systematic corruption, ineptitude and pure injustice underlying the police force and, by undeniable implication, Brazilian society at large. All the horror of City of God, and this time it's very real.

Wednesday 19 May (7:30pm)

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

Lo-fi decadent dreams are what CocoRosie are made of. The story goes that two highly musical and estranged sisters met somewhere between Brooklyn and Paris, and made the album La Maison De Mon Reve -- a truly eccentric feat. Put it on ya player and you hear what sounds like a Billie Holiday scratchy record being played in the next room, with twinkly twonkly taps overlaid and topped with the sound of a girl singing beautiful words in your ear. Don't get too comfortable, though -- as along with all the dripping-with-honey sweetness lyrics about making you apple pie there's a darker slice to this tea party when they sing "Jesus loves me but not my wife, not my nigger friend or his wife". CocoRosie masquerade, giving you two bands for the price of one. Be lulled into the crafted, simply gorgeous world of champagne, cake and undying love, but also listen out for the darker, guttural glimpses into the "real world", things which bother them enough to want to make something so beautiful. It's eerie, bitter and pretty..

Giveaway: We have two copies of La Maison De Mon Reve to give away. They'll go to two randomly picked Flashers who can give us the name of three other artists on CocoRosie's label.

Monday 24 May (7 - 10:30pm)

@ Bartlett School Of Architecture, Gower St., WC1 (020.7679.7504) Tube: Euston Sq.

Architectural events, much as we at KF love 'em, are understandably not rated for their culinary excellence (a glass of Blue Nun and some rubbery cheese if you're lucky). But once a year the Bartlett rights these wrongs with the Rogues and Vagabonds Dinner -- an event whose origins may be murky, but whose menu is clearly set: good food, fine wines and this year an extra big helping of Alsop. The ubiquitous professor never fails to entertain, and will doubtless be expounding on his favourite theme: much more fun and imagination should feature on the urban menu, rather than the bland offerings so often served up. Will Alsop is not a reticent man, but why would we want him to be? His self-belief is an essential ingredient in all his creations, and Alsop still maintains his status as one of the world's most respected and exciting architects. Liverpool's Fourth Grace looks set to be his next major hit, and a worthy main course to follow his forthcoming Palestra starter in London. Bon appetit then!

NB: Book in advance as space is limited. To do so, email j.soane@projectorange.com or call 020.7689.3456. Lastly, for those Flashers out there looking for another lecture, check out Jose Mateus/ARX Portugal on Thu 13/05 (6:30pm) in the Chemistry Lecture Theatre, Christopher Ingold Building, UCL (Gordon St, W1).