Who’s going to let a shortage of funding ruin one of the most exciting annual events on London’s cultural calendar?  Certainly not Alpha-ville, that’s who.  After three years, the festival of art, technology, music and web culture have condensed programming into separate public strands, with both events rocking Hackney this weekend.

Alpha-ville Live is a night of live music and performance, this Saturday at the Hackney Empire.  The evening will see the London premiere of a collaboration between Mexican electronic musician Murcof with Simon Geilfus of visual collective AntiVJ.  Semi-transparent panoramic screens will turn the Empire into one huge immersive audience experience.  And not only; also on the bill is Geilfus and Murcof independently, lining up alongside The Field, of the Köln-based techno label and only the act’s second solo performance in over four years, and a live AV from Olaf Bender aka Byetone, sound and visual artist and co-founder of Raster-Noton with Carsten Nicolai.

And the sound and fury does not end there.  Across the road, Hackney Picturehouse present Unfinity, an eclectic programme of moving image works, that include animation, experimental works, documentary, music video and computer-generated imagery.  Followers of Alpha-ville will know how well they know film and video, and the line-up looks as strong as ever, featuring works by Jeff Desom, Sougwen, Kirby Ferguson, Danel Franke & Cedric Keifer, Kangnim Kim and Dan Ojari.  As if that weren’t enough, the organisation will present the Alpha-ville Future of Moving Image Award, presented in partnership with Little White Lies and Shooting People, dedicated to finding the most exciting talent pushing moving image further into the twenty-first century.  This promises to be the most original and fun night in town this weekend.

Tickets and further information can be found here.

Alpha-ville Live is at Hackney Empire on Saturday 06 October.

Unfinity: Alpha-ville 2012 is at Hackney Picturehouse on Saturday 06 October.

We try to keep repeat posts to an absolute minimum here on Because Magazine’s Culture section, to make sure that you only see the finest and newest of what’s hot in and around town.  However, there are times when a near-rerun is the only thing that will do because, well, let’s face it, there are certain news stories that are hot-to-trot and fit-to-print annually.

The Turner Prize list has been announced and a show of the four nominated artists has opened to the public at Tate Britain.  They’re young (in art terms) and so very now.  Spartacus Chetwynd turned up to the opening last night wearing a beard.  The 39 year old (female) is probably the only contemporary multimedia/performance artist who is close to being a household name.  Along with Paul Noble, Elizabeth Price and Luke Fowler, we are being treated to one of the strongest line-ups in recent years.  Of course, there are the perennial claims that the event is one big publicity-seeking exercise (see Chetwynd’s piece turning her allotted gallery space into a giant-sized diorama, or Noble’s excremental sculptures) but these are four artists who can stake legitimate claims to working with a great degree of experimentation, historical weighting and precise execution (even if, in Chetwynd’s case that may only be accidental).

Who’s to win?  It’ll be close, and, frankly, they are all in with a strong shot.  Chetwynd might be the favourite, but Noble has a fine art aesthetic on his side.  Luke Fowler is an award show darling (winner of the inaugural Jarman Award in 2008, and host of a retrospective at Serpentine Gallery the following year – at the age of 31).  Until your dear Culture Editor can cultivate some political clout, my hypothetical vote is for Elizabeth Price.  The Woolworths Choir of 1979, which I saw in a stunning display at Baltic, Gateshead, and which also played at London trendhunting hotspot MOT International, is a work for the ages.

The Turner Prize 2012 is on until 06 January at Tate Britain.

There is something reassuring about surrealism.  Imagery that can at once seem obtuse and oneiric, when well executed, seeps into that area of your mind that looks after vague familiarity.  Presumably one of the reasons the Surrealists of the early twentieth century remain so popular among audiences and academics alike is in their ability to transcend the tangible with something that speaks at once to the past, the future and the now.

Currently on display at Riflemaker is an exhibition of work by Penelope Slinger.  ‘A Photo-Romance’ is a series of photo-collage and 3D works made by the artist in the mid- to late-1970s.  Overtly feminist while feminism was still a dirty word, Slinger’s work takes surrealism as a point of origin for a mode of exploring the female psyche.  Presenting herself as both subject and object in her works, Slinger’s work balances between being a commentary on personal psychological attitudes and prevailing social mores.

Slinger’s work is explicitly spiritual; she describes her art as “a map of the journey of the Self”.  However, it remains intensely political.  She left the UK shortly after the creation of the works on display here, and it is her first solo show in this country since her expatriation in 1979.  ‘A Photo-Romance’ is a highlight in the West End right now.

Penelope Singer: ‘A Photo-Romance’ is at Riflemaker until 30 October.