Marcus Coates is a shaman. He's also an artist. Shamanism occurs all over the world and over the past few years Coates has turned his search for anthropological nirvana to that most amorphous of lands: Elephant & Castle. Truly, here is a place on the fringes of the centre of arguably the most metropolitan of world cities; a place with balance in its settling and its transience. A place under the threat of the modernisation; a place defined by its blurred boundaries.

Two summers ago Coates and disco-thunder band Chrome Hoof performed A Ritual for Elephant & Castle at the Coronet Theatre. Now, playing from today, is Vision Quest - part documentary, part performance, this feature-length movie explores the redevelopment of Elephant & Castle with Coates' channelling animal spirit guides to undertake a vision quest on behalf of the area, its history and potential futures.

Screening, appropriately, in unit 237 of the Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre (everyone's known landmark) the film incorporates contributions from residents, the local authorities and property planners to evoke an alternative collective vision of what Elephant & Castle could be. It's a strange experience, but Coates is an able guide. Having completed a rich vein of work over the past couple of years, his is a strong artistic hand and the technique is assured. This is a unique film.

Vision Quest - A Ritual for Elephant & Castle is at Unit 237, Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre until 22 April.

There are very few artforms more instantly alluring than portrait photography, particularly when it's portrait photography of an artist whose work spanned the bulk of post-war America and whose subjects included starlets such as Marilyn Monroe and Isabella Rossellini.

Eve Arnold learnt her trade from glossy magazines that included Harper's Bazaar. Her candid black-and-whites (and occasional colours) caught public moments and faces with a beguiling intimacy. This exhibition of one hundred pictures had been planned since before her death in January, and would have celebrated her 100th birthday. Instead, it's an 'In celebration of...', and a most fitting tribute.

Your dear Culture section has not covered the exhibitions of Art Sensus previously; the gallery (which sits on the border of Victoria and Westminster) focusses predominantly on a roster of Eastern European artists. Very interesting they are, too. It's a neat juxtaposition: 100 years, 100 pictures, and though Arnold was a great talent a hundred works is a great amount to ingest at one sitting. To get the best of this display return visits are definitely required. It's a shame that the photographer's centennial hasn't been celebrated in a retrospective at a major museum of modern art, but, like the intimacy afforded to her world-famous subjects, you get the first lady of photography all to yourself.

All About Eve is at Art Sensus until 27 April.

Photos © Frederick Charles, fcharles.com

Doug Aitken brings his startling audiovisual and architectural vision to the iconic Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington with the groundbreaking SONG 1. As night draws in over the next two months, the cylindrical museum building will become a unique 360-degree public cinema screen with accompanying soundtrack based around numerous versions of one song, "I Only Have Eyes for You".  Beck, James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, Devendra Banhart, No Age and Lucky Dragon have all recorded cover versions. Tilda Swinton and Jon Doe from LA punk band X are also among those drifting into the projections.

As the work transforms the entire round exterior of the Hirshhorn, each visitor will always have a unique viewing and listening experience and must orbit the building to take in different parts of the audiovisual panorama. In form and content, the piece explores the fluidity of contemporary life and fragmentation of time, space and memory in spectacular fashion.

Aitken has previously shown breathtaking work at MoMA, Serpentine Gallery, Centre Georges Pompidou, Art Basel, in forested hills in Brazil and on a barge off Athens and Hydra Island in Greece. SONG 1 is another transgressive work in a series of stunning contemporary architectural interventions.

22nd March - 13th May 2012, nightly from sunset to midnight at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

Text by Thanh Ma