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the current behaviour is propelled by a priority focus on self-preservation. The individual wish for survival definitely seems to dominate any other aspect of human cultural, social, and political life.

Here Agamben is absolutely right: self-preservation gains absolute anthropological and social primacy. However, it turns out that it certainly need not turn anti-social, but it might come with rather mutually attentive qualities.

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When the Covid-19 pandemic started spreading in Germany, when people started to stay at home and to communicate in public at a distance of 1 to 2 metres from each other, when the government began to enforce formal restrictions on public behavior that came with massive limitations of civil rights, I was reminded of two things.

One was the long-established strand of critique of modern biopolitics in the humanities represented by authors like Michel Foucault, Roberto Esposito, and Giorgio Agamben. The second was Steven Soderbergh's film Contagion from 2011 [1], in which the director unfolds the scenario of a global flu that evolves into a pandemic. Soderbergh's film can be seen as a "thought experiment" [2] where he traces how quickly the effects of such a plague impair the functionality of social institutions, how it leads to the lockdown of whole societies -in the film's case, the USA - and how the military is deployed against its own people to enforce curfews and the cordoning of whole cities like Chicago.

Almost ten years after the film's release the world of today is haunted by a pandemic that seems to be scripted after Soderbergh's film. The origin of the flu in question lies in China, and its origin has been traced back to food that was somehow infected by bats, it rapidly spreads on a global scale with rather high levels of fatalities. In his close description of what is happening, how insensitive, slow, and reluctant to act the government is when the virus is there already, but does not seem to be fatal yet, how people respond to the virus, how they die - alone and in sport stadiums transformed into improvised hospitals - Soderbergh is uncannily anticipating the worldwide 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. He is also mapping the biopolitical agenda applied in such a situation, its measures, rationale, and approach. In an extremely sober manner, Soderbergh shows how biopolitical measures are applied, and how society turns into a biopolitical regime close to Agamben's reading of the 'state of exception' [3].

Two aspects are, in my view, remarkable here. First, there must have been comparable scenarios available ten years ago already. It is rather unlikely that Soderbergh and his scriptwriters would have conceived the whole plot by themselves. Obviously, they were working with very well-informed specialists and scientists, who had been anticipating such a virus ten years ago already, who knew what the most likely safety hazard was, and how such a virus would then spread across the globe. Viewed from this angle, what has happened is much less surprising, much less a sudden viral attack, but something that experts were already expecting to befall us eventually.

Agamben has always doubted the sustainability of citizen rights, human rights, and of the functionality of modern societies in general. In his works, from Homo Sacer [4] onwards, he analyses the fragility of civil institutions, and their constant tendency to change into a governmental regime of suppression turned against the individual and, most of all, turned against the acknowledgment of humaneness. Naturally, humaneness itself is a term Agamben would not make use of, or only as a cynical gesture, because in his view humaneness and its political offspring, the Rights of Man, are the invention of a nation-state that imposes itself on its citizens with absolute power and de facto deprives them of their rights [5]. Recently Agamben made his standpoint clear in an article about the Corona virus, in which he describes the media and the authorities as doing 'their utmost to create a climate of panic, thus provoking a true state of exception, with severe limitations on movement and the suspension of daily life and work activities for entire regions' [6]. In his sense, such a 'limitation of freedom imposed by governments is accepted in the name of a desire for safety, which has been created by the same governments who now intervene to satisfy it' [7]. The desire for safety then leads whole societies to give up their freedoms, their rights, and, not least, self-esteem too. In Soderbergh's film, not everybody agrees to this policy. When society collapses, people go on a rampage by looting shops and vandalising the public realm.

But they are both wrong. What neither Soderbergh nor Agamben were anticipating was that, at least in a country like Germany, which at this point in time (late March 2020) is not tragically affected by the virus, unlike Agamben's Italy, almost everybody was and is perfectly complying with the new rules. The new, biopolitical order of things is broadly accepted by almost everybody. Corona parties by ill-advised youths were the most militant response to the biopolitical shutdown of society. Thus far, the most serious effect of the pandemic is the rise of boredom while people are stuck in their homes. The state of emergency does not come as a coup d'état, it does not come like a blow by the government and its militias against the citizens. In fact, it comes as ennui, when the greatest concern is that Netflix could collapse. Whether it may be permanent or not, whether it may have become the new normality already or not, what the state of exception definitely does not evoke today is shock and suppression. It realises itself merely as a contemporary form of being bored, due to the social environment and its totalising needs.

Simultaneously, such broad acceptance of highly restrictive measures, that are not only pushing civil rights to the brink of collapse, but that will ruin the economy on a long-term basis, with many people likely being broke once the plague has gone its way, is indeed remarkable. We might figure that this is probably the effect of exactly those biopolitical practices that have been under scrutiny by the humanities for at least 30 years, starting with the groundbreaking works of Foucault about the strategies of letting die and making live [8] and the origin of biopolitics [9]. For maybe 20 years we have now been observing a decisive valorisation of health with regard to strategies for sociation, but especially in connection to contemporary concepts of the self. The healthy self is one of most crucial inventions of the present, and much has been written about the internalisation and incorporation of social norms, habits and values by the individual self. The current self is not thinkable without a massive discourse about its state of physical and mental health, a discourse that primarily focuses on ever new practices of self-responsibility and new techniques which the self seeks to apply on itself, from diets to sporting activities to eco-awareness. All these practices are, in a way, the expression of a contemporary ideology to govern the self as a technique of shaping the self [10]. Such practices have been criticised as sublime colonisation of the self by the sovereign, as alienation, and as commodification - and it is by no means my intention to reject this critique. But what we are experiencing today is that the biopolitical ideology of self-responsibility turns out to be highly effective. Thus, the question in the given situation is whether the whole approach of a critique of biopolitics must be reformulated, and whether there is a dearth of new research on the possible qualities, capabilities, and civilising effects of biopolitics.

Of course, the current behaviour is propelled by a priority focus on self-preservation. The individual wish for survival definitely seems to dominate any other aspect of human cultural, social, and political life. Here Agamben is absolutely right: self-preservation gains absolute anthropological and social primacy. However, it turns out that it certainly need not turn anti-social, but it might come with rather mutually attentive qualities. The current agenda of social distancing, for example, which is both a preventative strategy for individual self-preservation and also a biopolitical strategy to govern the virus's mobility, turns out to be an act of respect of the Other and, therefore, of caring. Today, the humane face of the Other, to apply a Lévinas-like terminology, is first and foremost acknowledged as an ethical encounter from a distance.

References
[1] Soderbergh, Steven (2011): Contagion, UAE/USA: Warner Bros. et al.
[2] Ahrens, Jörn (2017): Einbildung und Gewalt. Film als Medium gesellschaftlicher Konfliktbearbeitung, Berlin: Bertz+Fischer
[3] Agamben, Giorgio (2004): State of Exception, Chicago: University of Chicago Press
[4] Agamben, Giorgio (1998): Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press
[5] Agamben, Giorgio (2001): Mittel ohne Zweck. Noten zur Politik, Freiburg/Berlin: Diaphanes, 27ff.
[6] Agamben, Giorgio (2020): The State of Exception Provoked by an Unmotivated Emergency, URL: http://positionswebsite.org/giorgio-agamben-the-state-of-exception-provoked-by-an-unmotivated-emergency/ (last access March 23, 2020)
[7] Ibid.
[8] Foucault, Michel (1999): In Verteidigung der Gesellschaft. Vorlesungen am Collège de France, 1975-1976, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp
[9] Foucault, Michel (2010): The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978-1979, New York: Picador
[10] Rose, Nikolas (1999): Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self, London/New York: Free Association Books

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Theorising - Praise of Biopolitics? The Covid-19 Pandemic and the Will for Self-Preservation

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When the Covid-19 pandemic started spreading in Germany, when people started to stay at home and to communicate in public at a distance of 1 to 2 metres from each other, when the government began to enforce formal restrictions on public behavior that came with massive limitations of civil rights, I was reminded of two things.

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Clarifications, Giorgio Agamben 17/03/2020

Fear is a bad counsellor, but it makes us see many things we pretended not to see.

The first thing the wave of panic that’s paralysed the country has clearly shown is that our society no longer believes in anything but naked life.

The naked life, and the fear of losing it, is not something that brings men and women together, but something that blinds and separates them.

Intro - question:

What will human relations become in a country that will be accustomed to living in this way for who knows how long? And what is a society with no other value other than survival?

the epidemic is clearly showing that the state of exception, which governments began to accustom us to years ago, has become an authentically normal condition.

Men have become so used to living in conditions of permanent crisis and emergency that they don’t seem to notice that their lives have been reduced to a purely biological condition, one that has lost not only any social and political dimension, but even any compassionate and emotional one. A society that lives in a permanent state of emergency cannot be a free one.

We effectively live in a society that has sacrificed freedom to so-called “security reasons” and as a consequence has condemned itself to living in a permanent state of fear and insecurity.

Conclusion:

What’s worrying in not so much the present, not only the present a tleast, but the aftermath. In the same way as the legacies of wars on peacetime have included a whole range of nefarious technologies, from barbed wire to nuclear plants, so it is very likely that there will be attempts to carry on pursuing, even after the medical emergency is over, many of the experiments governments hadn’t been able to implement: may universities and schools remain shut, with lessons and lectures taking place online, may an end be put once and for all to meetings and gathering to talk about political and cultural questions, may we only exchange digital messages and may wherever possible machines replace any contact – any contagion – between human beings.

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14/03/2020
The virtues of the virus
It is difficult to resist the temptation of analogy when trying to make sense of the proportions of the pandemic event. In the reflections that accompany its uncontrolled spread, Covid 19 has become a sort of generalized metaphor, almost the symbolic precipitate of the human condition in post-modernity. What happened forty years ago, with HIV, is repeating itself today. The pandemic appears as a sort of experimentum crucis, able to test hypotheses that go from politics to the effects of globalization, to the transformation of communication at the time of the internet - reaching the heights of the finest metaphysical speculation. The isolation, the mistrust and suspicion the virus causes, make it alternatively "populist" and "sovereignist". The emergency measures it forces upon us seem to universalize the "state of exception" that the present has inherited from the political theology of the twentieth century, confirming Foucault's thesis that modern sovereign power is biopolitical (a power that is articulated in the production, management and administration of "life"). Also, because of the fundamental anonymity characterizing it, the virus seems to share the same immaterial quality that grounds the dominion of financial capitalism. Because of how contagious it is, it can be easily compared to the prereflexive and "viral" nature of online communication. Last but not least, the virus signals our eternal human condition. In case we have forgotten that we are mortal, finite, contingent, lacking, ontological wanting, etc., the virus is here to remind us, forcing us to meditate and correct our distraction, that of compulsive consumers. These considerations are legitimate. They are, in fact, perfectly justified. This is, however, also their defect. If they make sense, it is precisely because they reduce what is unknown to what is known. They use the virus as intuitive proof that responds - to speak in phenomenological terms - to an expectation that is theoretical. For the critical insight that is being developed around the virus, Covid 19 is rather the name of a science fiction film used to certify previous knowledge.

However, if it is true that the virus displays the characteristic of an event (it would be difficult to deny this), then it must also possess its "virtue". Events are such not because they "happen" or, at least, not only because of this. Events are not "facts". Unlike simple facts, events possess a "virtue", a force, a property, a vis, that is, they do something. For this reason, an event is always traumatic to the point we may say that if there is no trauma there is no event, that if there is no trauma, literally nothing has happened. What exactly do events do? Events produce transformations that prior to their taking place were not even possible. In fact, they only begin to be "after" the event has taken place. In short, an event is such because it generates "real" possibility. One must bear in mind that here "possible" merely means doable. Possibility means being able to do something. Possibility is nothing abstract, it is not the free imagination of other worlds that are better than this one. Remaining on a pragmatic level, without indulging in metaphysics, possibility is only "potency" and potency is nothing more than action, determined activity. The "virtue" of an event thus consists in rendering operational methods possible, methods that "before" were simply impossible, unthinkable. It follows that an event can only be thought of starting from the future it generates (and not from the past), because it transforms, because it creates that which is real, and with it possibility. Common sense is therefore right when an event is thought of as an "opportunity" to "make a virtue of necessity".
We are too close to the Covid 19 event to be able to catch a glimpse of the future it bears, our fear is human, and this makes us unreliable witnesses. However, some signs of the shift in paradigm that this virus is generating are already visible, and they display an unexpected sense. The most striking is probably the sudden disappearance of the ideology linked to "walls". The virus has come at a time when the planet seemed to converge towards the shared belief that the only response to the "threats" posed by globalization consists in redefining guarded borders and strong identities. Populism hates books, but it dogmatically believes in the primacy of "culture", understood in an anthropological sense. The kind of community it promotes is, in fact, historical, romantic and traditional. This community is local by definition, its sworn enemy is the frigid abstraction of cosmopolitanism. What is even more alien in the eyes of populism is nature, which is nothing other than a resource to be exploited for the well-being of the community (one need only think of Bolsonaro and the deforestation in the Amazon, of Trump and his indifference to global warming, of Salvini's hatred for Greta...). Populists never doubt the idea that humanity is "exceptional". On the contrary, it is an article of faith. I might add that if a populist kisses the cross, it is because this act theologically confirms this exception. In a matter of days, and with an incredible speed, the virus has forced us all, willingly or not, to take upon ourselves - with everyday actions (wash your hands...) - the destiny of the global community, and, what is more, the destiny of the community of man with nature. Our culturalist and anthropocentric prejudice was not overcome by the slow and almost always ineffective action of education: a cough was enough to make it suddenly impossible to evade the responsibility that each individual has towards all living beings for the simple fact of (still...) being part of this world, and of wanting to be part of it...

With the objective force of trauma, the virus shows that the whole is always implied in the part, that "everything is, in certain sense, in everything" and that in nature there are no autonomous regions that constitute an exception. In nature there is no "dominion within another", as Spinoza wrote, ridiculing the "spirit's" claims to superiority over "matter". The virus's monism is wild and its immanence cruel. If culture de-solidarizes, if it erects barriers and constructs genres, if it defines gradations in the participation in the notion of humanity, tracing horrible borders between "us" and the "barbarians", the virus connects, and forces us to search for common solutions. Nobody, at a time like this, can think it is possible to save oneself on one's own, nor is it possible to do this without involving nature in this process. It is said that the epidemic is leading to the creation of red zones, domestic seclusion, the militarization of territories. This is indeed the case. Here, however, the wall has a completely different meaning compared to the walls the rich build to keep out the poor. A wall is being erected for the other, whoever she or he may be. In times like these "thy neighbour" is radically reduced to the dimension of "anyone". A wall, in all its forms, including the one metre separating the people standing in bars, is erected to substitute handshakes, now impossible, with that "anyone". It is a means to communicate, not the sign of exclusion. This is confirmed by the fact that the fascist rhetoric has not been able to appropriate these walls and use them to say how right they were about their proposals for segregation. In the face of the immense power of this virus, the fascists have had to put away, at least momentarily, their most effective weapon.

We are too close to the event also to be able to evaluate the effects it will have on the political sphere. There is one fact, however, that must be noted. The virus seems to restore the primacy that once belonged to the political. Classical thought used a metaphor to convey this primacy, the image of a ship's pilot navigating through stormy seas. Thinkers of the past were realists, they knew that there were no safe harbours to enter and end one's journey. Navigation, they said, is necessary, life is not. The "element" washing the political is a kind of nature in which fortune, chance and risk play an ineradicable role. Political "virtue", in fact, consisted in testing the force of this element, governing it with cunning intelligence ( metis) and resilience. The political is such precisely because it renounces the "human, all too human" illusion that it is possible to appropriate the force of natural elements, an illusion which, on the contrary, constitutes the metaphysical dream of "modern" humanity, which has conceived of the relationship with nature as a war of the spirit against brute matter. Political primacy means governing nature, not dominating it. Also, to explicit the fully "political" nature of this government, it is important to recall the formula so dear to Plato: kata dynamin, as much as it is possible for a human. Undoubtedly it is precisely the hypothesis of dominion that is ridiculed by a cough in Wuhan, a cough that makes it necessary to apply the pragmatic intelligence of a ship's pilot to govern, as much as possible, the spontaneity of a process unfolding against our intentions. Covid 19 also possesses this virtue: it commands politics to take on its specific responsibility, it returns the primacy that politics had delusionally left to other sovereign spheres, becoming subordinate to them, declaring its own powerlessness and limiting itself to playing an exclusively technical role. Following Wuhan the agenda can only be set by politics, which must navigate through the stormy seas of a progressive and apparently unstoppable contagion (indeed the Greeks described political virtue as being "cybernetic", that is, nautical). Indeed what until a few weeks ago seemed to be an unrealistic claim has now become a watchword. Politics must have precedence over the economy. It is the latter that must yield to the needs of the Prince who cares about the destiny of his crew.

Finally, the virus invites us to meditate. I do not think, however, that the object of this meditation is the contingency of being and the precarious nature of human affairs. We certainly do not need Covid 19 to reflect on our fragility. This anxiety has never really disappeared (despite what the journalist in their studios keep saying, when they pontificate about how thanks to the virus humanity, made stupid by the media, so by them, has finally "rediscovered" its ontological insecurity). The virus rather articulates existence, ours and that of others, as "destiny". Suddenly we feel we are being dragged by something that is overpowering, which grows in the silence of our organs, ignoring our will. Is freedom compromised to such an extent? This idea of freedom is certainly mediocre if it conflicts with the inevitability of what takes place. Among the virtues of the virus, we must also mention its ability to generate a more sober idea of freedom: the freedom achieved in doing something about what destiny does to us. To be free is to do what must be done in a specific situation. This is not philosophical abstraction. We see it embodies in the efforts that people make, the earnestness and dedication with which thousands of people work daily to slow the spread of the infection.
Translated from the Italian by Emma Catherine Gainsforth
_______________________
Giorgio Agamben Clarifications
17/03/2020

An Italian journalist applied himself, according to the best practice of his profession, to distorting and falsifying my considerations on the ethical confusion into which the epidemic is throwing the country, where there is no longer even any respect for the dead. In the same way as it's not worth mentioning his name, it's not worth rectifying his predictable manipulations. Those who wish to do so may read my text Contagion on the Quodlibet publishers website. Instead, I would rather publish here some further reflections, which, despite their clarity, will presumably be falsified too.

Fear is a bad counsellor, but it makes us see many things we pretended not to see. The first thing the wave of panic that's paralysed the country has clearly shown is that our society no longer believes in anything but naked life. It is evident that Italians are prepared to sacrifice practically everything - normal living conditions, social relations, work, even friendships and religious or political beliefs - to avoid the danger of falling ill. The naked life, and the fear of losing it, is not something that brings men and women together, but something that blinds and separates them. Other human beings, like those in the plague described by Manzoni, are now seen only as potential contaminators to be avoided at all costs or at least to keep at a distance of at least one metre. The dead - our dead - have no right to a funeral and it's not clear what happens to the corpses of our loved ones. Our fellow humans have been erased and it's odd that the Churches remain silent on this point. What will human relations become in a country that will be accustomed to living in this way for who knows how long? And what is a society with no other value other than survival?
The other thing, no less disturbing than the first, is that the epidemic is clearly showing that the state of exception, which governments began to accustom us to years ago, has become an authentically normal condition. There have been more serious epidemics in the past, but no one ever thought of declaring a state of emergency like today, one that forbids us even to move. Men have become so used to living in conditions of permanent crisis and emergency that they don't seem to notice that their lives have been reduced to a purely biological condition, one that has lost not only any social and political dimension, but even any compassionate and emotional one. A society that lives in a permanent state of emergency cannot be a free one. We effectively live in a society that has sacrificed freedom to so-called "security reasons" and as a consequence has condemned itself to living in a permanent state of fear and insecurity.
It's not surprising that we talk about the virus in terms of a war. The emergency provisions effectively force us to live under a curfew. But a war against an invisible enemy that can nestle in any other human being is the most absurd of wars. It is, to be truthful, a civil war. The enemy isn't somewhere outside, it's inside us.
What's worrying in not so much the present, not only the present a tleast, but the aftermath. In the same way as the legacies of wars on peacetime have included a whole range of nefarious technologies, from barbed wire to nuclear plants, so it is very likely that there will be attempts to carry on pursuing, even after the medical emergency is over, many of the experiments governments hadn't been able to implement: may universities and schools remain shut, with lessons and lectures taking place online, may an end be put once and for all to meetings and gathering to talk about political and cultural questions, may we only exchange digital messages and may wherever possible machines replace any contact - any contagion - between human beings.

