The new exhibition at the Design Museum is dedicated to 'exploring the meaning of memory in the digital age, with the demise of the analogue era our relationship and connection with personal memory, photographs, diaries, letters, time and ephemera is changing.'  Bad English and press release jibber-jabber aside, the exhibition lives up to the Design Museum name and brand, in that it is well-researched, -historicised and -interpreted for both general and specialised audiences, while remaining beautiful to look at.

Did we mention that the exhibition is about Swarowski?

What the above description is trying to suggest is that the show itself attempts a return to harnessing the tangible, the real - and, by extension, the desirable.  Swarovski have a rich history of presenting a platform for experimental commissions in art, design and architecture.  The brand is one of the leading commercial fashion organisations to fully embrace new ways of conceptualisation, development and dissemination with a range of partner artists.

In addition to opening up the Swarovski archives, fifteen commissions have been made.  The commissioned artists are: Random International, Fredrikson Stallard, Anton Alvarez, Paul Cocksedge, Arik Levy, Philippe Malouin, Ron Arad, Hye-Yeon Park, Hilda Hellström, Marcus Tremonto, Yves Béhar, Maarten Baas, Beta Tank and Because favourites Semiconductor and Troika.

Digital Crystal: Swarovski at the Design Museum is on until 13 January 2013.

Much as it follows a conventional art gallery framework, Lazarides is far from a conventional art gallery.  At their gallery spaces in Soho and Fitzrovia (as well as a third physical site in Newcastle), Lazarides represent the work of artists who can honestly claim to being 'outsider' (in the most accurate sense of the word), including Banksy, JR, Invader, BAST, Jonathan Yeo and, former member of Prodigy and Gorillaz, Jamie Hewlett.  The latest show, at Lazarides' home on Rathbone Place, is a display of work by equally-outsider artists, collective Artists Anonymous.

Based between London and Berlin, this is the first show at the gallery by Artists Anonymous.  Their work is strong, and is drawn from a singular and unique voice.  The images that they present are made up with a heavy dose of after-image.  Merging photography with a form of ethereal photorealism.  Their works are born in a fantastical world comprised of war, famine, sex, drugs, rock'n'roll and self-destruction.  Taking a cue from C.S. Lewis, this world is named Alice's Apocalypse.

Most of the works here are displayed in pairs, as erstwhile diptychs.  These are artists working within the after-image of postmodernism.  In a world where everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes, Artists Anonymous' pictures are conglomerates of both form and content.  These 'paintings' are made of the spectacle of our twenty-first century remix culture.  Like it or lump it.  It's incredibly beautiful, in an incendiary or pyromaniacal sort of way.

Alice's Apocalypse by Artists Anonymous is at Lazarides Rathbone until 13 October.

Here's a first for regular Because readers: a double recommendation from your dear old Culture Editor.  Coming live from Battersea Arts Centre are two performance events, opening tonight, that explore nostalgia, history and restlessness.  Atomkraft is a play, due to have one night's performance on 21 September.  In a room that could be the core of a nuclear reactor, Greg and Sara narrate audio, video and photography to tell the life story of Roddy Magnox, Australia's richest man.  Beginning tonight is a series called Atomkraft Research Presentation.  These events will take on a diverse form - from theatrical presentation to lecture and conference - to explore the nature of money, power and powerlessness.  The aim is to open up what will become the play to bring in as many voices and opinions as possible.

Also opening tonight is Motor Vehicle Sundown by Andy Field.  It is very simple, an audio piece for two in the car park in the city.  As you drive up and park your car, you're spoken to and put on another journey, except this is one about exploring America.  Taking the mythology of the American dream as your point of departure, you travel through a series of places and objects, navigating your way through rolling fields and endless highways, as your narrator tries to extract just what it is that makes the USA highway so intricately bound within our cultural consciousness.  It's an image burned in all of our memories, despite only a select few of us having actually seen it: Sitting in a car with your darling, chasing the California sun before it disappears, maybe for good.  In this place, you're the person you dream of: anyone you want to be.

Atomkraft Research Presentation opens today and runs until 08 September.

Atomkraft takes place on 21 September.

Motor Vehicle Sundown opens today and runs until 15 September.