Frédéric Chopin’s Waltz in D flat major, Op. 64, No. 1 — better known as the Minute Waltz — is an extraordinarily challenging piece of music to perform. This weekend however, at the Royal College of Music in London, many pianists will compete to see who can perform it the fastest.

The College’s “Piano Fever” event, for which Chopin is the featured composer, runs from Friday 5 March until Monday 8 March. Each day, pianists will compete to successfully perform the Minute Waltz at higher and higher speeds, with a finalist decided upon during Monday’s final.

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Whoever told you that the American Civil War was fought out between the North and the South has got it wrong. Throw away your history books because according to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter — a 352-page tome from author Seth Grahame-Smith — it was a war for the survival of humanity; and the fray was not between brothers but man against bloodsucker.

Indeed, Abraham Lincoln spent his life in holding the lamp of liberty in the face of a growing fanged menace, claims the author of this semi- (or perhaps mostly-) fictional work. His mother was killed by a vampire when he was a child, and his quest for vengeance took him all of the way to the White House.

For all of us out there who were not smitten (or bitten) by the charms of Robert Pattinson’s Edward Cullen, but like a Vampiric saga, this book, which is available from April, promises to combine real history with the details of “a secret journal” that has only just come to light.

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For its latest video, released on YouTube, pop band OK Go recruited a gang of very talented engineers to build a huge, elaborate Rube Goldberg machine whose action perfectly meshes with the band’s song, This Too Shall Pass, from the band’s new album, Of the Blue Color of the Sky.

For nearly four minutes — captured in a single, unbroken camera shot — the machine rolls metal balls down tracks, swings sledgehammers, pours water, unfurls flags and drops a flock of umbrellas from the second story, all perfectly synchronised with the song. There are a fair few gasp-inducing, grin-producing moments when the machine’s action lines up so perfectly that you can only shake your head in admiration at the creativity and precision of the builders.

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Director Chris Cairns, turntablist JFB, drummer Will Clarke and prolific beatboxer Beardyman have teamed up to turn Cairns’ Neurosonics film — which features disembodied heads mounted on a selection of instruments — into a live performance that’s just as jaw-dropping as the original.

The director, who’s also behind the photomongtaging Land Rover Freelander advert and Radio 1’s “infectious radio” promo, originally created the Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs film back in 2009. It’s set in a lab, and depicts three scientists mounting a number of different heads onto turntables and drum sets before playing them like real instruments.

The original video was created with plenty of CGI, so shifting it into a live setting was always going to prove troublesome. To bridge the gap between the virtual and the physical, Cairns enlisted the assistance of holographic projection experts Musion.

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If you’ve recently visited the University of Plymouth in Devon, or you’re a student there right now, then you might be familiar with the Roland Levinsky building — a monolithic construction built in 2007 to house the arts and architecture faculties on the edge of the University. Each year, the institution holds a festival called the Peninsula Arts Contemporary Music Festival, which is now in its sixth year.

This year, however, the organisers have chosen to begin the festival in a rather innovative way — by turning the building itself into an instrument. In a performance called “Sunlight Symphony: Sunrise“, artists Alexis Kirke and Tim Hodgson have placed light sensors in windows on each floor of the building, facing the direction of sunrise — and as the sun emerges over the horizon and the first rays of light land on the uppermost sensor, a single note will ring out around the building.

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If you’ve recently visited the University of Plymouth in Devon, or you’re a student there right now, then you might be familiar with the Roland Levinsky building — a monolithic construction built in 2007 to house the arts and architecture faculties on the edge of the University. Each year, the institution holds a festival called the Peninsula Arts Contemporary Music Festival, which is now in its sixth year.

This year, however, the organisers have chosen to begin the festival in a rather innovative way — by turning the building itself into an instrument. In a performance called “Sunlight Symphony: Sunrise“, artists Alexis Kirke and Tim Hodgson have placed light sensors in windows on each floor of the building, facing the direction of sunrise — and as the sun emerges over the horizon and the first rays of light land on the uppermost sensor, a single note will ring out around the building.

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If you’ve been fanatically following London Fashion Week, and have decided to invest in a “grubby gold” dress to keep up with trends, then perhaps a pair of rapid prototype shoes may complete your futuristic look.

Five pairs of shoes were modelled at this year’s Stockholm Fashion Show. Designed by Naim Josefi and Souzan Youssouf of Beckmans and Konstfack design schools respectively, they were 3D printed in nylon for a futuristic collection called Melonia.

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Hollywood is not always larger than life. RoboSteel, an Ireland-based firm that creates sculptures from scrap metal, has created a real-world piece inspired by the character of the queen from the cult Hollywood franchise Alien.

The piece, called “Alien Queen,” is 545 kg of recycled steel and has more than 4,000 parts, polished and lacquered to create a replica that would make any tinsel-town art director proud.

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Wired started the day by trying to use a 3D printer as a coffee machine — an attempt to fight jetlag that only confirmed how much we were still suffering from it. The printer was on display in the gallery of Autodesk, a 2D and 3D design software company, as well as some of objects printed by it.

These were staggering — plastic components with fully working parts requiring no assembly, the new industrial revolution in front of our eyes. There was also a giant plastic Lego dinosaur, though we’re not sure why. But if there’s room for Lego in this brave new age of manufacturing, count Wired in.

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A 30-minute robot love story directed by Spike Jonze of Where The Wild Things Are fame is to be screened online next month.

Financed by Absolut Vodka, I’m Here follows a male librarian robot as he discovers a new lease of life thanks to a rather spirited (ha ha) robot lady.

The short premiered at the Sundance Film festival but will be available to a wider audience thanks to a web premiere next month. Film fans can sign up for a ticket via the I’m Here website.

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