______________
Sergio Benvenuto Forget about Agamben
20/03/2020

The immediate reaction of the sovereignists - an ennobling euphemism to define neo-fascists - to the coronavirus pandemic was the reflex we would all have expected from xenophobes: closing borders and identifying Covid-19 with the Foreigner. It's what Trump did by blocking communications with Europe without doing anything at the domestic level. The danger is always from the outside, never from within.

It was said that this pandemic would have pulled the rug from under the feet of the neo-fascists (among whom I include Trump, Johnson, Salvini, Erdogan...). Indeed, in cases in which anyone can be infected, the danger is not from the outside - Africa, China, Muslims, and so on - and not even from another nameable and circumscribable group from within, one that can be isolated like the Jews were for centuries in Europe. The danger lies everywhere, even in a child, a grandparent, a lover.... As the journalist Massimo Giannini said, "We are not in danger, we are the danger." The basic signifying oppositions of our Schmittian being political animals - us versus them, me versus the other - collapse and we're all equally dangerous, the gipsy is no more dangerous than my own daughter, racist categorizations lose all their mobilising charm at a stroke.

Within this picture, it doesn't worry me that the various countries have suspended Schengen. It would have been more disturbing had there been a closure of each country against another, but in fact it's just another of many closures at all levels: each citizen closes him or herself to the other.

The eminent philosopher Giorgio Agamben writes (in this same Tribune):

Even sadder than the limitations on freedom implicit in the provisions is, in my opinion, the degeneration of human relations they can generate. The other man, whoever he may be, even a loved one, must not be approached or touched, and indeed it is necessary to keep a specific distance form him, which according to some should be of one metre, but according to the latest recommendations by experts should be of 4.5 metres (interesting to note those extra fifty centimetres!) Our fellow man has been abolished.

It is difficult to imagine an equally superficial reaction. In fact the epidemic overturns the cliché that if I love my fellow men or women I should hug them, kiss them or stick to them like sardines ... Today I display my love for the other by keeping her or him at a distance. This is the paradox that collapses all the lazy ideological frameworks (ideological not in the Marxist sense) of the left and right, not to mention of the populists.

The edifying propaganda of some politicians and the media appeals to our selfishness as well as to our altruism: "If you avoid others, you are protecting them, but yourself too." Now, very often this is by no means true. It is now common knowledge that young people can be infected like everyone else but that it's quite rare for them to fall ill; it's also common knowledge that this pandemic is a geronticide,that those really at risk are the over 65s.

A young friend of mine keeps me at a distance of at least three meters and smiles. I very much appreciate this non-gesture of his, because I know that it is mainly he who is trying to protect me; because I'm old. It's true that he's also protecting the elderly in his own family: his father, his mother... But in any case I'm grateful to him. The more the others keep at a distance from me, the closer I feel to them. This is why Agamben has failed to understand anything about what's happening in the molecularity of human relations.

On the contrary, in recent days I came across several people who did not respect this secure distance and didn't even wear gloves or face masks; and they expressed their scepticism on the gravity of the disease... I could gather from their arguments that they were basically cynical and ultimately antisocial individuals. Today the sociable avoid society.

Last winter 8000 people died in Italy as a consequence of lung complications due to influenza, mostly the elderly. This year, with coronavirus, the death rate will probably rise to something between 20 and 25 thousand, three times the "normal" number of victims, mostly among the elderly. Is the fact that "only" three times as many people die because of a seasonal illness enough to say that Agamben is right in saying that this is a fake epidemic? No. Because this is an unknown virus that could have even more disastrous consequences. Everything that's being done is merely preventive. And, above all: in our societies it is unacceptable that three times as many people as normal die in one winter. It's a biopolitical - that is, ethical - choice.

A grotesque clown like Boris Johnson told the British people to "prepare to lose loved ones before their time". But why not address the dying too? Why not say "prepare to lose your lives"? As if death were always the death of the other. Perhaps he meant "prepare to lose your elderly...." For BoJo those who will die, those who have all the ingredients for death, also lose the quality of addressees, they're no longer even a "you". Italy made a different choice: quarantine and economic paralysis to protect its senior citizens. Among them we also find Agamben, born in 1942. I sense something of the heroic in this vigorous defence of those who do not have long to live.

__________________
Massimo De Carolis The threat of contagion
21/3/2020

Now that the media storm sparked by the coronavirus is beginning to subside, finally letting some reasonably certain data emerge, while the entire national territory is subjected to a regime of "exceptionality" never experienced before, it is possible to put forward some considerations on how the biological sphere and political one are intertwined in the current emergency, without fear of confusing the two spheres and thus contributing to the general confusion.
The first fact that appears to be incontestable is the exponential rate with which hospitalizations and deaths increase, doubling in number every two or three days. In short, the epidemic is not an illusion, but a real fact, an epidemic able to bring the hospital system to the brink within a couple of weeks, with dramatic social consequences in regions such as Campania or Sicily, where the health care system is already under strain in normal conditions, for much more futile causes.
Conversely, a much more reassuring fact, though not entirely certain, is that the number of people who have contracted the virus with mild symptoms may be much higher than what actual checks show. In short, it is possible that the virus is less lethal and that the number of infections will start dropping sooner than we think, as positive data from China confirm. It is therefore reasonable to hope that the epidemic will eventually end, without causing millions of deaths the way the Spanish or the Asian flu did.
Obviously, hopes are higher because of the greater efficiency of health technologies and systems compared to the past. It is, however, more difficult to measure the effectiveness of the policy measures adopted. The impression is that they are inspired by a principle of common sense. Theoretically, if in Italy no one ever came close to anyone else in the following three weeks (if, absurdly, wives and husbands stopped sleeping together, parents no longer hugged their children and doctors stayed away from patients), it would be impossible for the contagion to spread and the emergency would cease. The government measures seem to aim at this ideal situation as much as possible. Their goal is, if not to cancel social life, at least suspend it until further notice, relying on remote technology such as social networks and smart working for communication. The reasoning behind these measures, whether it is right or wrong, appears to be shared by the vast majority of the population, which is adapting to the new rules with surprising zeal. Certainly not everyone thinks that kids gathering to celebrate a birthday, or elderly who insist on having a coffee in a bar, despite these measures, are irresponsible "criminals". But certainly, at the moment, obedience to the rules is strengthened by strong social disapproval of the offenders. Therefore demanding the mitigation or even a suspension of these measures would be, at the moment, a futile and unpopular move, especially since no one seems to have a viable alternative.
The fact remains, however, that these measures are disturbing, they dissolve the social bond and impose a regime of solitude and police control on the whole population, a strong reminder of the darkest experiences of our recent political past. The crucial point is therefore to understand whether this is really and only a simple parenthesis, or if we are rather witnessing a general test of what could become the condition of ordinary life in the societies of the near future.
This doubt is justified by the fact that the destruction of the social bond and obsessive control in the name of "public health" certainly did not originate with the coronavirus. For at least a century, modern social mechanisms have tended to generate a society based on isolation, in which the spontaneity of social life is perceived as an obstacle or even as a threat to the stability of the system. The point is that in the past the production system could not function without bodies, voices and hands working together: it could limit and control promiscuity but not eliminate it entirely. Today, on the contrary, all this is possible, thanks to the wonders of technology. For the first time, despite how paradoxical this may sound, the machine reproducing society can completely eliminate human sociality, without paying too high a price. What guarantees that this is not what is being tested for the future?

To avoid misunderstandings, let us make it clear that in no case will a conspiracy, a Spectre or some more or less occult personification of Power, answer this question. There is no director behind social phenomena, these are the result of a varying number of independent forces and drives. There are no puppeteers, only puppets animating the theatre, each in his or her own way, with more or less force, in one direction or another, often in spite of their conscious intentions. When the epidemic is over, there will certainly be a festive return to sociality, which no democratic government will dream of prohibiting. Certainly, however, many companies will decide that smart working is convenient, and will ask employees not to dismantle the emergency workstations they have arranged in their bedrooms. Many conformist people will notice that the closure of nightlife venues is an advantage for public safety, provided it does not harm the interests of restaurants and tourism. Also, many "identitarian" political forces will remind us that contagion, in general, spreads among homeless people and immigrants in particular (although unfortunately not in this case) and that the public health system requires unyielding hygiene. More in general, all of us will discover that, ultimately, there is no social life that does not involve risk of contagion, just as there is no organic life that does not involve the risk of disease and death. For this reason we will have to address a basic political question: to what extent are we willing to jeopardize, also minimally, our biological security to have dinner with a friend, to embrace a child or simply to chat with the people hanging around in the square? Where do we place the bar when deciding that our social happiness has precedence over safeguarding our health? Is political existence more important than biological survival?
The fact that the coronavirus is forcing us to ask these questions from one day to the next is a good thing, because the structure of our future society may depend on the answers we provide with facts (not only words).
Translated from the Italian by Emma Catherine Gainsforth
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Shaj Mohan 23/3/2020
It is frightfully sublime in part because of its obscurity. - Immanuel Kant

Implicit within the debate on Coronavirus curated by Antinomie and archived by Sergio Benvenuto[1] is the question-f or what must we carry on? That is, do we-humanity, which has been reckoned by many thinkers as the error in nature-carry on for the sake of carrying on? Or, should we, following Thomas Taylor, M. K. Gandhi, Pierre Clastres, and several others, proceed with a project of returning towards a moment in history that, for Agamben, is "the normal conditions of life"[2]. Is not Agamben's notion of normal life none other than a mythical European bourgeois idyll where "the churches" do not "remain silent"? Should we continue to evaluate everything in our present with these "normal conditions of life"?

These conversations have been happening in America too, where "the boomers"-those few of a post-war generation who enjoyed prosperity and relatively stable conditions of life-evaluates the lives of "millennials" on the basis of its own myths and idylls. Wittgenstein distinguished the philosopher from the bourgeois thinker who thinks "with the aim of clearing up the affairs of some particular community". It is impossible to avoid the fact that the "normal conditions of life" to be guarded from "biopolitics" were, and are, dependent on colonial, capitalistic, and other exploitative processes which all these families of thoughts including the theory of "bio-politics" seek to criticise. Since the notions of "normalcy" and "biopolitics" held by Agamben, and derived from Michel Foucault, have been exported through analogy over regions of the world and of thought that are homologically distinct, a certain "bourgeois thinking" has become the universal today. In many parts of the world these theories provide the experience of a conspiratorial spirit in history determining its course, leaving humans to merely lament, which is our sense of "resistance" today.

The terror before this question- for what must we carry on?-was always understood and it is not limited to any epoch or region. The closing off of this question has been mostly the work of what we call "religions". However, it began to acquire an urgency with Nietzsche's destruction of all values towards a revaluation of all values. Nietzsche pointed to an obscure object of thought as the reference for the revaluation of all values- eternal return of the same. Martin Heidegger would execute a certain act in philosophy in 1934 which would then suppress the import of the question for what must we carry on in a lecture course titled "Logic as the Question Concerning the Essence of Language". In this lecture, long before Foucault and Agamben, Heidegger specified a certain form of politics-"population politics"-which considers people with indifference to their blood-lines and 'tongue-lines'. He wrote,

In a census, the Volk is counted in the sense of the population, the population, in so far as it constitutes the body of the Volk, the inhabitants of the land. At the same time, it is to be considered that in a governmental order of the census a certain part of the Volk is included, namely the part that dwells within the State's borders. The German nationals living abroad are not included in the count, [they] do not belong in this sense to the Volk. On the other hand, those can also be included in the count, those who, taken racially, are of alien breed, do not belong to the Volk.[3]

Here, population refers to something of a "motley crew", whereas the ideal type for "a people" are those dwellers of the soil who once enjoyed a mythic unity with one another. Here is a German bourgeois thinker.

If we assume that this tendency of the last century is "Eurocentric" it will be a grave error. In fact, its most profound and startling expression can be found in the subcontinent. M. K. Gandhi too conceived an Indian village idyll and contrasted it with "western civilization". Gandhi's idyll is the village of the privileged upper caste Indian under whom the racial hierarchies and exploitations of the majority lower caste people carry on, but without an ounce of resentment on part of the exploited. The logic of surrendering to the caste order without resentment in the subcontinent is called "Karman"[4]. Gandhi understood that this ideal was never realised in history, and never will be.

However, Gandhi's evaluation of mankind was not founded on the ideal village as the "normal conditions". Instead, the village itself was founded on the principles of hypophysics, according to which nature is the good. We had called this mode of thinking hypophysics following Kant's taxonomy of moral thought[5]. The ideal Indian village is the home of hypophysics where all things are retained at their original value, that is, a place where nature was never de-natured. The ideal village conservers the "normal conditions" in spite of the presence of man. Gandhi's verdict was that man was infected with a range of faculties that allowed him to explore all the milieus given in nature and also propelled him to discover the milieus unknown to nature. The being without an appropriate milieu is the effervescent error in nature. If a being cannot be given a fixed milieu then what is good and bad for it are also indefinable. That is, action in the moral sense is impossible for such a being, who must therefore seek its own dissolution in nature.

As we know Gandhi's goal in life was to reduce himself to "zero", a point at which no action was required. As with all rigorous thinkers, he sought the same end for humankind itself- we must not carry on. Gandhi's advice to Martin Buber on the fate of the Jewish people in Nazi Germany came from his interpretation of "for what must we carry on". When Gandhi was requested by Buber to intervene on behalf of the Jewish people using his considerable moral standing in the world, he responded:

The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the godfearing, death has no terror.[6]

The schema of this response, shocking as it is, continues to reign over our time. What holds the schema together is hypophysics, and the theory of "bio-politics" is itself a species of hypophysics.

Today, the dominance of this tendency-hypophysics-is not to be scorned upon without understanding the conditions in which it arose. Hypophysics came to be dominant when metaphysics became impossible; that is, instead of referring to another domain for values we began to find the Ideal within our preferred socio-economic milieus and in the calamitous misunderstandings of nature. We became acutely aware of the absence of "value" and hence a certain inability to distinguish between good and evil in the last century. We must note that this aversion of the eye from the absence of value, which makes one hold fast to the nearest ideal or idyll, is still a caring thought.

The formalisation of the experience of being without value, without an orientation in the face of the question " for what must we carry on", is most acutely found in the schema of Heidegger's early works[7]. In philosophy, difference is found in something which is differentiable. For example, we say that "1" and "a" differ in the differentiable "written characters". Duns Scotus' theology relies on thinking being as the ultimate differentiable in which God was the infinite being and creatures the finite beings. This gives us something akin to infinite man and finite gods to work with. Being, in which the difference is made, gives man his orientation in God. The similarity between the logic of this division in being and the theory of Idea in Plato's middle period made Nietzsche remark that Christianity was Platonism for the masses.

Heidegger would propose a new kind of difference without precedence-ontico-ontological difference or the difference between being and beings -for which there is no differentiable. From this moment, being could not be thought as something that is the primary differentiable, nor could it be thought as the place holder for the higher beings-Idea, Subject, Will-for there is no primary differentiable. Heidegger's unthinkable logic would open the mystery of being itself and at the same time keep in abeyance the unthinkable through the narrative of the decline in the history of the difference between being and beings. In this narrative, there once was an ideal village in Greece where "normal conditions of living" were available.

Jean-Luc Nancy pursued and revealed the limits of this thought when he wrote the obscure proposition " existence precedes and succeeds upon itself"[8]. It stands outside the family of propositions such as "existence precedes essence" and "essence precedes existence", and it implies at least two things. First, reason can be given for the succession of each thing upon itself and of a thing upon another thing. However, there is no reason, under any other names, for the persistence of existence. Second, we can determine our actions, or our movement from moment to moment, through reason which drives this movement in spite of us. However, we are abandoned in the face of the moment itself, which does not submit to reason. That is, the duratio noumenon is properly obscure. The world wraps around us with its intrigues of reason while at the same time reason itself drives us towards the absence of itself in the fact of reason, a seizure from which one cannot shake free.

In a series of proper names-Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Derrida, Deleuze, Nancy-and through different logics and systematicities, we have come to an acute understanding of this fact: that we are forsaken. But what does it imply, especially now when we are seeking an orientation in the face of an epidemic, and then other calamities? In a short text with the least formal steps something can still be indicated and shared. Anticipation is when we say that "there is lighting, and thunder is set to follow". When several elements are involved in the constitution of a phenomenon our anticipations are likely to meet with disappointment or surprise; for example, a concert may be cancelled due to an earthquake. The moments, and the relation between the moments, which we can account for through reason can fall within the experience of anticipation; that is, everything in the world. However, there is something outside anticipation-the persistence of the world-which we embrace with the absolute certainty that its disappearance with us in it is never a concern, although we know that "a world" of a "someone" will withdraw, including our own. In each step of anticipations and disappointments we are surprised by this disorienting certitude. If we bring Kant and Wittgenstein together the end of the world is not an event, for it is not an event in the world.

This absolute certitude is the most obscure experience, while also being the most distinct. Like a membrane it envelops everything while penetrating everything as we look into everything. Early Wittgenstein's experience of this mystery was that of the individual who in his solitude experienced the sense of the world lying outside it while the being of the world itself was for that very reason obscure. But what we can say, for now, is that this experience of the obscure-the assurance of an absolute persistence-is possible on the condition that we are able to speak with one another in sharing our reasons and responsibilities. Later Wittgenstein would argue that the possibility of each experience is public, for there is no private language. Then, each one of us, without knowing the whence and whither of it, share the obscure because we can share words, cultures, love, cautions and tragedies.

From the experience of the obscure we should think of the other side of hypophysics, which is technological determinism. It is the same aversion from the obscure experience that turns us towards technological exuberance where a new god is being founded-the hyper-machines that will make machines which humans can neither build nor comprehend. It will be these machines that will then give ends to man. Bio-politics and other theories are rendering us immobile and resigned like animals who are caught in the headlights, but of our own rushing technical exuberance.

Tonight we should rest a while in our shared solitude (the only kind of solitude as we can see) with the thought that the mystery is not that the world is, but that it is mysterious to us making of us the mystery, the obscure "mysterium tremendum". In the words of the poet tonight we are " Alive in the Superunknown ".

[2] See Giorgio Agamben on coronavirus: "The enemy is not outside, it is within us." http://bookhaven.stanford.edu/2020/03/giorgio-agamben-on-coronavirus-the-enemy-is-not-outside-it-is-within-us/

[3] Heidegger, Logic as the Question Concerning the Essence of Language (Buffalo: SUNY Press, 2009): p. 56, emphases added.

[4] See Giorgio Agamben, Karman: A Brief Treatise on Action, Guilt, and Gesture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2018).

[5] See Shaj Mohan and Divya Dwivedi, Gandhi and Philosophy: On Theological Anti-Politics (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019, foreword by Jean-Luc Nancy).

[7] Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (London: Routledge, 1922) arrived at the absence of any kind of "for what" for us to "carry on" before Heidegger came into the scene, but it did so through a different logic.

[8] Jean-Luc Nancy, Sense of the World, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997): p. 34.

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Jean-Luc Nancy A Much Too Human Virus
13/4/2020

As it has often been said, since 1945 Europe has been exporting its wars. Having fallen apart, it was unable to do anything but spread its disunion through its old colonies, and along the lines of its alliances and competing interests with the new power poles of the world. Between these poles, Europe was only a memory, while still pretending to have a future.

And now, Europe is importing. Not only merchandise, as it has long done, but first and foremost populations - something that is not new either, but is becoming urgent, even overwhelming -, at a pace set by the conflicts it exports and by environmental problems (which also originated in Europe). Today, Europe is importing a viral epidemic.

What does this mean? It is not simply a question of the spread, which has its vectors and trajectories. Europe is not the centre of the world - far from it - but it persists in playing its long-standing role as a model or an example. Elsewhere, there may be very strong attractions and impressive opportunities. Some are traditional, perhaps old-fashioned, like in North America; others are newer, in Asia and Africa (with South America being a special case, where many European features are combined with other particularities). But Europe seemed, or believed itself to be, more or less desirable, at least as a refuge.

The old theatre of the exemplary - justice, science, democracy, beauty and well-being - attracts desires, even if these desires attach themselves to worn out or even outmoded objects. Thus, Europe stays open to visitors although it is not welcoming for those who can't pay for such desires. It is not surprising, then, that a virus enters the picture.

Nor is it surprising that in Europe this virus creates greater confusion than in the place of its origin. Indeed, China had already established order, in regard to markets as well as diseases. Europe, on the other hand, was in a state of relative disorder: between nations and between aspirations. This led to some indecision, agitation and difficult adaptation. By contrast, the United States immediately fell back on its grandiose isolationism and its unhesitating ability to decide. Europe has always been trying to find itself - and the world, which it kept discovering, exploring and exploiting -, after which still not knowing where it stood.

Just when the first epicentre of the pandemic seemed to have been brought under control, and many countries not yet affected closed their doors to Europeans and to the Chinese, Europe became the epicentre of the pandemic. It was there that we saw the accumulated effects of travel to China (business, leisure, studies), of visitors from China and elsewhere (business, leisure, studies), of its own general uncertainties and, finally, of its internal dissention.

It would be tempting to resume the situation like this: in Europe it's "Run for your life" and elsewhere it's "Show me what you're made of, virus!". Or like this: in Europe, the dilly-dallying, the skepticism and the hard-headedness are more prevalent than in many other places. This is our "reasoning reason" legacy, libertine and libertarian; in other words, the legacy we, old Europeans, considered the very life of the mind.

This is why the inevitable reiteration of the expression "exceptional measures" resuscitates the ghost of Carl Schmitt, through a kind of hasty parallel. Thus, the virus spreads the discourses of ostentatious defiance. Showing that you are not fooled is more important than avoiding the contagion - which amounts to being doubly fooled - and perhaps by poorly repressed anxiety. Or by a childish feeling of omnipotence or daring.

Everyone (me included) has a comment to make, be it doubtful or attempting an interpretation. Philosophy, psychoanalysis and politology of the virus all have a message to bring.

(Let us accept the view presented by Michel Deguy, in his poem Coronation, on the Website of the journal Po&sie.)

Everyone wants to discuss and argue, since we are long used to dealing with difficulties, ignorance and undecidedness. At the global level, what dominates, it seems to me, are confidence, mastery and decision. At least, this is the image that seems to emerge, or to take shape in the collective imagination.

The coronavirus pandemic is, on every level, a product of globalisation. It highlights the latter's characteristics and tendencies. It is an active, combative and effective free-trade agent. It takes part in the wider process through which a culture becomes undone, to be replaced by something which is less a culture and more a system of forces indistinguishably technical, economic, authoritarian and sometimes psychological or physical (if we think of oil or the atom). Of course, this process brings into question the economic development model, so that the French President feels obliged to report on it. It's quite possible that we shall have to change our algorithms - but there is no proof that this will serve to usher in a new era.

Indeed, eradicating a virus is not enough. If technical and political mastery proves to be like its outcome, it will only turn the world into a field of forces tensed and pitted against each other, henceforth stripped of any of the civilising elements that came into play previously. The contagious brutality of the virus spreads as administrative brutality. We are already dealing with the need to select those eligible for treatment. (And this is not counting the inevitable economic and social injustices.) This is not some underhanded plot devised by an unknown sinister conspirator. Nor is it the result of abuses on the part of nations. The only thing at works is the general law of interconnections, whose mastery is the aim of techno-economic powers.

In the past, pandemics could be considered divine punishment, just as illness in general was seen for a very long time as external to the social body. Today, most illnesses are endogenous, caused by our living conditions, the quality of our food and the toxicity of our environment. What used to be divine has become human - too human, as Nietzsche says. For a long time, modernity could be defined according to Pascal's formula "Man infinitely surpasses man". But if he surpasses himself "too much", that is, without rising to the Pascalian divine - then he does not surpass himself at all. Instead, he becomes mired in a humanity overwhelmed by the events and situations it has produced.

Indeed, the virus confirms the absence of the divine, since we know its biological nature. We are even discovering how much more complex and harder to define living beings are, than we had previously described them to be. We are also discovering to what extent the exercise of political power - that of a people, that of a so-called "community", like the "European" community or a military dictatorship - is another form of complexity, once again harder to define than we might have thought. We understand better now how inadequate the term "biopolitics" is in these conditions. Life and politics challenge us together. Our scientific knowledge tells us that we are dependent only on our own technical power, but there is no pure technicity because the knowledge itself includes uncertainties (one only has to read the published studies). Because technical power is not unequivocal, how much less unequivocal must a political power be, while supposedly guided by objective data, and expected to respond to legitimate expectations?

Of course, decisions must nevertheless be based on presumed objectivity. If this objectivity dictates "confinement" or "distancing", how far should authorities go to enforce them? And, of course, inversely, at what point can we speak of the vested interests of a government that wants - for example - to preserve the Olympic Games from which it expects to profit, as do many businesses and sports managers in whose behalf the government is acting as well? Or the interests of a government which takes this opportunity to rekindle nationalist feelings?

The viral magnifying glass enlarges the characteristics of our contradictions and of our limitations. It is a reality principle that collides with the pleasure principle. Death is its companion. Death, that we exported with wars, famines and devastation, that we thought we confined to a few other viruses and to cancers (now in quasi-viral expansion), now waits for us around the corner. What do you know! We are humans, two-legged, without feathers and gifted with language, but certainly neither superhuman, nor transhuman. Too human? Or are we to understand that there can be no such thing as "too" human, and that it is precisely this which surpasses us infinitely?

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Coronavirus and philosophers | European Journal of Psychoanalysis

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14/03/2020 The virtues of the virus It is difficult to resist the temptation of analogy when trying to make sense of the proportions of the pandemic event. In the reflections that accompany its uncontrolled spread, Covid 19 has become a sort of generalized metaphor, almost the symbolic precipitate of the human condition in post-modernity.

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an entire society has acquiesced to feeling itself plague-stricken, to isolating itself at home, and to suspending its normal conditions of life, its relationships of work, friendship, love, and even its religious and political convictions.

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The following reflections are not about the epidemic, but what we can understand from people's reactions to it. It is a question, that is, of reflecting on the ease with which an entire society has acquiesced to feeling itself plague-stricken, to isolating itself at home, and to suspending its normal conditions of life, its relationships of work, friendship, love, and even its religious and political convictions. Why were there no protests and opposition, as is usually the case in these situations? The hypothesis I would like to suggest is that somehow, albeit unconsciously, the plague was already there; that, evidently, people's conditions of life had become such that a sudden sign was enough for them to appear for what they were - that is, intolerable, like a plague precisely. And this, in a sense, is the only positive fact that can be drawn from the present situation: it is possible that, later on, people may begin to wonder whether the way they have been living was just.

No less important to think about is the need for religion that the situation renders apparent. A clue to this is the terminology borrowed from the eschatological vocabulary that obsessively uses the word "apocalypse" to describe the phenomenon-particularly in the American press-and often explicitly evokes the end of the world. It is as if the religious need, which the Church is no longer able to satisfy, was gropingly looking for another place to settle, and finding it in what has now become the religion of our time: science. Like any religion, science can produce superstition and fear or, in any case, be used to spread them. Never before have we witnessed the spectacle, so typical of religions in times of crisis, of such different and contradictory opinions and prescriptions, ranging from the minority heretical position (even represented by prestigious scientists) of those who deny the seriousness of the phenomenon to the dominant orthodox discourse that affirms it and, however, often radically diverges as to how to deal with it. And, as always in these cases, some experts or self-styled experts manage to secure the monarch's favor, who, as in the times of the religious disputes that divided Christianity, decides to side, according to his own interests, with one current or another, and proceeds to impose his measures.

Another thing that gives pause for thought is the evident collapse of all common conviction and faith. It would seem that people no longer believe in anything other than a bare biological existence, which must be saved at any cost. But the fear of losing one's life can only serve as the foundation of tyranny, of the monstrous Leviathan with his unsheathed sword.

That is why-once the emergency, the plague, is declared over, if it is-I do not believe that, at least for those who have maintained a minimum of lucidity, it will be possible to return to life as it was before. And this is perhaps the most desperate thing today-even if, as has been said, "hope is given only to those who no longer hope."
First published on the Quodlibet Translated from the Italian by Gianmaria Senia , March 27, 2020. Our translation.

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Reflections on the plague | European Journal of Psychoanalysis

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The following reflections are not about the epidemic, but what we can understand from people's reactions to it. It is a question, that is, of reflecting on the ease with which an entire society has acquiesced to feeling itself plague-stricken, to isolating itself at home, and to suspending its normal conditions of life, its relationships of work, friendship, love, and even its religious and political convictions.

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Has the COVID-19 pandemic reduced humans under lockdown to a ‘bare life’, in which mere survival becomes the only goal of life, and the state of exception becomes the normal condition? Or has it precipitated a flowering of civic responsibility and mutual aid, a ‘biopolitics from below’ of informed consent to unprecedented measures for the protection of the public health? To put it another way, is Viktor Orban the virus sovereign or Andrew Cuomo?

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Nick Pearce is a Professor in Public Policy and Director of the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) at the University of Bath.
Has the COVID-19 pandemic reduced humans under lockdown to a 'bare life', in which mere survival becomes the only goal of life, and the state of exception becomes the normal condition? Or has it precipitated a flowering of civic responsibility and mutual aid, a 'biopolitics from below' of informed consent to unprecedented measures for the protection of the public health? To put it another way, is Viktor Orban the virus sovereign or Andrew Cuomo?

This debate has been underway in locked down Italy on the pages of and , prompted by the reflections of Giorgio Agamben, the Italian philosopher (English translations can be found in the European Journal of Psychoanalysis ).Agamben argues that " an entire society has acquiesced to feeling itself plague-stricken, to isolating itself at home, and to suspending its normal conditions of life, its relationships of work, friendship, love, and even its religious and political convictions. "

The ease with which citizens have acquiesced to confinement is a sign that a sickness was already circulating in our societies long before the novel coronavirus jumped from a bat to a Hubei farmer last year.All that is left is the biological ' fear of losing one's life', which ' can only serve as the foundation of tyranny, of the monstrous Leviathan with his unsheathed sword '.

Not so, reply Agamben's critics. Instead of social resignation, the pandemic has revealed civic generosity and the capacity for collective mobilisation. The truly sociable citizen is she who keeps her distance, lowers baskets of food to her neighbour, and volunteers on the frontline of the health services. The idea of a 'bare life' is better used to describe the pensioner waiting for a ventilator or an ICU bed in a public health system stripped of resources by a decade of austerity . "Everything that's being done is merely preventive...in our societies it is unacceptable that three times as many people as normal die in one winter. It's a biopolitical - that is, ethical - choice. " In the midst of the crisis, it is possible to see the outlines of a new politics of collective resilience and innovative government, orientated to the public good.

Earlier this year, when the city of Wuhan was locked down, it was customary to frame this debate as one between the tools and techniques of authoritarian Chinese population control, and the rational public health strategies of Western liberal democracies. But the subsequent enforcement of lock downs in Europe and the USA, coupled with the comparative success of East Asian governments in containing and suppressing the virus, has changed the terms of the debate. Now the arguments hinge on the efficacy of different strategies for tackling the virus and minimising fatalities, and the question arises as to what sort of public health regimes will take shape after the lockdown, whether East, West, or Global South.

New infrastructures of population management are already emerging. In Germany, scientists have argued that mass testing for coronavirus antibodies will enable public authorities to issue 'immunity passports' to enable their holders to return to work and social interaction, a strategy which the UK government apparently also wants to pursue. Digital, app-based versions of virus risk identification and population movement management already exist in China, South Korea and elsewhere, and indeed have played a central part in tackling the pandemic crisis. An explicit link between the technologies of security and pandemic control has been made in , where geo-located mobile phone data stored by security services will be used for tracking the movements and social interactions of infected individuals.

As economic and social activity recovers, immigration controls are also likely to shift from blanket bans on passenger arrivals and enforced quarantines to selective visa regimes and airport segregation measures. Countries could be ranked for visas according to their levels of virus incidence, or visas issued to individuals possessing certificates of immunity. Airport architecture will be reconfigured to accommodate temperature testing controls and segregated arrival pathways.Increasingly, passengers will be tracked on public transport and taxis as they leave airports and 'smart cities' will embed public health population surveillance into the built environment. Algorithms will be trained on population data for virus transmission risk.

If much of this sounds like a digitally encoded 'bare life', the crisis has also generated alternative possibilities: reinvigorated universalism in social security systems, increased investment in public health infrastructures and health service capacity, a newly legitimised role for the state in the economy, and breakthroughs in public openness, innovation and global collaboration . A democratic biopolitics has also taken shape in the widespread critical scrutiny of the scientific advice and policy strategies pursued by different governments.

Contra Agamben, we can best see the COVID-19 pandemic as a critical juncture - one in which the prospects for transformative change depend on how existing institutions are reshaped by political actors. History teaches us that pandemics leave behind them enduring legacies, whether in public health infrastructures, welfare states or immigration and population controls. Even when a COVID-19 vaccine is widely available, there will be no return to a pre-virus normality. One way or another, the coronavirus crisis will not go to waste.

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After the lockdown: The biopolitics of COVID-19

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Nick Pearce is a Professor in Public Policy and Director of the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) at the University of Bath. Has the COVID-19 pandemic reduced humans under lockdown to a 'bare life', in which mere survival becomes the only goal of life, and the state of exception becomes the normal condition?

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- Intro - pandemic - rethink politics of health
- Confront - vexed relationship - state, dominant social relations & public health
- Naked life

The coronavirus pandemic has forced us to rethink the politics of health in the broadest sense. In particular, we have had to confront again that vexed relationship between the state, the dominant social relations and public health. Concepts that may have seemed obscure and or to have fallen out of one academic fashion, such as biopolitics or “naked life”, have leapt from the page and become suddenly irrepressibly pertinent to our everyday experiences.

- Handling Covid-19 - China - implement an authoritarian version of biopolitics - use of extended quarantines, bans on social activities...

The questions regarding the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic obviously raise issues associated with biopolitics. Many commentators have suggested that China made steps towards containing or slowing the pandemic because it could implement an authoritarian version of biopolitics, which included the use of extended quarantines and bans on social activities, which was helped by the vast arsenal of coercion, surveillance and monitoring measures and technologies that the Chinese state has at its disposal.

- naked life - pensioner - on a waiting list of a respirator/ ICU bed

One might say that contra Agamben, the concept of ‘naked life’ can better describe the pensioner on a waiting list for a respirator or an ICU bed, because of a collapsed public health system, than the attempt to adjust to the practical exigencies of social distancing or quarantine measures.

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The coronavirus pandemic has forced us to rethink the politics of health in the broadest sense. In particular, we have had to confront again that vexed relationship between the state, the dominant social relations and public health. Concepts that may have seemed obscure and or to have fallen out of one academic fashion, such as biopolitics or "naked life", have leapt from the page and become suddenly irrepressibly pertinent to our everyday experiences. The same could be said about 'the state of exception', whose recent popularity recalls the onset of the War on Terror, and now refers to the extreme, authoritarian measures taken to confront the pandemic. At the same time they pose the challenge of how to think about the politics of health from the perspective of the subaltern classes. In view of this challenge I believe that these concepts need to be both problematized and re-elaborated.

A recent intervention from the philosopher Giorgio Agamben offers, in my opinion, an example of a failure to answer this challenge so grave, that it may lead many to reject the problem and concept of biopolitics itself - specifically because the mentioned concepts are so closely associated with Agamben's work. In an article written at the very first stages of the Covid-19 epidemic in Italy, Agamben characterized the measures implemented in response to the Covid-19 pandemic as an exercise in the biopolitics of the 'state of exception'. This text has sparked an important debate on how to think of biopolitics in relation to events such as pandemics and the measures associated with them. In it, Agamben, suggested that the measures taken were imposing an 'authentic state of exception' and that the 'invention of an epidemic offered the ideal pretext' for further limitations to basic freedoms. The article provoked a series of responses. Jean-Luc Nancy insisted that the danger from the epidemic is indeed real and that the very notion of the exception is becoming the rule as a result of the increased 'technical interconnections' of all kinds in contemporary life. Roberto Esposito in his response to both Agamben and Nancy defended the relevance of biopolitics as a way to think important contemporary developments but also suggested that the situation in Italy 'has more the character of a breakdown of public authorities than that of a dramatic totalitarian grip'. Others stressed the reality of the danger of the pandemic, the need to avoid easy dismissals of warnings by experts and the need to rethink the very notion of responsibility we have toward others. I think that this debate offers a way to rethink the very notion of biopolitics, and I would like to offer some preliminary thoughts on the possibility of an alternative thinking of biopolitics.

The notion of biopolitics, as it was formulated by Michel Foucault, has been a very important contribution to our understanding of the changes associated with the passage to capitalist modernity, especially in regards to the ways that power and coercion are exercised. From power as a right of life and death that the sovereign holds, we pass to power as an attempt to guarantee the health (and productivity) of populations. This led to an expansion without precedent of all forms of state intervention and coercion. From compulsory vaccinations to bans on smoking in public spaces, the notion of biopolitics has been used in many instances as the key to understanding the political and ideological dimensions of health policies.

At the same time, it has allowed us to analyse various phenomena that are often repressed in the public sphere, from the ways that racism attempted to find a 'scientific' grounding to the dangers of trends such as eugenics. And indeed Agamben has used it in a constructive way, in his attempt to theorise the modern forms of a 'state of exception', namely spaces where extreme forms of coercion are put in practice, with the concentration camp the main example.

The questions regarding the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic obviously raise issues associated with biopolitics. Many commentators have suggested that China made steps towards containing or slowing the pandemic because it could implement an authoritarian version of biopolitics, which included the use of extended quarantines and bans on social activities, which was helped by the vast arsenal of coercion, surveillance and monitoring measures and technologies that the Chinese state has at its disposal.

Some commentators even claimed that because liberal democracies lack the same capacity for coercion or invest more on voluntary individual behaviour change, they cannot take the same measures and this could inhibit the attempt to deal with the pandemic.

However, I think that it would be a simplification to pose the dilemma as one between authoritarian biopolitics and a liberal reliance on persons making rational individual choices.

Moreover, it is obvious that simply treating measures of public health, such as quarantines or 'social distancing', as biopolitics somehow misses their potential usefulness. In the absence of a vaccine or successful anti-viral treatments, these measures, coming from the repertoire of 19 th century public health manuals, can reduce the burden, especially for vulnerable groups.

This is especially urgent if we recognize that even in advanced capitalist economies public health infrastructure has deteriorated and cannot actually stand the peak of the pandemic, unless measures to reduce the rate of its expansion are taken.

One might say that contra Agamben, the concept of 'naked life' can better describe the pensioner on a waiting list for a respirator or an ICU bed, because of a collapsed public health system, than the attempt to adjust to the practical exigencies of social distancing or quarantine measures. In light of the above I would like to suggest a different return to Foucault. I think that sometimes we forget that Foucault had a highly relational conception of power practices. In this sense, it is legitimate to ask whether a democratic or even communist biopolitics is possible.

To put this question in a different way: Is it possible to have collective practices that actually help the health of populations, including large-scale behaviour modifications, without a parallel expansion of forms of coercion and surveillance?

Foucault himself, in his late work, points towards such a direction, around the notions of truth, parrhesia and care of the self. In this highly original dialogue with ancient philosophy, in particular Hellenistic and Roman, he suggested an alternative politics of bios that combines individual and collective care, based on a certain obligation and courage to tell the truth, in non-coercive ways.

In such a perspective, the decisions for the reduction of movement and for social distancing in times of epidemics, or for not smoking in closed public spaces, or for avoiding individual and collective practices that harm the environment, would be the result of democratically discussed collective decisions based on the knowledge available and as part of a collective effort to care for others and ourselves. This means that from simple discipline we move to responsibility, in regards to others and then ourselves, and from suspending sociality to consciously transforming it. In such a condition, instead of a permanent individualized fear, which can break down any sense of social cohesion, we move towards the idea of collective effort, coordination and solidarity within a common struggle, elements that in such health emergencies can be equally important to medical interventions.

This offers the possibility of a democratic biopolitics. This can also be based on the democratization of knowledge. The increased access to knowledge, along with the need for popularization campaigns makes possible collective decision processes that are based on knowledge and understanding and not just the authority of experts.

Biopolitics from below

The battle against HIV, the fight of stigma, the attempt to make people understand that it is not the disease of 'high risk groups', the demand for education on safe sex practices, the funding of the development of therapeutic measures and the access to public health services, would not have been possible without the struggle of movements such as ACT UP. One might say that this was indeed an example of a biopolitics from below.

And in the current conjuncture, social movements have a lot of room to act. They can ask of immediate measures to help public health systems withstand the extra burden caused by the pandemic. They can point to the need for solidarity and collective self-organization during such a crisis, in contrast to individualized "survivalist" panics. They can insist on state power (and coercion) being used to channel resources from the private sector to socially necessary directions. They can organize struggles for paid sick leave and for an end to measures such as eviction. They can put their collective ingenuity in practice to create forms of support for the elderly and those without any assistance. They can project, in all possible ways, the fact that today the struggle against the pandemic is a struggle waged by labour, not capital, by doctors and nurses in understaffed public health systems, by precarious workers in the vital supply chains, by those that keep basics infrastructure running during the lock-down. And they can demand social change as a life-saving exigency.

(This text is a revised and referenced version of text that first appeared here)

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Against Agamben: Is a Democratic Biopolitics Possible? - Viewpoint Magazine

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The coronavirus pandemic has forced us to rethink the politics of health in the broadest sense. In particular, we have had to confront again that vexed relationship between the state, the dominant social relations and public health.

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EDITOR'S NOTE:&nbsp The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.

Chen Meili (not her real name) is a recent university graduate in her early 20s, born and raised in Wuhan, China. She had been living and working in another province for about a year when she returned to her hometown for Lunar New Year celebrations on January 19-just days before the city was placed under lockdown on January 23 to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. Since then, she hasn't stepped foot outside. No one in her immediate family got sick.

As China has begun to report fewer new domestic coronavirus cases, and the epicenter of the pandemic has shifted toward Europe and the United States, the Chinese government is slowly easing its quarantine measures. Yesterday, residents in Hubei Province outside of Wuhan, the capital city, became able to travel again for the first time in more than two months; Wuhan residents will be allowed to travel starting April 8. While Wuhan appears to have emerged from the darkest period of this crisis-with authorities reporting a near-zero community transmission rate-many distrust official figures and remain concerned about potentially asymptomatic residents.

Speaking over Skype and social media, Chen told The Nation how the virus has upended her community and her country, and about the trauma it leaves behind. This interview has been edited and condensed from four conversations.

When I returned home, I had no idea my city was about to be shut down. I wanted to spend Chinese New Year with my family. We had a massive gathering planned. I remember reading some foreign news reports on the virus in early January, but we weren't too concerned. After all, it wasn't being reported in Chinese media, so we assumed it was just fake news. Then the government announced the lockdown.

In those early weeks, I was in a constant state of anxiety. I would wake up in the morning and immediately check my phone for the latest updates: what developments there were, whether my loved ones were safe, how many were infected, what policies were being put into place. The rules, like the ban on private cars, seemed simple at first. But when put into practice, cracks appeared, and things started to get chaotic. It became a pattern: a very broad and ambiguous policy would come out, there would be problems, and officials would adjust.

But they were too slow. Stories about hospitals overwhelmed with patients and medical shortages began circulating. My phone was constantly buzzing. I found myself unable to tear my eyes away from heartbreaking messages about doctors and nurses running out of masks, but still risking their lives on our behalf. On the streets, there were social workers checking people's temperatures, but none of them had masks on despite coming into contact with dozens. The situation seemed out of control. Government measures seemed to always be one step behind the virus.

Many of us agreed with the lockdown. None of us wanted to be infected, and we didn't want to spread the virus. So we sacrificed our freedom. In China, everyone is on WeChat and Weibo, so although we were all isolated, we were connected through these social media platforms. We felt a powerful sense of responsibility toward one another. I was in a news group on WeChat when someone messaged me asking whether I was a volunteer. "No," I replied. "Do you want to be?" they asked. I wasn't sure, and they sent me a bunch of information about volunteering and asked me to think about it. It seemed overwhelming, but I was in the group already so I started to observe what they were doing. That's how I became a grassroots volunteer.

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There were all kinds of volunteers: those driving hospital staff to and from work, those collecting pleas for help and editing them for resharing, those running errands for vulnerable members of the population, such as disabled or elderly people. Stuck at home, I mainly used social media to connect people who needed resources to those who could provide them. Most of us were young people. Suddenly, everyone was trying their best to help one another, because we knew that we needed to. I felt proud of my community.

One of my friends volunteered to fundraise and source supplies for a hospital. She found and bought materials and tried to have them shipped to China, which meant going through customs and finding routes into Hubei Province. There weren't efficient channels for doing this, and it was super stressful. All we had was social media. The hard part was finding products that matched health standards, and to not get cheated because there were many fraudsters trying to make a profit. There was also a risk that your supplies wouldn't make it to the designated hospital in time, or that they would be intercepted by officials. It was difficult and discouraging. But she succeeded in shipping masks to a hospital in Hubei with money to spare, and returned the rest to the donors.

As the lockdown intensified, it became harder to get supplies. The quarantine became more restrictive and fewer people were able to leave their homes. There was not much we could do, so we had to rely on, and trust, the government. When Li Wenliang died on February 7, our family was in shock. He was a doctor who had tried to warn people about the virus in December but was silenced by the government; eventually, he was infected himself. We were depressed, and felt so much anger. It was like we were paralyzed. That evening, we had a small ceremony to commemorate him. We turned off the lights, played some music, and read an article about him aloud. My mother then ranted about local officials' repressing the truth for 30 minutes straight. She couldn't stop.

This pandemic is like a mirror reflecting all the hidden problems in society. It made me aware of things that I had somehow never noticed before, but now seem so obvious. I tried to search on Baidu, China's Google, for statistics on how many medical workers had died. But I couldn't find this information anywhere. There were lots of news stories about how many masks were being made or supplies being shipped, but none describing the shortages we still faced or how many were becoming ill. I felt very frustrated. I understood that the government didn't want to cause panic, but I felt like we should be trusted to know the truth. I felt patronized, being made to look at things through their filtered lens. Related Article

The sad thing is, now people don't want to talk about how sad or angry they are. They feel like if they speak about it online, their posts will be censored anyway. Or worse, they may face the same fate as Li Wenliang. I've never seen censorship being exercised so quickly and frequently in my life. I would share an article, and it would be deleted just hours later. This would happen four to five times in one month. I'd never experienced this before. In China, there is also this culture of staying positive. This makes many people feel like they can't express themselves, and if they tried, they would just be misunderstood. So we suppress our emotions. Now, I don't see many personal posts about the coronavirus because people are tired. If you're angry for so long, you just want a break.

Recently, I turned on China Central Television, which I'd never really watched before. All I saw was positive news, which made me depressed. Half was about leaders of other countries praising the Chinese Communist Party's efforts in battling the virus, half was about volunteers and other feel-good stories. I know they want to send hopeful messages to the public. But I couldn't help but feel like they were just choosing not to recognize the deaths of countless people.

When I heard about journalists disappearing in Wuhan, I watched a few of their videos. I thought that Li Zehua-the CCTV reporter who quit his job to do his own reporting in Wuhan, before going missing -was definitely biased against the CCP. But it's unnecessary to make him disappear. And if there were more journalists out there doing what he was doing, his videos wouldn't be so eye-catching, and we would have more objective news sources.

My parent's generation feel proud of our country and how the government handled the crisis. My father, who had a tough upbringing, is very pro-Communist Party. If I say anything critical about the government, he would say: "Look what they've achieved! Unlike us, you never had to starve." Then, he wouldn't want to talk anymore. Things are a bit better with my mom, but it's frustrating because she's become more nationalistic after this virus became a pandemic. We young people are very disgusted by this type of nationalism, especially when we read blatantly nationalistic news stories. It's like they're trying to manipulate us by further distancing China from other countries and fostering fake pride.

Before this, I never used to talk about politics. I didn't feel like I knew enough. But this crisis has forced me to become political. I see now that we have a system that dictates which views are "correct" and silences others. I've always disliked censorship in my country, but now I'm realizing just how unhealthy it is. It's very vulnerable to have a society that can't handle different views. It makes it easier for people to be misled. As a Chinese person, I see people from other countries also being prejudiced against us because they don't trust us. The tension between China and other countries stems from censorship, which is a double-edged sword. I don't think I'm living in a healthy society, or a healthy world.

Now the situation in Wuhan is improving, and I'm thankful. As the virus moves to other countries, some of which are having trouble containing the spread, many Chinese people feel lucky to be under the rule of a central government that was able to implement a lockdown so quickly and respond to the crisis with exceptional efficiency. I'm planning to stay in China at least until the end of the year. I don't know where, exactly, since I'm really not sure whether there will be a second wave of the virus, and where that might take place. I'm worried about the number of imported cases that are quickly increasing in several big cities, and I'm also worried about discrimination against people from Hubei. If I tried to move, I might be refused entry to some cities or be forced to quarantine at my own expense.

This experience has made me reflect on how hard it is to be Chinese. Either I choose to be honest, to speak the truth, express my anger like a complete human being, and face the consequences-or I choose to be the good citizen the government wants me to be, and stay safe. It's a very unfair situation. If we do speak out, we're also worried that our words will be twisted by Western media. I feel tired when I'm asked questions by foreigners that seem designed to fish out some hidden facts about how the CCP has deprived us of basic human rights in the lockdown, or read reports that only focus on this angle and omit other parts of our story that I feel are equally important. The fear of our words' becoming exaggerated by Western media and causing chaos makes us repress how we really feel.

I think many people are like me: angry and refusing to give up on spreading the truth. I see a lot of friends still sharing sensitive articles before they're deleted. Most of us also love our country and our people. We don't directly point our fingers at the CCP; we're sickened by propaganda and the problems caused by a bureaucratic system, but we don't deny the party's contributions. They did lead us out of extreme poverty and a century of humiliation. None of us want to experience war and chaos again.

I think the rise in Chinese nationalism and the rise in discrimination against Chinese people go hand-in-hand. As a young Chinese person who disagrees with these ways of thinking, I think I will find it hard to live anywhere-either inside or outside of China-and steer clear of both.

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The Crisis in Wuhan 'Forced Me to Become Political'

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EDITOR'S NOTE:&nbsp The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.

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Carl Gershman is the president of the National Endowment for Democracy in the United States and a senior fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.
In his 1970 Nobel Lecture in literature, the famous Soviet dissident and writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn declared that the violence that is at the root of communist totalitarianism - the Stalinist labour camps and brutal violence that he experienced and chronicled in works like The Gulag Archipelago - is inherent to that system. "It is invariably intertwined with the lie," he said. "They are linked in the most intimate, most organic and profound fashion: violence cannot conceal itself behind anything except lies, and lies have nothing to maintain them save violence. Anyone who has once proclaimed violence as his method must inexorably choose the lie as his principle."

This truth is profoundly relevant today in understanding the way the communist regime in China has handled the spreading coronavirus epidemic.

Eight doctors in the city of Wuhan were punished in December for raising the alarm about the virus, including Li Wenliang, the 33-year-old ophthalmologist at the city's central hospital who was forced to sign a statement apologizing for doing so, as it constituted "illegal behavior." Mr. Li became a national hero, but then became a martyr as well, with his death on Feb. 7 triggering an outpouring of rage and grief online over the regime's lying and concealment.

It wasn't until Jan. 20, 40 days after the virus was first detected, that Chinese President Xi Jinping first issued instructions to control the virus, but by then it was too late, both because the virus had already become an epidemic, and because the government's credibility with the Chinese public had suffered a devastating blow. A hashtag demanding an apology to Mr. Li was viewed 180 million times before it was blocked by the regime, and many in China are now comparing the epidemic to the Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union, which contributed heavily to the Soviet regime's loss of legitimacy and its eventual downfall. China could be approaching a similar systemic crisis.

In an essay published earlier this month, Xu Zhangrun - a Tsinghua University law professor who was fired last year for dissent and has emerged as the most prominent democratic voice since Liu Xiaobo - charged that the epidemic has revealed "the rotten core" of the Chinese system. With the country ruled by "in-house Party hacks," he said that day-to-day governance is in a state of "terminal decay", and that "the rot goes right up to Beijing." Mr. Xi, according to Mr. Xu, is "clueless," and lacks any "substantive understanding of rulership and governance, despite his undeniable talent for playing power politics." Reform is "dead in a ditch," normal governance has been replaced by "systemic atrophy," and because of its "aggressive international posture" and refusal to "become a modern political civilization", China has become increasingly isolated from the modern global system. Mr. Xu believes that the only way China can end this isolation and regain the people's trust is by embracing constitutional democracy.

This is now not inconceivable. "The people are no longer fearful," Mr. Xu writes, and pro-democracy developments in Hong Kong and Taiwan may offer "a particular Chinese Way out of our present political conundrum." Put another way, he says, "a breakthrough originating from the periphery may augur once more [as it did in the 1890s, the 1910s, the 1940s and again in the 1980s] a moment that favors a push towards meaningful constitutional and legal rule in China."

The spread of the coronavirus has driven home to the entire world the costs of "the rise of a Goliath-like China no one trusts," says Jimmy Lai, the founder and editor of the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper in Hong Kong who was just arrested for an article he published in The Wall Street Journal. In that article, he says that everyone "must start asking something that the Chinese people living under communism ask themselves every day: How reliable can China's political, social and economic institutions be when its local government leaders lie to their citizens and superiors alike?" By showing that lying is at the heart of Chinese communism, and that there's no cure for the system "except the collapse of the party," Mr. Lai concludes that the coronavirus "may prove as revolutionary as any event in China's history."

As the world tries to contain the spread of the epidemic, it needs also to heed the message coming from Chinese democrats, which is that we all have a stake in China becoming a more open, democratic, and trustworthy political system. As Mr. Solzhenitsyn said in that same Nobel Lecture, "there are no internal affairs left on our crowded earth." In defending the struggle for democracy and human rights in China, we safeguard our own future.
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Opinion: The coronavirus exposes the lie at the heart of Communist China

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Carl Gershman is the president of the National Endowment for Democracy in the United States and a senior fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.

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A novel strain of coronavirus — SARS-CoV-2 — was first detected in December 2019 in Wuhan, a city in China’s Hubei province with a population of 11 million, after an outbreak of pneumonia without an obvious cause. The virus has now spread to over 200 countries and territories across the globe, and was characterised as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020.

What is Coronavirus:
SARS-CoV-2 belongs to a family of single-stranded RNA viruses known as coronaviridae, a common type of virus which affects mammals, birds and reptiles.

It is currently unclear where the virus has come from. Originally, the virus was understood to have originated in a food market in Wuhan and subsequently spread from animal to human. Some research has claimed that the cross-species transmission may be between snake and human; however, this claim has been contested

Measurements are taken in the UK:
The government launched its coronavirus action plan on 3 March 2020, which details four stages: contain, delay, mitigate, research[20]. On 12 March 2020, the UK moved to the delay phase of the plan and raised the risk level to ‘high’.

How to Protect yourself:
An updated standard operating procedure (SOP) for community pharmacies, published on 22 March 2020, sets out measures to protect pharmacy staff, including advising customers to keep a distance of at least two metres from other people, limiting entry and exit to the pharmacy and installing full screens to protect members of staff from airborne particles (see Learning article section ‘Enforcing social distancing’ for further details).

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Some economies have been affected more severely than others. It started with a few deaths in Wuhan, China, with the earliest reported case on November 17, 2019.

From the outbreak in Wuhan, the virus took different times to reach the borders of different countries, depending on various factors such as connectivity and proximity to the Chinese city.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has sent shockwaves throughout the global economy. Some economies have been affected more severely than others. It started with a few deaths in Wuhan, China, with the earliest reported case on November 17, 2019. By December 31, 2019, when the Chinese authorities first reported it to the World Health Organization (WHO), it was already a full-fledged outbreak. From the outbreak in Wuhan, the virus took different times to reach the borders of different countries, depending on various factors such as connectivity and proximity to the Chinese city. Within different countries, the virus spread through the population at varying speeds depending on a range of factors such as cultural and behavioural responses of the community, population density, average household size, among others. This pattern has led to substantial variation in the preparedness of countries and their responses to the crisis. In this article, we trace the timeline of the spread of COVID-19 in the early days [i] to different countries and their proactiveness in implementing some common social distancing measures.

When tackling a virulent virus like COVID-19, early interventions are crucial to stay ahead of the disease and we restrict our analysis to the first few hundred cases. We use COVID-19 data from Johns Hopkins CSSE repository [ii] and data on a few commonly used government interventions from the Oxford COVID-19 government response tracker [iii]. It is important to note that we use the earliest date for the strictest interventions and not advisories or cautionary notes sent by the governments since advisories can easily be ignored by the citizens.

Japan, South Korea and the United States confirmed their first case of COVID-19 approximately three weeks after the reported outbreak in China. From then on, disease progression within these countries varied quite a bit. While it took 42 days to reach 100 confirmed cases in the U.S., Japan reached that number in 31 days and South Korea in 29 days. Subsequently, the rate of progression increased drastically in South Korea and the U.S., and relatively less rapidly in Japan. Japan's early success can partly be attributed to early social distancing measures like closure of schools until April and targeted testing of clusters [iv]. South Korea first cancelled all public events, then imposed an international travel ban even before the 100th case was reported. South Korea embarked on developing their own test and adopting a policy of stringent testing following by contact tracing [v]. As of March 29, the U.S. has over 140,000 confirmed cases while South Korea has over 9,000 confirmed cases and Japan has over 1,800 confirmed cases.

Singapore and France both reported their first confirmed case 23 and 24 days from the outbreak and both countries reached 100 confirmed cases in 37 and 36 days, respectively. Singapore promptly instituted an international travel ban around the same time as their first confirmed case, followed by a very strict screening and quarantine measures [vi]. France, in contrast, instituted only screening measures for international travellers a few days later and a ban on public events around the same time that its confirmed cases rose to 100. Other social distancing measures were instituted much later. The number of confirmed cases in Singapore rose more slowly than France, with Singapore reporting 844 confirmed cases and France reporting over 40,000 confirmed cases as of March 29.

India reported the first confirmed case 29 days after the outbreak around a month after the report of the outbreak around the same time as Italy, the U.K., Spain and Belgium. Italy was more proactive than India in instituting international travel controls. Yet, Italy confirmed 100 cases in another 23 days compared to India's 45 days. India started taking social distancing measures like closing workplaces and schools before reaching 100 confirmed cases. But public gatherings were still occurring in Italy, the most crucial of which turned out to be a football match [vii]. As of March 29, India had over 1,000 confirmed cases while Italy had over 97,000 confirmed cases. The U.K., Spain, Belgium also confirmed their first cases around the same time as India and Italy but have not been as proactive about policies. The result of their delay can be seen in the number of their confirmed cases now. As of March 29, the U.K. had over 19,000 confirmed cases, Spain had over 80,000 confirmed cases and Belgium had over 10000 confirmed cases.

Iran presents a cautionary tale, with its first confirmed case around 50 days since the report of the outbreak. It took only seven days to reach 100 confirmed cases, the shortest time taken by any country. A combination of political factors, one of which was the country's parliamentary election (on February 21), led to Iran delaying the cancellation of public events [viii] . The social distancing measures turned out to be too late as the virus spread rapidly through the population infecting another 100 people in one day and so on. As of March 29, Iran has over 38,000 confirmed cases with a death toll of over 2000. Austria, Netherlands and Switzerland all confirmed their first case 56 days from the outbreak. All three countries have taken social distancing measures but only after the number of cases rose significantly. Austria currently has over 8,000 confirmed cases while Switzerland and Netherlands have over 10,000 confirmed cases.

As we look back at the early days of the spread of the pandemic, countries that were proactive in taking strict steps prohibiting social gathering, such as Singapore and South Korea, managed to bring the pandemic under control swiftly. The lessons learned from these severely affected nations will prove to be particularly useful for African nations where the number of cases of COVID-19 are starting to rise. These countries should immediately take stringent measures relating to international travel and social distancing.
Notes
[i] We focus our analysis on the early days of the pandemic leading up to 600 confirmed cases or more because we want to look at the proactive of government responses.

[ii] https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

[iii] https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/research/research-projects/oxford-covid-19-government-response-tracker

[iv] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51663182

[v] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/south-korea-coronavirus

[vi] https://theconversation.com/why-singapores-coronavirus-response-worked-and-what-we-can-all-learn-134024

[vii] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/football/top-stories/game-zero-spread-of-virus-linked-to-champions-league-match/articleshow/74817915.cms

[viii] https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/24/how-iran-botched-coronavirus-pandemic-response/

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Dweepobotee Brahma, Sikim Chakraborty, and Aradhika Menokee

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The early days of a global pandemic: A timeline of COVID-19 spread and government interventions

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The COVID-19 pandemic has sent shockwaves throughout the global economy. Some economies have been affected more severely than others. It started with a few deaths in Wuhan, China, with the earliest reported case on November 17, 2019. By December 31, 2019, when the Chinese authorities first reported it to the World Health Organization (WHO), it was already a full-fledged outbreak.

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Everything You Need to Know About COVID-19

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Everything You Need to Know About COVID-19

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A novel strain of coronavirus - SARS-CoV-2 - was first detected in December 2019 in Wuhan, a city in China's Hubei province with a population of 11 million, after an outbreak of pneumonia without an obvious cause. The virus has now spread to over 200 countries and territories across the globe, and was characterised as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020 .

As of 3 May 2021, there were 152,534,452 laboratory-confirmed cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection globally, with 3,198,528 reported deaths. The number of cases and deaths outside of China overtook those within the country on 16 March 2020.

As of 3 May 2021, there have been 4,421,850 confirmed cases of the virus in the UK and 127,539 of these have died (in all settings, within 28 days of the test).

This article gives a brief overview of the new virus and what to look out for, and will be updated weekly. It provides answers to the following questions:
What are coronaviruses? Where has the new coronavirus come from? How contagious is COVID-19? How is COVID-19 diagnosed? What social distancing measures are being taken in the UK? What is happening with testing for COVID-19? What should I do if a patient thinks they have COVID-19? What can I do to protect myself and my staff? What about 'business as usual' during the pandemic? Will the government provide financial help during the pandemic? How can cross-infection be prevented? There has been a lot of talk in the news and on social media about how certain medications can exacerbate the symptoms of COVID-19, what is the current advice around these medications? Where can I find information on managing COVID-19 patients? Is the coronavirus pandemic likely to precipitate medicines shortages? Are there national clinical trials of potential drugs to treat COVID-19? Is there a vaccine for COVID-19 and, if so, will pharmacy staff be involved in its roll out?
SARS-CoV-2 belongs to a family of single-stranded RNA viruses known as coronaviridae, a common type of virus which affects mammals, birds and reptiles.

In humans, it commonly causes mild infections, similar to the common cold, and accounts for 10-30% of upper respiratory tract infections in adults. More serious infections are rare, although coronaviruses can cause enteric and neurological disease. The incubation period of a coronavirus varies but is generally up to two weeks.

Previous coronavirus outbreaks include Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), first reported in Saudi Arabia in September 2012, and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), identified in southern China in 2003. MERS infected around 2,500 people and led to more than 850 deaths while SARS infected more than 8,000 people and resulted in nearly 800 deaths. The case fatality rates for these conditions were 35% and 10%, respectively.

SARS-CoV-2 is a new strain of coronavirus that has not been previously identified in humans. Although the incubation period of this strain is currently unknown, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that symptoms may appear in as few as 2 days or as long as 14 days after exposure. Chinese researchers have indicated that SARS-CoV-2 may be infectious during its incubation period.

The number of cases and deaths outside of China overtook those within it on 16 March 2020

Where has the new coronavirus come from?

It is currently unclear where the virus has come from. Originally, the virus was understood to have originated in a food market in Wuhan and subsequently spread from animal to human. Some research has claimed that the cross-species transmission may be between snake and human; however, this claim has been contested.

Mammals such as camels and bats have been implicated in previous coronavirus outbreaks, but it is not yet clear the exact animal origin, if any, of SARS-CoV-2.

How contagious is COVID-19?

Increasing numbers of confirmed diagnoses, including in healthcare professionals, has indicated that person-to-person spread of SARS-CoV-2 is occurring. The preliminary reproduction number (i.e. the average number of cases a single case generates over the course of its infectious period) is currently estimated to be between 1.4 to 2.5, meaning that each infected individual could infect between 1.4 and 2.5 people.

How is COVID-19 diagnosed?

As this coronavirus affects the respiratory tract, common presenting symptoms include fever and dry cough, with some patients presenting with respiratory symptoms (e.g. sore throat, nasal congestion, malaise, headache and myalgia) or even struggling for breath.

In severe cases, the coronavirus can cause pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure and death.

The case definition for COVID-19 is based on symptoms regardless of travel history or contact with confirmed cases. Diagnosis is suspected in patients with a new, continuous cough, fever or a loss or changed sense of normal smell or taste (anosmia). A diagnostic test has been developed, and countries are quarantining suspected cases.

Box 1: Who qualifies as a suspected COVID-19 case?
Individuals with:

New continuous cough AND/OR

Temperature ≥37.8°C AND/OR

Anosmia (a loss or changed sense of normal smell or taste)

Individuals with any of the above symptoms but who are well enough to remain in the community should stay at home for 10 days from the onset of symptoms and get tested. Households should all self-isolate for 10 days if one member shows symptoms.

Source: Department of Health and Social Care

The government launched its coronavirus action plan on 3 March 2020, which details four stages: contain, delay, mitigate, research. On 12 March 2020, the UK moved to the delay phase of the plan and raised the risk level to 'high'.

On 16 March 2020, Johnson announced social distancing measures, such as working from home and avoiding social gatherings, as well as household isolation for those with symptoms,.

Further social distancing measures were announced on 18 March 2020, including closing all schools in the UK except for vulnerable children and those of key workers, such as pharmacists and other health and social care staff, teachers and delivery drivers. Restaurants, cafes, pubs, leisure centres, nightclubs, cinemas, theatres, museums and other businesses were also told to close.

On 22 March 2020, Johnson announced that the most clinically extremely vulnerable people, including those who have received organ transplants, are living with severe respiratory conditions or specific cancers, and some people taking immunosuppressants, should stay in their homes for at least the next 12 weeks (see Box 2).

Since this date, shielding in England, Scotland and Wales has been eased and brought back in several times in line with lockdown restrictions. And on 16 February 2021, a new risk assessment model was introduced in England to help clinicians identify adults with multiple risk factors that make them more vulnerable to COVID-19, resulting in an additional 1.7 million people being added to the shielding list. Shielding ended in England and Wales on 1 April 2021 and in Scotland on 26 April 2021.

Box 2: Shielding from COVID-19

Those classed as "clinically extremely vulnerable" may include the following (disease severity, history or treatment levels will also affect who is in this group):

Solid organ transplant recipients

People with cancer who are undergoing active chemotherapy

People with lung cancer who are undergoing radical radiotherapy

People with cancers of the blood or bone marrow such as leukaemia, lymphoma or myeloma who are at any stage of treatment

People having immunotherapy or other continuing antibody treatments for cancer

People having other targeted cancer treatments which can affect the immune system, such as protein kinase inhibitors or PARP inhibitors

People who have had bone marrow or stem cell transplants in the last 6 months, or who are still taking immunosuppression drugs

People with severe respiratory conditions including all cystic fibrosis, severe asthma and severe chronic obstructive pulmonary

People with rare diseases that significantly increase the risk of infections (such as severe combined immunodeficiency, homozygous sickle cell)

People on immunosuppression therapies sufficient to significantly increase risk of infection

Adults with Down's syndrome

Adults on dialysis or with chronic kidney disease (stage 5)

Women who are pregnant with significant heart disease, congenital or acquired

Other people who have also been classed as clinically extremely vulnerable, based on clinical judgement and an assessment of their needs. GPs and hospital clinicians have been provided with guidance to support these decisions

A strict lockdown started in the UK on 23 March 2020, with people told to stay at home except to buy essential food and medicines, one form of exercise a day, any medical need, and travelling to and from essential work. Gatherings of more than two people in public was not allowed and all shops selling non-essential goods, libraries, playgrounds, outdoor gyms and places of worship closed. All social events, including weddings, baptisms and other ceremonies, but excluding funerals were cancelled.

A relaxation of the lockdown was announced by Johnson on 10 May 2020. The government published a 60-page ' recovery strategy ' on 11 May 2020, which sets out the next phases of the UK's response to the virus, including easing some social restrictions, getting people back to work and reopening schools.

Local lockdowns were introduced at the end of June 2020 to try to control the spread of coronavirus in particular regions in England but cases continue to rise and a second national lockdown was imposed from 5 November 2020 for four weeks. A three-tier system of restrictions will follow the national lockdown in England. In Scotland, a five-level alert system was introduced on 2 November, which will allow different restrictions to be imposed in local areas depending on the prevalence of the infection. A fire-break lockdown came into force in Wales from 23 October 2020, and ran until 9 November 2020.

On 19 December 2020, new tier-four restrictions were imposed in London, Kent and Essex and other parts of the South East of England, meaning that individuals in those areas had to stay at home and not meet up with other households. On 31 December 2020, further areas of England including the Midlands, North East, parts of the North West and parts of the South West were also escalated to tier four.

A new national lockdown was imposed in England and Scotland from 5 January 2021, and similar restrictions were introduced in Wales shortly after. The lockdowns began to lift in steps from the end of March 2021.

What is happening with testing for COVID-19?

Tests can now be accessed by anyone with symptoms via nhs.uk/coronavirus.

An NHS test and trace service was launched across England on 28 May 2020, with similar services starting in Scotland and Wales around the same time. Anyone who tests positive for the virus is contacted to share information about their recent interactions. People identified as being in close contact with someone who tests positive will have to self-isolate for 10 days, regardless of whether they have symptoms.

Testing is also now available to care home staff and residents in England, and NHS workers where there is a clinical need, whether or not they have symptoms.

Pharmacy staff in England and Scotland should book tests online via gov.uk and they will be conducted at drive-through testing sites across the country, as well as via home testing kits.

Pharmacy staff in Wales with symptoms of COVID-19 are able to access testing through their Local Health Board.

The government has also announced the start of a new national antibody testing programme, with plans to provide antibody tests to NHS and care staff in England from the end of May 2020. Clinicians will also be able to request the tests for patients in both hospital and social care settings if they think it is appropriate.

Regular testing of asymptomatic patient-facing staff delivering NHS services using lateral flow antigen tests was introduced in NHS trusts in November and expanded to primary care services in December 2020.

What should I do if a patient thinks they have COVID-19?

Patients have been advised not to go to their community pharmacy if they are concerned that they have COVID-19. Those with a new, continuous cough or a high temperature or anosmia (a loss or changed sense of normal smell or taste) who live alone should self-isolate for 10 days from the onset of symptoms. Households should all self-isolate for 10 days if one member shows symptoms. There is no need for people with minor symptoms to telephone NHS 111.

However, given the outbreak has coincided with the cold and flu season, it is likely that patients may present in the pharmacy with queries about the virus, or with concerns about their cold or flu symptoms.

Community pharmacies were told by NHS England and NHS Improvement on 27 February 2020 that, in the unlikely event that a suspected case does present, they must prepare a "designated isolation space".

If the pharmacy does not have a suitable room to isolate a suspected patient, an area that would keep a patient at least two metres away from staff and other patients in the pharmacy should be prepared so that it can be cordoned off.

Patients who present with a new, continuous cough or a high temperature or anosmia should be told to return home immediately and self-isolate. If, in the clinical judgement of the pharmacist, the person is too unwell to return home, they and any accompanying family should be invited into the designated isolation space where emergency services should be contacted.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society is publishing ongoing guidance on contingency planning for COVID-19, which includes measures to protect the pharmacy team, such as limiting the number of people within the pharmacy at the same time, keeping at least two metres apart from staff and people coming into the pharmacy, and sectioning the pharmacy to encourage social distancing with floor markings (using tape) or barriers. The RPS has also produced a table to help pharmacists distinguish between COVID-19, a cold, the flu and hayfever.

Those with cold and flu symptoms that are not indicative of COVID-19 should be managed as usual, or using the pathway developed by The Pharmaceutical Journal.

The General Pharmaceutical Council said on 3 March 2020 that it recognises pharmacists may need to depart from established procedures in order to care for patients during the coronavirus outbreak and that regulatory standards are designed to be flexible and to provide a framework for decision-making in a wide range of situations.

In a joint statement with ten other health regulators, the GPhC said: "Where a concern is raised about a registered professional, it will always be considered on the specific facts of the case, taking into account the factors relevant to the environment in which the professional is working".

What can I do to protect myself and my staff?

An updated standard operating procedure (SOP) for community pharmacies, published on 22 March 2020, sets out measures to protect pharmacy staff, including advising customers to keep a distance of at least two metres from other people, limiting entry and exit to the pharmacy and installing full screens to protect members of staff from airborne particles (see Learning article section 'Enforcing social distancing' for further details).

Following some confusion early on in the pandemic about whether community pharmacists should wear personal protective equipment (PPE), Public Health England updated its guidance on 23 July 2020 to say that pharmacy staff, both in clinical and non-clinical roles, should wear a type I, type II or type IIR facemask if the environment is not COVID-19 secure, using social distancing, optimal hand hygiene, frequent surface decontamination, ventilation and other measures where appropriate.

This brings the PHE guidance in line with that from the RPS, which says that pharmacy staff working in community pharmacies and general practice should wear fluid-resistant surgical masks if they are unable to maintain a social distance of 2 metres from patients and staff, and emphasises that it is still important to try to maintain social distance when wearing surgical masks wherever possible. The RPS also advises that gloves, apron and surgical masks should be worn by staff in direct contact with a patient, for example, when a person is too unwell to go home and is being cared for in the designated isolation space.

PPE can be ordered for free via the government's PPE portal.

On 5 June 2020, the DHSC announced that all staff in hospitals in England will have to wear surgical masks from 15 June 2020, regardless of the clinical area in which they work.

Guidance has been issued by pharmacy organisations on how community pharmacies in England can accept patient returns of unwanted medicines while minimising risk to pharmacy teams. Since coronaviruses can survive on certain surfaces for up to five days, it recommends that all returns should be double bagged and placed directly in waste medicines bins. Controlled Drugs should be double bagged and placed in the CD cabinet for five days before denaturing. A suggested procedure is detailed within the guidance.

Staff who have symptoms of COVID-19 should stay at home and get tested as soon as possible. NHS England and Improvement confirmed in a letter to community pharmacies on 9 June 2020 that NHS staff "must self-isolate" for 14 days (reduced to 10 days from 14 December 2020) if the NHS test and trace service advises them to do so because they have come into close contact with a person with COVID-19. However, the letter adds that close contact "excludes circumstances where PPE is being worn". If a member of the pharmacy team tests positive and there is a risk to the provision of pharmaceutical services then advice regarding the individual circumstances should be sought from the local Health Protection Team.

Staff who fall into one of the vulnerable groups at particular risk of complications from COVID-19 should not see patients face-to-face, regardless of whether the patient has possible COVID-19. Remote working should be prioritised for these staff.

NHS staff from a black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) background and others who who may be particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 - including those working in community pharmacies - should be risk assessed. In a letter dated 29 April 2020, NHS England said that "emerging UK and international data" suggest that people from BAME backgrounds are "being disproportionately affected by COVID-19".

The Faculty of Occupational Medicine later published a risk reduction framework - backed by NHS England - to assist with the risk assessments on 14 May 2020. This was updated on 28 May 2020 to include guidance from the Health and Safety Executive to "help organisations identify who is at risk of harm".

All NHS staff can access free wellbeing support and frontline health and care staff can access NHS volunteer responders support for themselves by calling 0808 196 3646.

What about 'business as usual' during the pandemic?

Pharmacies are on the frontline of the fight against coronavirus and demand for services is high. An updated standard operating procedure published on 27 October 2020 enables regional NHS England and NHS Improvement teams to notify pharmacies that they are able to adjust their opening hours to cope with increased demand. Pharmacies will be able to work behind closed doors for up to 2.5 hours a day before 10am, between 12 and 2pm or after 4pm.

A number of contractual services have been put on hold and others have been brought forward (see Learning article section 'Adjusting opening hours and pharmacy services' for further details). The Hepatitis C testing service in England will now launch on 1 September 2020 and the discharge medicines service is expected to start in February 2021.

During the first full lockdown in the spring of 2020, community pharmacies ensured that those who were shielding from COVID-19 (see Box 2) were able to receive their prescription medicines, either through friends and family, volunteers, or via pandemic delivery services but these were paused when cases dropped. The pandemic delivery service in England resumed for four weeks from 5 November 2020 to 3 December 2020, and again from 5 January 2021 to 31 March 2021, owing to sustained community transmission of COVID-19; it was expanded to patients told to self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace on 16 March 2021 until 30 June 2021. In Scotland, a pandemic delivery service started on 18 January 2021 and will continue until the end of March 2021.

Another new advanced service, distributing COVID-19 lateral flow test kits, was announced on 29 March 2021 for community pharmacies in England. Pharmacies will be able to earn up to £972 per week by providing the test kits to asymptomatic patients as part of NHS Test and Trace.

The need for patients to sign the back of prescription forms has been suspended until 30 June 2021 so as to reduce cross contamination and minimise handling of paperwork. Patients must still pay the prescription charge or prove their eligibility for exemption. Pharmacy staff should mark the relevant box for exempt patients and annotate all forms with COVID-19 in place of a signature.

Amendments to legislation to allow community pharmacies to close, with the permission of NHS England, "to focus on the delivery of flu or COVID-19 vaccinations" will come into effect on 9 November 2020 to allow for "flexible provision of immunisation services during the pandemic". These changes follow the government's decision to allow pharmacists to deliver unlicensed - in addition to licensed - vaccinations, such as a COVID-19 vaccine when one becomes available, with further work under way to expand the workforce able to deliver flu vaccines.

The amendments also allow community pharmacists in England to dispense COVID-19 treatments without a prescription under pandemic treatment protocols that will be issued by the government if a COVID-19 treatment became available that was suitable for distribution via community pharmacies and it was not found to be necessary for an authorised prescriber to decide to treat.

The General Pharmaceutical Council has stopped all routine inspections of pharmacies. Submission of revalidation records is postponed for registrants who were due to submit between 20 March 2020 and 31 August 2020, and requirements have been reduced for those due to submit between 1 September 2020 and 31 December 2020.

On 26 March 2020, the GPhC announced that the pharmacy registration assessments for June and September 2020 have been postponed. The GPhC confirmed on 30 November 2020 that online registration assessments would take place at centres around the UK on 17 and 18 March 2021.

More than 6,200 pharmacy professionals who left the register within the past three years have been given temporary registration so that they can to return to work during the COVID-19 pandemic, if they wish to do so. And in guidance published on 9 April 2020, final year pharmacy students were told they can join their arranged preregistration workplace ahead of the scheduled start date to help deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Will the government provide financial help during the pandemic?

The PSNC announced on 31 March 2020 that community pharmacies in England will be given cash advances totalling £300.0m over the next two months to help with cashflow during the pandemic, but no extra funding has been negotiated so far. Further advanced funding of £50m and at the end of May 2020 and June 2020, respectively, has since been announced by the PSNC. As with the £300m previously announced, the £70m is not additional funding and will be reconciled in 2020/2021.

Advance payments have also been agreed for community pharmacies in Scotland and Wales.

Additional funding of an initial £5.6m was agreed in Scotland on 7 April 2020 to support unparalleled levels of activity within community pharmacy during the pandemic. The funding will cover equipment costs, adaptations to premises, additional staffing and locum fees. Further additional funding of £4.5m for staffing costs for May and June 2020 was announced on 27 November 2020.

On 2 April 2020, the government announced that it had written off £13.4bn of debt as part of a major financial reset for NHS providers.

How can cross-infection be prevented?

The WHO has created a range of infographics to illustrate how patients can protect themselves and others from getting sick; however, most of the advice is similar to what would be provided for colds and flu (see Figure).

Figure: Infographic - How to reduce the risk of coronavirus infection
Source: Source: World Health Organization; 2020. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.
There is no specific treatment for COVID-19. Although vaccines can be developed to treat viruses, owing to the novel nature of this infection, no vaccine has currently been developed and the process to develop one may take 12 to 18 months. As an example, many antiviral agents have been identified to inhibit SARS in vitro, but there are currently no approved antiviral agents or vaccines available to tackle any potential SARS or SARS-like outbreaks, such as MERS or SARS-CoV-2.

On 16 March 2020, the British Cardiovascular Society and the British Society for Heart Failure published a statement saying that patients should continue treatment with angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers unless "specifically advised to stop by their medical team".

The advice was issued following concerns circulated on social media that these medicines could predispose them to adverse outcomes should they become infected with COVID-19.

Both societies recommended that patients taking these medicines who present as unwell, or with a suspected or known COVID-19 infection, should be assessed on an individual basis and their medication managed according to established guidance. Inappropriate cessation of therapy could lead to a decline in control of blood pressure, heart failure or any other condition the individuals takes these medicines for.

Similar concerns have also arisen around the use of ibuprofen following unverified claims, backed by Oliver Veran, France's health minister, that ibuprofen may exacerbate symptoms of the virus.

On 14 April 2020, the Committee of Human Medicines (CHM) - an advisory body of Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency - and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence both published reviews, which concluded that there is insufficient evidence to establish a link between use of ibuprofen, or other NSAIDs, and susceptibility to contracting COVID-19 or the worsening of its symptoms.

A rapid policy statement published by NHS England on the same date, highlighted that there had been some reports of possible adverse effects of the use of NSAIDs in acute respiratory tract infections more generally, which had led to suggestions to use paracetamol preferentially for fever/pain in such situations. However, it said that there was currently no evidence that the acute use of NSAIDs caused an increased risk of developing COVID-19 or of developing a more severe COVID-19 disease.

Where can I find information on managing COVID-19 patients?

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society has collated resources for hospital pharmacists on the clinical management of patients with COVID-19, including treatments, use of experimental therapies, and evidence-based summaries.

The resources also include information on critical care services during the pandemic and guidance on COVID-19 in special populations, such as children, pregnant women, patients taking warfarin and those with cancer, respiratory conditions, diabetes, rheumatological conditions and HIV.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has produced COVID-19 rapid guidelines covering a number of areas as well as rapid evidence summaries on COVID-19 treatments. NHS England and NHS Improvement has also published several specialty guides aimed at specialists working in hospitals during the pandemic. These resources have all been brought together on the NICE website.

NICE and the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network are working with the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) to develop a guideline on the effects of long COVID on patients.

The government banned the parallel export of chloroquine, as well as the antiretroviral lopinavir/ritonavir, on 26 February 2020 because they are being tested as possible treatments for COVID-19. There has been a lot of attention in the media on the potential benefits of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine in treating patients with COVID-19 but the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency has warned that these medicines are not licensed to treat COVID-19 related symptoms or prevent infection and, until there is clear, definitive evidence that these treatments are safe and effective for the treatment of COVID-19, they should only be used for this purpose within a clinical trial.

On 20 March 2020, the government banned from parallel export more than 80 medicines used to treat patients in intensive care units. The restrictions cover crucial medicines such as adrenaline, insulin, paracetamol and morphine and are designed to prevent medicines shortages. A further 52 medicines, including a number of respiratory medicines, antibiotics, analgesics and insulin products, were banned from export on 1 April 2020. And a further 33 medicines were banned from export on 24 April 2020, including further respiratory medicines and some drugs that are being trialled for COVID-19, such as azithromycin, dexamethasone, ruxolitinib, sarilumab and tocilizumab.

Community pharmacists have been experiencing huge demand for paracetamol and many have reported shortages of paracetamol tablets 500mg as pharmacy and general sales list packs. The National Pharmacy Association and the GPhC have both said that pharmacies are able to break down larger packs to prepare supplies of a non-prescription items for retail sale.

Shortages of Chiesi's Clenil and Fostair inhalers, along with inhalers from other brands, have been noticed by pharmacists as patients begin to panic and order inhalers they potentially do not need. The wholesaler AAH Pharmaceuticals placed 11 inhalers on its "out of stock" list on the 30 March 2020. NHS England wrote to healthcare professionals working in primary care on 31 March 2020, asking them not to overprescribe or over-order during this time, as this will create further pressures on the supply chain.

Are there national clinical trials of potential drugs to treat COVID-19?

There are three major randomised controlled trials of medicines to treat COVID-19 being funded by the UK government: PRINCIPLE, RECOVERY and REMAP-CAP (see Feature and trials briefing), and several other trials are being nationally prioritised.

Preliminary results from the RECOVERY trial suggest that low-dose dexamethasone offers significant reductions in mortality for those patients with COVID-19 who require oxygen or ventilation, and it has been approved for use on the NHS.

Results from the REMAP-CAP trial have suggested that tocilizumab and sarilumab reduced the risk of death from COVID-19 by 24% when administered in the first 24 hours of a patient entering intensive care, and these drugs should now be considered by the NHS for hospitalised patients.

Results from the RECOVERY trial also suggest that tocilizumab reduces deaths in patients hospitalised with COVID-19.

An interim analysis of the PRINCIPLE trial suggests the corticosteroid budesonide shortens recovery time from COVID-19 by a median of three days, compared with usual care, in older people treated in the community.

In addition, on 28 April 2020, the Accelerating COVID-19 Research & Development ( ACCORD) platform was launched, a collaboration between government, industry and research organisations that aims to reduce the time taken to set up clinical studies for new COVID therapies from months to weeks. ACCORD will rapidly test potential drugs through early stage clinical trials and, if they show promise, will feed them into the UK's large-scale COVID-19 studies, such as RECOVERY. Bemcentinib, an AXL kinase inhibitor, will be the first to begin phase II studies across the UK within the next few days.

Further potential treatments will be rapidly fed into ACCORD as the programme rolls out over the next few weeks.

A Yellow Card website dedicated to reporting side-effects or incidents from medicines being used to treat COVID-19 has been set up by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

Is there a vaccine for COVID-19 and, if so, will pharmacy staff be involved in its roll out?

The UK has pre-ordered 357 million doses of different potential COVID-19 vaccines from seven manufacturers. The portfolio includes two adenoviral vector vaccines (Oxford/AstraZeneca and Janssen), two mRNA vaccines (BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna), an inactivated whole virus vaccine (Valneva), and two protein adjuvant vaccines (GSK/Sanofi, Novavax) (see feature).

Three of the vaccines being backed by the UK -BioNTech/Pfizer, Moderna and Oxford/AstraZeneca - released positive results from phase III trials in November 2020. The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) on 2 December 2020 and the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was authorised for use by the MHRA on 30 December 2020 and the Moderna vaccine was authorised on 8 January 2021 (see feature).

Hospital pharmacists are overseeing 'safe handling' of COVID-19 vaccines in vaccination centres and hospital hubs as part of the mass vaccination programme, which started on 8 December 2020.

NHS England wrote to pharmacy contractors on 27 November 2020, saying that it is planning for designated pharmacy sites to be ready to administer COVID-19 vaccines under a local enhanced service from late December 2020 or early January 2021. However, "complex logistics" in the vaccine's supply chain mean NHS England does not expect the majority of contractors' sites will be able to meet a specific set of requirements, such as administering a minimum of 1,000 vaccines per week, with the fridge space, physical layout and staffing necessary to support that.

Community pharmacy contractors can also collaborate with their local primary care network to support them to deliver maximum vaccine uptake via the GP enhanced service or with vaccination centres, which started vaccinating patients on 14 December 2020.

Vaccination sites led by community pharmacies started administering COVID-19 vaccines to patients on 11 January 2021, with about 200 joining the first wave.

In a letter to contractors dated 16 February 2021, NHS England officials said it would reopen the application process to improve vaccination provision in a list of "priority locations".

Community pharmacies able to administer up to 400 COVID-19 vaccines per week can now apply to become designated vaccination sites.

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Everything you should know about the coronavirus pandemic - The Pharmaceutical Journal

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A novel strain of coronavirus - SARS-CoV-2 - was first detected in December 2019 in Wuhan, a city in China's Hubei province with a population of 11 million, after an outbreak of pneumonia without an obvious cause.

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How to Talk About Freedom During a Pandemic

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How to Talk About Freedom During a Pandemic

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1. 19th century - public-health officials faced a couple of diseases: scarlet fever, diphtheria, typhus, cholera, tuberculosis, and smallpox
2. epidemics - common - doctors unable to tackle - less understanding

In the 19th century, public-health officials weren’t facing just one infectious disease, but many: scarlet fever, diphtheria, typhus, cholera, tuberculosis, and smallpox, which together killed tens of thousands every year. Epidemics were common, and doctors could do almost nothing to stop them. Vaccination was available for just one disease, smallpox; testing didn’t exist, nor did many effective treatments other than rest and hydration; and doctors had little understanding of what caused these diseases. For much of the century, the leading theory was that they were triggered by “miasma,” mysterious vapors from rotting vegetation and organic matter.

3. Decades later - scientists, doctors and government officials - realised - isolation, disinfection, contact tracing, and other now-familiar public-health strategies - can stop the spread of many diseases.
4. Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur - the germ theory of disease - show infectious illness - caused by microbes passed between persons - evidence - measures advocated by the reformers.

Over decades, a group of pioneering scientists, doctors, and government officials realized that isolation, disinfection, contact tracing, and other now-familiar public-health strategies had the potential to decrease the spread of many diseases. Scientists such as Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur developed the germ theory of disease, which showed that infectious illness was caused by microbes passed from person to person. This idea provided more evidence for the measures advocated by the reformers.

5. Public health leaders in London, Liverpool, Manchester and elsewhere - a powerful counterargument - Individual freedom
6. They argue - authority was needed to isolate people

In response to these vehement appeals to individual freedom, public-health leaders in London, Liverpool, Manchester and elsewhere developed a powerful counterargument. They too framed their argument in terms of freedom—freedom from disease. To protect citizens’ right to be free from disease, in their view, governments and officials needed the authority to isolate those who were sick, vaccinate people, and take other steps to reduce the risk of infectious disease.

7. George Buchanan - cities and towns - necessary steps - ensure the communal 'sanitary welfare'
8. 19th century - English philosopher John Stuart - defender of individual liberty - 'harm principle'

One of the most important reformers was George Buchanan, the chief medical officer for England from 1879 to 1892. He argued that cities and towns had the authority to take necessary steps to ensure the communal “sanitary welfare.” He and other reformers based their arguments on an idea developed by the 19th-century English philosopher John Stuart Mill, who is, ironically, remembered largely as a staunch defender of individual liberty. Mill articulated what he called the “harm principle,” which asserts that while individual liberty is sacrosanct, it should be limited when it will harm others: “The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty and action of any of their number, is self-protection,” Mill wrote in On Liberty in 1859. Public-health reformers argued that the harm principle gave them the authority to pursue their aims.

9. false choice - economic recovery - protecting vulnerable lives - 'curtailing personal liberties is sometimes necessary to secure freedom for everyone'
10. Within months during COVID-19 - a quintessential example - a threat - giver up liberty - other enjoy their right - healthy

State by state, people are being asked to make a false choice between a rapid economic recovery and protecting the lives of vulnerable Americans. In a country where the idea of freedom is cherished so deeply, a compelling argument can and should be made that curtailing personal liberties is sometimes necessary to secure freedom for everyone.

Within the space of a few months, COVID-19 has joined diseases like scarlet fever, diphtheria, and cholera as a quintessential example of a threat that requires giving up one sort of liberty in order for people everywhere to enjoy their right to be healthy. Contagious and lethal, it so far cannot be cured or vaccinated against. Those who want to ignore social distancing, spurn masks, and crowd together in malls and on beaches might be making a statement in defense of personal liberty, but they are also undeniably endangering the freedoms of thousands of others:

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1. 19th century - fight against infectious disease - tensions - public health & acceptability of its measures

The first tensions over the scope of public health and the acceptability of its measures arose during the fight against infectious disease in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They resurfaced in the last decades of the twentieth century in the wake of efforts to address chronic conditions that began to inform the pattern of morbidity and mortality in industrial societies. They reveal an enduring tension between public health and individual rights—a tension that we ignore at our own peril.

2. 20th century - Public health authorities - power - development of a robust jurisprudence of privacy - extended rights to - prisoners, mental patients and others - protected public health from constitutional scrutiny.

The breadth of powers that public health authorities had enjoyed remained virtually unchallenged through most of the twentieth century, but finally came under increasing scrutiny during the last decades of that era. The development of a robust jurisprudence of privacy, and the “due process revolution”, which extended rights to prisoners, mental patients and others under the authority of the state, ultimately questioned the long-held assumptions that had protected public health from constitutional scrutiny.

3. Public health surveillance - infectious & non0infectious diseases -= crucial to understand the transmission process

But is it true that there is no tension between public health and civil liberties? Public health surveillance for both infectious and non-infectious diseases is crucial in order to understand the patterns of diseases, and for the planning and execution of remedial action. This is true for tuberculosis, as it is true for cancer (Fairchild et al, 2007). Surveillance, to be effective, necessitates that either physicians or laboratories comply with public health mandates that clearly intrude on privacy. Only if we acknowledge this fact can we determine whether the public health benefits of surveillance justify this price.

4. central tenet - treatment - tuberculosis - isolated/ quarantined

Another central tenet of public health is the requirement that people with certain diseases undergo treatment—as in the case of tuberculosis—or that people with highly infectious diseases be isolated or quarantined.

5. Some believe officials - educate & warn but not compel - social consequences/ negative externalities
6. emphasises should be laid on self-awareness - harmfulness of the diease - change individual behaviour.

They claim that public health officials can educate and warn, but not compel. As these ideas have gained wide influence, advocates of public health often need to assert that they intervene because the social consequences or negative externalities of certain behaviours warrant intervention; thus, self-regarding harms are transformed into other-regarding harms. In any event, the state seeks to use its authority to change individual behaviour.

7. To acknowledge the tension - not to foreordain the answer - rather - insist - make policy determinations.

Across the spectrum of threats to the public health—from infectious diseases to chronic disorders—are inherent tensions between the good of the collective and the individual. To acknowledge this tension is not to foreordain the answer to the question ‘How far should the state go?'; rather, it is to insist that we are fully cognizant of difficult trade-offs when we make policy determinations.

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One of the earliest recorded isolation areas was established in 1377 against the Bubonic Plague in ancient Croatia. The method included a 30 day isolation period for those who wanted to enter the epidemic centre.

In the hope of halting the devastating advance of bubonic plague, in 1377 the city of Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik, Croatia) issued a ‘trentino’, (from the Italian ‘trenta’, meaning ‘30’), a 30 day isolation period for anyone trying to enter the city. An isolation area was established outside the city walls and citizens of Ragusa were forbidden from entering on penalty of being fined and detained there themselves. Only those assigned by the Great Council to tend the sick were permitted to enter.

Although quarantine was still being believed and practised to restrain the periodic outbreaks of contagious diseases, numerous social reformers, known as 'anticontagionists', opposed the idea of quarantine. They thought that the self-isolation practice was useless, and would seriously damage business interests as well as personal liberty. The debate between contagionists and anticontagionists continued until the nineteenth century. The scientific began to interpret the comprehensive spread of various diseases such as plague, cholera, and yellow fever, and they found significant evidence of how the infection process was interrupted by the practice of quarantine.

Quarantine was still being used to control periodic outbreaks of plague in the eighteenth century, but many social reformers had come to think of quarantine itself as an outdated practice. Fierce debates broke out between those calling themselves ‘anticontagionists’, who opposed the use of quarantine, and ‘contagionists’, who defended it.

The nineteenth century was witness to the industrial revolution and global trade was right at the heart of it. Anticontagionists protested quarantine on the grounds that it wasn’t effective and severely damaged commerce.

The debate between quarantine, public health and personal liberty raged on and on. It wasn’t until doctors identified the unique infectious agents of diseases like plague, cholera, and yellow fever in the nineteenth century, that health authorities could start to understand how various diseases were spread and if quarantine was warranted.

In 1918, there was an aggressive strain of the notorious Spanish Flu, which resulted in a sudden collapse of western front soldiers. The virus was extremely contagious and spread brutally through the troops. When the war ended at the end of 1918, the infected soldiers returned home and triggered a second wave of the disease. Many governments had invested much time attempting to understand and clam down the transmission. They struggled to implement drastic containment strategies. Schools, churches, theatres and many other public spaces were closed down in most European cities. Mass gatherings were prohibited, along with the recommendation of using facemasks, social distancing was advised to be put in place in the public.

In the spring of 1918, soldiers all along the western front suddenly became stricken with an aggressive strain of the flu. The disease was extremely infectious and rapidly spread through the troops. When the war ended in November 1918, the soldiers returned home and brought a second wave of the virus with them. Governments around the world had spent so much time trying to play down the severity of the virus that by the time they grasped the severity of it, they struggled to implement the necessary containment strategies. Major European cities closed schools, churches and theatres. Mass gatherings were prohibited, social distancing was recommended, along with the use of facemasks, but it was all too little, too late.

Now we are amid another global pandemic and quarantine measures are again part of the fight. History is repeating itself in the dissenting voices of those who challenge government lockdown, in the fear commerce will be irrevocably damaged, and even in conspiracy theories that the whole thing is a big hoax. But there is a reason social distancing is being turned to again, and that is because it helps keeps us safe. We will come out the other side of this, just as every generation before us has.

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In the hope of halting the devastating advance of bubonic plague, in 1377 the city of Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik, Croatia) issued a 'trentino', (from the Italian 'trenta', meaning '30'), a 30 day isolation period for anyone trying to enter the city. An isolation area was established outside the city walls and citizens of Ragusa were forbidden from entering on penalty of being fined and detained there themselves. Only those assigned by the Great Council to tend the sick were permitted to enter.

Similar laws were introduced in the cities of Marseille, Genoa, and Pisa. In 1423, Venice set up a 'lazaretto', a quarantine bay
for merchant ships, on the island of Santa Maria di Nazareth, a system that was soon modelled throughout much of Europe. The initial isolation period was extended from 30 to 40 days. The trentino became a 'quarantino', from the Italian 'quaranta', meaning '40', giving us the word 'quarantine'.

It's not known precisely why the isolation period was extended to 40 days, but historians have suggested it may have been done to reflect Christian practices and teachings. Lent is observed for 40 days, Jesus fasted in the desert for 40 days, and Genesis tells us during the great flood it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. It may also have been changed because of the ancient Greek doctrine of 'critical days' that teaches contagious diseases develop within 40 days after the initial exposure.

Of course, 1377 wasn't the first time the sick had been separated from the healthy on a mass scale. The book of Leviticus in the Old Testament, for example, states that anyone "defiled" with leprosy is "unclean" and "shall dwell alone, without the camp shall his habitation be".

But, quarantino of medieval Ragusa was a watershed moment in medical history as the practice of quarantine was enforced by the state. Since then, quarantine has been the cornerstone of every government strategy for the control of contagious diseases.

Given the criticism our current government is facing for not locking down the UK sooner to halt the spread of coronavirus, it may come of no surprise to learn that medieval Britain was slow to implement quarantine too. While cities across Europe started quarantining plague victims in 1377, it would take England more than 200 years and numerous outbreaks to finally draw up what were known as the 'plague orders'. But by the time the 'Great Plague of London' hit in 1665, these orders were being ruthlessly enforced.

Parishes were required to provide public 'pesthouses' where plague victims would be isolated. If there was not the capacity to quarantine there, as was often the case, victims would be locked inside their home with their entire family, who would almost certainly contract the disease and die too. The door would be padlocked shut by a local constable, who would mark it with a red cross and the words 'Lord have mercy upon us'. Watchmen were posted outside to ensure no one tried to get in or out, and 'plague nurses' were appointed to tend the sick and report those who died to the authorities. Those who could afford to do so heeded the old dictum Citò longè tardé, 'go quickly, go far, return slowly', and fled the infected areas.

Plague is still with us and, alongside antibiotics, quarantine is still one of the most effective methods we have of slowing transmission. In 2014, parts of the Chinese city of Yumen were quarantined after one man was found to have died of plague. In 2017, an outbreak of plague in Madagascar infected 2,348 people and killed more than 200. It would have claimed many more were it not for the swift actions of health authorities who closed schools, banned public gatherings, and quarantined the sick.

Quarantine was still being used to control periodic outbreaks of plague in the eighteenth century, but many social reformers had come to think of quarantine itself as an outdated practice. Fierce debates broke out between those calling themselves 'anticontagionists', who opposed the use of quarantine, and 'contagionists', who defended it.

American ports were routinely placed under quarantine in the eighteenth century to try and control outbreaks of yellow fever in the Caribbean. Despite the disease killing thousands of people, many Americans viewed quarantine as an infringement of their personal freedom and protested its use fiercely. Physicians such as Benjamin Rush (1745-1813), who angrily wrote to his friend James Madison in 1801: 'The commerce of our country has suffered greatly by our absurd quarantine laws in the different states. These laws, which admit the contagious nature of our American yellow fever, have produced a reaction in the governments of Europe which has rendered our commerce with the cities of Europe extremely expensive and oppressive".

When cholera broke out in Europe in 1830 and the United States in 1832, the health authorities were swift to impose a quarantine. Ships were not allowed to enter European ports if they had come from an area stricken with cholera and in the cities, severe restrictions were placed on freedom of movement. But these measures were deeply unpopular. The nineteenth century was witness to the industrial revolution and global trade was right at the heart of it. Anticontagionists protested quarantine on the grounds that it wasn't effective and severely damaged commerce.

There were even those who believed cholera was a hoax, designed by political opportunists to damage business interests. In 1832, one writer in the Lancet medical journal called cholera a "humbug got up for the destruction of commerce". The debate between quarantine, public health and personal liberty raged on and on. It wasn't until doctors identified the unique infectious agents of diseases like plague, cholera, and yellow fever in the nineteenth century, that health authorities could start to understand how various diseases were spread and if quarantine was warranted. Immunisation programmes, advances in the study of epidemiology and microbiology, and improvements in public hygiene soon followed; for many, quarantining was a medical relic. The 1911 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica defined 'quarantine' as a "thing of the past in the United Kingdom and in the, majority of other states", an "old sanitary preventive system of detention of ships and men".

How wrong they were. When the so-called ' Spanish Flu ' pandemic struck in 1918, it found a world torn apart by war and vastly unprepared to cope. Despite the name, this strain of influenza didn't originate in Spain. Spain was the only country whose media reported on the scale of the pandemic, other countries kept it hushed up so as not to demoralise their troops. As Spain was the only nation speaking about the pandemic, the rest of the world came to believe it was Spanish in origin.

In the spring of 1918, soldiers all along the western front suddenly became stricken with an aggressive strain of the flu. The disease was extremely infectious and rapidly spread through the troops. When the war ended in November 1918, the soldiers returned home and brought a second wave of the virus with them. Governments around the world had spent so much time trying to play down the severity of the virus that by the time they grasped the severity of it, they struggled to implement the necessary containment strategies. Major European cities closed schools, churches and theatres. Mass gatherings were prohibited, social distancing was recommended, along with the use of facemasks, but it was all too little, too late.

By the time it was finished, the Spanish Flu is estimated to have claimed more than 50 million lives worldwide.

It has been 643 years since quarantine was first made an official strategy for controlling infectious diseases. Since then, public health measures to reduce contact between infected people have been at the heart of every state initiative to reduce infection. From the black death to swine flu, quarantine has been essential in limiting rates of transmission.

But that does not mean that such measures have been welcomed by the public - far from it. State-enforced quarantine has long been regarded with suspicion. There have always been those who distrust the state's motives for implementing it and view it as a direct threat to personal liberty.

Now we are amid another global pandemic and quarantine measures are again part of the fight. History is repeating itself in the dissenting voices of those who challenge government lockdown, in the fear commerce will be irrevocably damaged, and even in conspiracy theories that the whole thing is a big hoax. But there is a reason social distancing is being turned to again, and that is because it helps keeps us safe. We will come out the other side of this, just as every generation before us has.

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A history of quarantine, and what it can teach us about social distancing today

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In the hope of halting the devastating advance of bubonic plague, in 1377 the city of Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik, Croatia) issued a 'trentino', (from the Italian 'trenta', meaning '30'), a 30 day isolation period for anyone trying to enter the city.

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Covid: What are the social distancing rules?

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Scotland and Wales are relaxing some of their restrictions around gatherings and mixing with others.

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One of the most important reformers was George Buchanan, the chief medical officer for England from 1879 to 1892. He argued that cities and towns had the authority to take necessary steps to ensure the communal "sanitary welfare." He and other reformers based their arguments on an idea developed by the 19th-century English philosopher John Stuart Mill, who is, ironically, remembered largely as a staunch defender of individual liberty. Mill articulated what he called the "harm principle," which asserts that while individual liberty is sacrosanct, it should be limited when it will harm others: "The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty and action of any of their number, is self-protection," Mill wrote in On Liberty in 1859. Public-health reformers argued that the harm principle gave them the authority to pursue their aims.

An essay published in The Lancet in 1883 sums up this view nicely: "We cannot see that there is any undue violation of personal liberty in the sanitary authority acting for the whole community, requiring to be informed of the existence of diseases dangerous to others. A man's liberty is not to involve risk to others," the author wrote. "A man with smallpox has the natural liberty to travel in a cab or an omnibus; but society has a right that overrides his natural liberty, and says he shall not."

Backed up by these arguments, as well as the new science of microbes, the reformers carried the day. From the 1860s to the 1890s, the English government, as well as many English cities and counties, used this interpretation of freedom to pass a series of laws allowing authorities to track and report infectious diseases, isolate and hospitalize people who were sick with these diseases, and inspect and disinfect people's homes and other buildings to ensure they were sanitary. Partly because of these interventions, rates of many infectious diseases in England dropped.

Today, however, American public-health leaders and politicians are for the most part ignoring this approach; instead, they have built their argument on numbers, and particularly on the continued rise in COVID-19 cases and deaths. This is certainly a plausible, and rational, response. But for some, the call to protect individual liberty, and to kick-start the economy in the process, is more compelling than data and statistics.

State by state, people are being asked to make a false choice between a rapid economic recovery and protecting the lives of vulnerable Americans. In a country where the idea of freedom is cherished so deeply, a compelling argument can and should be made that curtailing personal liberties is sometimes necessary to secure freedom for everyone.

Within the space of a few months, COVID-19 has joined diseases like scarlet fever, diphtheria, and cholera as a quintessential example of a threat that requires giving up one sort of liberty in order for people everywhere to enjoy their right to be healthy. Contagious and lethal, it so far cannot be cured or vaccinated against. Those who want to ignore social distancing, spurn masks, and crowd together in malls and on beaches might be making a statement in defense of personal liberty, but they are also undeniably endangering the freedoms of thousands of others.

Freedom, after all, is a flexible concept, and Americans' freedoms surely include the opportunity to minimize the collective risk of random viral death.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

Graham Mooney is an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He studies the history of public health in the 19th and 20th centuries.

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How to Talk About Freedom During a Pandemic

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One of the most important reformers was George Buchanan, the chief medical officer for England from 1879 to 1892. He argued that cities and towns had the authority to take necessary steps to ensure the communal "sanitary welfare."

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To what extent can a state legitimately restrict the liberties of its citizens in order to serve the common good? Furthermore, to what extent has the protection of the public's welfare been a pretext for governments to curtail or erode fundamental rights? These questions have formed the foundation of controversies and long-running debates about public health in the USA; conflicts that have been animated by a deep-rooted mistrust of overreaching authorities, concerns about arbitrary exercises of power, and by the anti-authoritarian ethos that is a historically prominent feature of US politics and civic culture.

The first tensions over the scope of public health and the acceptability of its measures arose during the fight against infectious disease in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They resurfaced in the last decades of the twentieth century in the wake of efforts to address chronic conditions that began to inform the pattern of morbidity and mortality in industrial societies. They reveal an enduring tension between public health and individual rights-a tension that we ignore at our own peril.

Scientific advances in Europe during the nineteenth century, notably in the laboratories of Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) and Robert Koch (1843-1910), identified the causative agents of many infectious diseases. This 'bacteriological revolution' transformed our understanding of how disease spreads and laid the foundations for a new public health ethos ( Baldwin, 1999). In this regard, it is worth noting that the discoveries of infectious bacteria by Pasteur and Koch provoked sharp resistance in those nations that were concerned about whether and how the imposition of quarantines would interrupt the free movement of goods and people ( Ackerknect, 1948).

Early advocates of public health in the USA, such as Mitchell Prudden (1849-1924) and Hermann Biggs (1859-1923), who was general medical officer of the city of New York's (NY, USA) Department of Health in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, were unabashed as they defended the legitimacy of coercion in the face of public health threats. "[E]verything", said Biggs when talking about efforts to curtail tuberculosis, "which is detrimental to health or dangerous to life, under the freest interpretation, is regarded as coming within the province of the Health Department. So broad is the construction of the law that everything which improperly or unnecessarily interferes with the comfort or enjoyment of life, as well as those things which are, strictly speaking, detrimental to health or dangerous to life, may become the subject of action on the part of the Board of Health." Looking back almost a century later, Laurie Garrett commented in her book, Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health, that, "[i]t was a declaration of war, not just against tuberculosis but against any group or individual who stood in the way of Public Health or the sanitarians' Hygeia" ( Garrett, 2000).

...the often abysmal health situations in the rapidly growing cities of the USA and Europe required drastic measures, and public health officials were given the freedom to meet the problems...

Biggs was but the most articulate of the new cadre of public health officials who endorsed authoritarian attitudes in the name of public health; the often abysmal health situations in the rapidly growing cities of the USA and Europe required drastic measures, and public health officials were given the freedom to meet the problems with what, at times, were heavy-handed approaches. In turn, these provoked resistance to mandatory vaccination programmes, quarantines and surveillance. Efforts to control smallpox, which involved compulsory vaccination, acted as a rallying point for groups and individuals motivated both by anti-government ideology and concrete fears of the physical harm that sometimes resulted from the procedure. Anti-vaccine organizations throughout the USA were driven, among other things, by opponents of germ theory and groups generally opposed to government interference in their claims to privacy. In Milwaukee (WI, USA), for example, forceful application of the State's mandatory vaccination law sparked riots among the city's large German immigrant population in the 1890s. Health officers who went into neighbourhoods to vaccinate residents and remove sick individuals to quarantine hospitals were greeted by angry mobs throwing rocks ( Colgrove, 2006).

In the state of Massachusetts (USA), a smallpox epidemic during the winter of 1901 provided the occasion for a legal challenge to the state's compulsory vaccination law. This led to a landmark ruling by the US Supreme Court in the case of Jacobson versus Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which established the government's right to use its 'police powers' in order to control epidemic disease. In its seven-to-two decision, the Court affirmed the right of the people, through their elected representatives, to enact "health laws of every description to protect the common good" ( Colgrove & Bayer, 2005).

Efforts to impose quarantines on those viewed as a threat to public health has involved the use of measures that look excessive and profoundly unfair from the perspective of less troubled times. On several occasions, the outbreak of diseases among disfavoured minority groups has led to harsh measures being used against them. As Howard Markel noted in his book, Quarantine!, "[i]mmigrants arriving in New York City in 1892, for example, could be isolated and kept in squalid conditions to prevent the spread of cholera and typhus. At a time of massive immigration and concomitant nativist sentiment, health officials faced little popular opposition to their efforts" ( Markel, 1997).

US courts have almost always deferred to public health authorities that have deprived individuals of their liberty in the name of public health

A central strategy of the emergent public health regime in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries involved the mandatory reporting of patients' names to public health registries. Physicians attending patients in private practices often opposed such requirements as impinging on their autonomy and as a violation of the doctor-patient relationship. Biggs, when reflecting on the controversies that had greeted his efforts to mandate the reporting of tuberculosis cases-as he moved forward to begin the surveillance of sexually transmitted diseases in the early twentieth century-remarked that, "[t]he ten year long opposition to the reporting of tuberculosis will doubtless appear a mild breeze compared with the stormy protest against the sanitary surveillance of the venereal diseases" ( Biggs, 1913). Despite the existence of much opposition, the reporting of cases by name to local and state health departments and to special confidential registries ultimately became part of the tradition and practice of public health.

US courts almost always deferred to public health authorities that have deprived individuals of their liberty in the name of public health. One US state high court declared at the beginning of the twentieth century that, "[i]t is unquestionable that the legislature can confer police powers upon public officers for the protection of the public health. The maxim Salus populi suprema lex is the law of all courts in all countries. The individual right sinks in the necessity to provide for the public good" ( Parmet, 1985). Even more remarkably, a plenary grant of authority was still found to be constitutional in the 1960s. In upholding the detention of a person with tuberculosis pursuant to a statute that provided virtually no procedural protections, a California appellate court declared in 1966 that, "[h]ealth regulations enacted by the state under its police power and providing even drastic measures for the elimination of disease...in a general way are not affected by constitutional provisions, either of the state or national government."

The breadth of powers that public health authorities had enjoyed remained virtually unchallenged through most of the twentieth century, but finally came under increasing scrutiny during the last decades of that era. The development of a robust jurisprudence of privacy, and the "due process revolution", which extended rights to prisoners, mental patients and others under the authority of the state, ultimately questioned the long-held assumptions that had protected public health from constitutional scrutiny. The groundwork for this profound change was laid in the transformations that occurred in American politics, law and culture during the 1960s and 1970s. But it was the HIV/AIDS epidemic that forced a fundamental rethinking of the dominant ideology of public health. The methods of mandatory screening and examination, reporting the names of those who were sick or infected to public health registries and the imposition of quarantine once again became the subject of controversy and dispute ( Bayer, 1989).

The debates that raged during the 1980s when HIV/AIDS emerged in the USA revealed the profound influence that political and historical contexts had had on the enforcement of public health. In the early years of the epidemic, a broad coalition of gay rights' activists and advocates of civil liberties were largely successful in their efforts to put the protection of privacy and individual rights at the forefront of the public health agenda. Fierce battles ensued when proposals were made to mandate the reporting of people infected with HIV to public health registries, and it was not until many years later that such reporting became universal. Intense controversy also surrounded the efforts to preserve the right of individuals to determine whether they would be tested for HIV infection. Newly adopted policies required exacting and specific informed consent for testing, and it was not until the 1990s that significant support among physicians emerged to help relax these standards. Finally, every attempt to use the power of quarantine to control those whose behaviour might place their sexual partners at risk provoked extensive debate about the counterproductive impact of recourse to coercion.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic provided the occasion to articulate a new paradigm of public health

The HIV/AIDS epidemic provided the occasion to articulate a new paradigm of public health. Given the biological, epidemiological and political factors that shaped the public policy discussion, proponents and defenders of civil liberties were able to assert that no tension existed between public health and civil liberties, that policies that protected the latter would foster the former and that policies that intruded on rights would subvert public health. What was true for HIV/AIDS was also true for public health generally. Indeed, the experience of dealing with HIV/AIDS provided the opportunity to rethink the very foundations of public health and to re-examine the legacy of compulsory state powers. Even when some elements of the privacy- and rights-based approaches to HIV/AIDS were modified in the 1990s as the epidemic 'normalized', the core values of privacy and civil liberties that had taken hold retained their influence.

But is it true that there is no tension between public health and civil liberties? Public health surveillance for both infectious and non-infectious diseases is crucial in order to understand the patterns of diseases, and for the planning and execution of remedial action. This is true for tuberculosis, as it is true for cancer ( Fairchild et al, 2007). Surveillance, to be effective, necessitates that either physicians or laboratories comply with public health mandates that clearly intrude on privacy. Only if we acknowledge this fact can we determine whether the public health benefits of surveillance justify this price.

Mandatory immunization of school children clearly intrudes on or burdens parental autonomy. Yet, both the protection of children from infectious disease and the ensuing 'herd immunity' by high-level vaccination coverage, which protects those who cannot be vaccinated, depend on such mandates. Various outbreaks of measles and pertussis (whooping cough) underscore the toll that we have to pay when we privilege parental choice; it might be a cost worth bearing but we will only know if we are forced to acknowledge the trade-offs involved.

Another central tenet of public health is the requirement that people with certain diseases undergo treatment-as in the case of tuberculosis-or that people with highly infectious diseases be isolated or quarantined. Such measures always require that we address questions of whether the health threats, their severity and transmissibility all justify depriving individuals of their liberty. These questions cannot be answered without confronting the tension between the interests of the individual and those of the collective. If SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) taught us anything, it was how difficult it is to make such decisions in the face of uncertainty. It might turn out in retrospect that the quarantines we impose when faced with a potential epidemic are more extensive than necessary. But in the face of an evolving threat, public health officials have no choice but to weigh personal liberty against potential grave threats ( Gostin et al, 2003).

To this point I have focused on infectious diseases, which compel us to address the powers of public health when there is a direct risk or a potential risk to third parties. But the scope of public health in industrial and post-industrial societies extends to chronic diseases ( Knowles, 1977). Many such conditions involve lifestyle choices; patterns of behaviour which, in the first instance, harm oneself. What is the legitimate role of the state in modifying, discouraging, burdening or even prohibiting behaviours that increase both morbidity and mortality?

At stake here is the question of paternalism. Is it appropriate for the State to impose restrictions on competent adults in order to protect them from harming themselves? Those who are inspired by the tradition of John Stuart Mill answer with a resounding 'No'. They claim that public health officials can educate and warn, but not compel. As these ideas have gained wide influence, advocates of public health often need to assert that they intervene because the social consequences or negative externalities of certain behaviours warrant intervention; thus, self-regarding harms are transformed into other-regarding harms. In any event, the state seeks to use its authority to change individual behaviour.

Two examples will illustrate this point. It has long been known that wearing helmets drastically decreases a motorcyclist's risk of death or severe injury in the case of an accident. During the 1970s, pressure by the federal government in the USA led virtually all states to mandate the use of motorcycle helmets ( Jones & Bayer, 2007). These statutes provoked the wrath of motorcyclists who asserted that the state deprived them of the right to cycle in the way that was most pleasurable and exciting, and that failure to use helmets posed no threat to others. In short, these laws were, they asserted, an example of overreaching state intrusion, of gross paternalism. Nevertheless, when the courts reviewed these statutes, they were almost never overturned as unconstitutional. A court in Massachusetts noted, "From the moment of the injury, society picks the person up off the highway; delivers him to a municipal hospital and municipal doctors; provides him with unemployment compensation if, after recovery, he cannot replace his lost job; and if the injury causes permanent disability many assure the responsibility for his and his family's continued sustenance. We do not understand a state of mind that permits a plaintiff to think that only he himself is concerned" ( Cronin, 1980).

What is the legitimate role of the state in modifying, discouraging, burdening or even prohibiting behaviours that increase both morbidity and mortality?

Although efforts to justify the regulation of behaviour in non-paternalistic terms might be effective in the short term, they are almost always transparent subterfuges. It would be more honest-and in the long term more protective of public health-to acknowledge that intervention is sometimes necessary to protect individuals from their own foolish or dangerous behaviour because such efforts can have a broad and enormous impact at a population level. An explicit acknowledgement would also help to understand the trade-offs involved. Ironically, the use of the social impact argument can, in the end, be more subversive of rights than the explicit embrace of paternalism. After all, everything can be shown to have a social impact.

The failure to make a strong case for paternalistic restrictions with regard to motorcycle helmets set the stage for repeals of compulsory helmet laws for adults; now, only half the states have such statutes. The consequences were predictable: in 2004, approximately 4,000 cyclists died, the seventh year to show an increase in fatalities. The triumph of individual rights has transformed a public health success story into a public health defeat. Recognizing the right to ride a motorcycle without a helmet might be a right we want to protect-but there should be no confusion about the price we pay.

The case of tobacco control gives more reason for optimism ( Feldman & Bayer, 2004), but here too, recent history underscores that achievements in public health often carry a price in individual freedom. It would be convenient to think about tobacco as similar to other environmental toxins, which we simply ban when we find that they cause morbidity and mortality; however, tobacco is different. Millions consume it because of addiction, habit, desire or social convention. It is therefore impossible to consider public policy without addressing the extent to which the state might exert pressure and impose limits in the name of health. The answer to this question will determine whether we will be able to save the lives of smokers both now and in the future.

It is striking that in most economically advanced democracies, the first decades of tobacco control were marked by a distinct reluctance to embrace measures that bore the taint of paternalism-especially in the USA. Pressure from the tobacco industry and its allies partly accounted for this phenomenon, but they do not provide a sufficient explanation. Here, as in the case of motorcycle helmets, there was considerable uncertainty about how far the state could go. As a consequence, much of public health policy focused on children and innocent bystanders.

When limits were proposed on tobacco advertising-a unique problem in the USA, where the Supreme Court has extended the protections of the First Amendment to commercial speech-they were commonly justified by the need to protect children from the seductions of tobacco. When arguments were made for radically increasing taxes on cigarettes, thus burdening consumption-especially for those with less disposable income-it was asserted that such levies were vital because of the social costs created by tobacco-associated morbidity and mortality. Finally, when increasingly restrictive measures were imposed on smoking in public settings, the central justification was that passive smoking was pathogenic and responsible for deaths associated with cancer and heart disease. It was almost never asserted that limits on advertising, increases in taxes and restrictions on public smoking were necessary to protect those who might begin to smoke or those who were smokers.

Clearly the public health-measured collectively in terms of the lives of individuals and on a population basis-requires intervention that involves restrictions of choice

As a result of changing social norms and public policies, the prevalence of smoking by adults in advanced democracies has declined markedly in the past 40 years. A steep social gradient has also emerged: those better educated smoke less; those with poorer education comprise an ever-greater proportion of smokers. Under these social conditions, it has become increasingly possible to assert that the aim of restrictive public health policy is to pressure, even cajole, smokers to give up their behaviour. Tobacco advertising must, where permissible, be banned. Taxes must make the price of cigarettes increasingly prohibitive. Limits on public smoking are necessary to make it more difficult for smokers to find a place where they can light up.

Given the human toll caused by tobacco consumption, who then but the most hidebound of libertarians would oppose measures to radically reduce, even end, the scourge associated with cigarette smoking? Clearly the public health-measured collectively in terms of the lives of individuals and on a population basis-requires intervention that involves restrictions of choice.

Across the spectrum of threats to the public health-from infectious diseases to chronic disorders-are inherent tensions between the good of the collective and the individual. To acknowledge this tension is not to foreordain the answer to the question 'How far should the state go?'; rather, it is to insist that we are fully cognizant of difficult trade-offs when we make policy determinations.

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The continuing tensions between individual rights and public health. Talking Point on public health versus civil liberties

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To what extent can a state legitimately restrict the liberties of its citizens in order to serve the common good? Furthermore, to what extent has the protection of the public's welfare been a pretext for governments to curtail or erode fundamental rights?

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1. Plan and Section

The new headquarters for BBC Scotland encompasses all aspects of television, radio, and internet, accommodating the UK's most advanced broadcast studios and production facilities, along with state of the art technical support and office space.

Another requirement was that the arrangement of spaces would encourage mobility, ad-hoc encounters, sharing of knowledge and collaborative working, and be easily adaptable. The response was to give equal importance to collective work areas, individual workstations, and public spaces.

The design promotes interaction between the 1200 occupants by connecting all the workspaces with a central rising atrium the Street configured as a tiered sequence of steps, platforms, and terraces. This giant staircase offers generous landings at each level for informal meetings and broadcast space.

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The new headquarters for BBC Scotland encompasses all aspects of television, radio, and internet, accommodating the UK's most advanced broadcast studios and production facilities, along with state of the art technical support and office space. The building sits on an exposed site dominated by the River Clyde. The industrial feel of the building and the choice of materials - galvanised steel, raw concrete, and sandstone - tie the building into its location and refer back to the area's rich history of heavy industry.
The brief called for a building which would invite the public in, and allow them to find out more about the BBC at work. This is achieved with 650 m2 of public space; the main entrance foyer contains information displays, a coffee shop, and interactive facilities.
Another requirement was that the arrangement of spaces would encourage mobility, ad-hoc encounters, sharing of knowledge and collaborative working, and be easily adaptable. The response was to give equal importance to collective work areas, individual workstations, and public spaces. The design promotes interaction between the 1200 occupants by connecting all the workspaces with a central rising atrium – the 'Street' – configured as a tiered sequence of steps, platforms, and terraces. This 'giant staircase' offers generous landings at each level for informal meetings and broadcast space.
In terms of the formal design of the structure, the most immediate issue lay in the relationship between technical elements such as broadcast studios (that by necessity had to be solid, enclosed boxes), and office spaces. The response was to put all of the broadcast studio 'boxes' in the centre of the building, freeing almost all of the building's edges, glazed to allow maximum visibility both in and out, and shower the interior with daylight.

The 'boxes' are arranged in ascending height order, with the 'Street' weaving its way over the top. On top of the largest box - Studio A - is the newsroom, above which is the staff restaurant with adjacent roof terrace.
Studio A has a height of over four storeys, and covers an area of 790 m2. The whole structure, down to the foundations, is separated from the rest of the building using 'box in the box' construction. This prevents the transfer of noise into, or out of, the studio. The two smaller studios are also acoustically separated from the rest of the building.

The building has a composite steel and concrete structure. With the site reclaimed from a backfilled Victorian dock, the building sits over 150 bored piles which extend 30m down into solid rock. The main building frame consists of 450mm thick reinforced concrete floor slabs supported on columns at 9m centres. The central 'Street' is formed through a composite steel and concrete structure, with steel beams and trusses supporting 150mm thick concrete slabs.
The base build design incorporates enhanced components that enable further alterations to be easily installed within the building. The advanced design enables the building's lighting to be controlled with regard to occupancy and appropriate light levels.

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The new headquarters for BBC Scotland encompasses all aspects of television, radio, and internet, accommodating the UK's most advanced broadcast studios and production facilities, along with state of the art technical support and office space. The building sits on an exposed site dominated by the River Clyde.

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Notes:

Graven’s role was to help ensure that the working environment would support the creativity of BBC Scotland through encouraging interaction and collaboration throughout the open plan offices, reception, sandstone street and restaurant.

The formal workspaces are organised around a kind of social “central nervous system” which connects the very public reception space to the staff restaurant on the 5th floor.

The reception area is formatted to be accessible and inviting to the public and delivers real information about the BBC as well as promoting education, content and technology.

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Award-winning interior fit-out of the BBC Scotland Headquarters at Pacific Quay, Glasgow.

Graven worked closely with BBC Scotland, the architect David Chipperfield and Bovis on the new headquarters building. Unusually, it contains the whole programme-making and broadcast process in a single building, an apparently simple glass box, on the south bank of the River Clyde. The building is organised around a red sandstone stepped "street" which rises through the building connecting all of the distributed parts.

Graven's role was to help ensure that the working environment would support the creativity of BBC Scotland through encouraging interaction and collaboration throughout the open plan offices, reception, sandstone street and restaurant. The formal workspaces are organised around a kind of social "central nervous system" which connects the very public reception space to the staff restaurant on the 5th floor. The restaurant is on the top floor and a social hub as well as being an important and well used informal meeting space. The highly developed hierarchy of informal meeting spaces extends far beyond the usual lip service paid to interaction through "breakout" areas.

The reception area is formatted to be accessible and inviting to the public and delivers real information about the BBC as well as promoting education, content and technology. A special range of furniture was also designed by Graven for the Street. These are monolithic benches in locally grown Scottish oak. In contrast to the red sandstone of Glasgow's urban fabric, these pieces represent Scotland's rural communities.

Awards
BCO Regional award winner 2008 in Corporate category
RIBA Awards 2008 for One of best British Buildings
Scottish Design Award winner 2008 for Interior Design Category
IALD - International Lighting Design Awards Winners 2009

Client

BBC Scotland

Scope of Services

communications design, graphic design, interior design, furniture design, signage & wayfinding

Location

Glasgow

Photography

Renzo Mazzolini

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BBC Scotland Pacific Quay, Glasgow - Graven

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Graven worked closely with BBC Scotland, the architect David Chipperfield and Bovis on the new headquarters building. Unusually, it contains the whole programme-making and broadcast process in a single building, an apparently simple glass box, on the south bank of the River Clyde.

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Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, the first book of his multi-volume Homo Sacer project, urges a reconsideration of theories of sovereignty as put forward 'from Hobbes to Rousseau' (1998: 109). The theory of sovereign power offered by the book is based on the state of exception (as in Schmitt[1]) and the production of a bare, human life caught in the sovereign ban, which constitutes the threshold of the political community. Responding to Foucault's theory of biopolitics, in which human life becomes the target of the organisational power of the State, Agamben argues that there exists a 'hidden tie' between sovereign power and biopolitics, forged in the exceptional basis of State sovereignty.
Sovereign Power and Law
Sovereign power, Agamben argues, establishes itself through the production of a political order based on the exclusion of bare, human life. This it achieves through the enactment of the exception in which the law is suspended, withdrawn from the human being[2] who is stripped of legal status and transformed in relation to sovereign power into a bare life without rights. Bare life, encompassed in the exception, inhabits the threshold of the juridico-political community.

The sovereign exception, Agamben shows, gives rise to the juridical order. '[T]he rule, suspending itself, gives rise to the exception' - that is, the juridical order, suspending its own validity, produces the exception of bare life - 'and, maintaining itself in relation to the exception, first constitutes itself as a rule' ( ibid: 18). Upon this (inclusive) exclusion of bare life, Agamben argues, the Western State itself is constituted.
Homo Sacer
The bare life in the sovereign exception is captured in a specific relation to sovereign power, what Agamben terms a 'relation of exception' or 'relation of ban'. Those who inhabit the state of exception cannot be said to be freed from the juridical order and sovereign rule; bare life is not 'simply set outside the law and made indifferent to it' ( ibid: 28). Through its own suspension, the 'law encompasses living beings' (2005: 3) who are simultaneously bound and abandoned to it. As such, the bare life captured in the sovereign ban is included in the juridical order 'through its exclusion'; it finds itself tied to the order, and the sovereign power by which it is constituted, in the relation of exception (1998: 18).

The paradigm of the bare life captured in the sovereign ban Agamben finds in the figure of homo sacer of archaic Roman law ( ibid: 8). Homo sacer

has been excluded from the religious community and from all political life: he cannot participate in the rites of his gens, nor [...] can he perform any juridically valid act. What is more, his entire existence is reduced to a bare life stripped of every right by virtue of the fact that anyone can kill him without committing homicide; he can save himself only in perpetual flight or a foreign land. ( ibid: 183)

Stripped of legal status and expelled from the political community, homo sacer is exposed unconditionally to the potential for killing by anyone. Homo sacer 'is in a continuous relationship with the power that banished him precisely insofar as he is at every instant exposed to an unconditional threat of death' ( ibid).
Zoē and Bios
Those who are captured in the sovereign ban and stripped of all legal status, find themselves, by the same act, banned from the political community. In this way, the sovereign decides which lives will be recognised as belonging to the community of political beings and which will be classified only in terms of biological fact. The basis of this distinction is addressed by Agamben with recourse to the two terms used by the Greeks to distinguish between forms of life: zoē, 'natural reproductive life' confined to the private sphere, and bios, 'a qualified form of life', political life ( ibid: 1).

Those who are banned from the domain of political beings are reduced by the sovereign to life defined only in terms of zoē ( ibid: 183), recognised by the sovereign only as biological beings.

The separation of zoē from bios, and the production of a bare, human life as a product of sovereign power can be said to undergo a transformation in modernity as zoē, or biological life, is repositioned inside the polis, becoming the focus of the State's organisational power. This process, rooted in classical politics and extending into the present, indicates, for Agamben, a Western politics that has constituted itself from its beginnings as a biopolitics ( ibid: 181).
Biopolitics
Michel Foucault identified a transition in modernity by which the State increasingly took as its task the care and regulation of biological, human life itself. The establishment, beginning in the 17 th century, of what Foucault terms 'biopower', a regularising technology of power that 'distribut[es] the living in the domain of value and utility' (1990: 144), signifies for him the emergence of 'a "biopolitics" of the human race' (2003: 243).

Biopower is distinguished for Foucault from sovereign power. This new technology of power, he argues, 'has to qualify, measure, appraise, and hierarchize, rather than display itself in its murderous splendor' (1990: 144). As such, biopolitics begins with the emergence of biopower in modernity. Agamben, however, offers a corrective to Foucault's theory: sovereign power is itself already biopolitical, based on the constitution of bare life as the threshold of the political order. For Agamben, the emergence of the technology of biopower signifies, not a break in the history of Western politics, but the expansion of the existing biopolitical imperative of the State, as bare life moves from the periphery to the centre of the State's concerns, entering in modernity into the political order as the exception increasingly becomes the rule (1998: 9). 'Placing biological life at the center of its calculations, the modern State [...] does nothing other than bring to light the secret tie uniting power and bare life' ( ibid: 6).

The production of bare life through the exception, and the preoccupation of State power with the management of zoē, advance increasingly and in parallel throughout modernity, reaching an apex in the 20 th century as the concentration camp system of the totalitarian State attempted the first 'normal and collective [...] organization of human life founded solely on bare life' ( ibid: 135).
The Camp
The historical concentration camp, such as those of the Spanish in Cuba or the British in South Africa, Agamben writes, were born 'out of a state of exception and martial law' ( ibid: 167). Writing of the Nazi State, Agamben argues that a transition has occurred, that the concentration camp system of 20 th century totalitarianism is now the product of a 'willed' state of exception. It is

thus the structure in which the state of exception [...] is realized normally. The sovereign no longer limits himself [...] to deciding on the exception on the basis of recognizing a given factual situation (danger to public safety): laying bare the inner structure of the ban that characterizes his power, he now de facto produces the situation as a consequence of his decision on the exception. ( ibid: 170; emphasis in original)

Under modern liberal democracy, the state of exception, once a temporary suspension of law, became a stable, generalised condition[3]: 'the declaration of the state of exception has gradually been replaced by an unprecedented generalization of the paradigm of security as the normal technique of government' (2005: 14). This tendency provided the totalitarianisms which emerged in the 20 th century with the framework by which rule by a permanent state of emergency was possible ( ibid: 2). As the site in which the state of exception is 'given a permanent spatial arrangement' (1998: 169), the concentration camp is, for Agamben, the paradigmatic space of this new political arrangement. It is 'the space that is opened up when the state of exception begins to become the rule' ( ibid: 168-9).

The camp, brought into being through the enactment of the state of exception, is distinctly the product of sovereign power. It is the space in which bare life is most clearly seized by the State. 'Insofar as its inhabitants were stripped of every political status and wholly reduced to bare life, the camp was [...] the most absolute biopolitical space ever to have been realized, in which power confronts nothing but pure life, without any mediation' ( ibid: 171). Agamben quotes Arendt who writes that the camp is the space in which 'everything is possible' ( ibid: 170). The camp cannot be said to be defined by the atrocities that take place there, but by the potential that exists that they may. This is the condition to which the bare life of homo sacer is banished. As such, the camp is realised wherever bare life abandoned by law is produced.

Agamben locates the camp in such spaces as the Stadio della Vittoria in Bari to which thousands of Albanian immigrants were consigned in 1991 before being forcibly deported, and the Vélodrome d'Hiver where in 1942 Jews were detained following mass arrests by the French police before being sent to Auschwitz ( ibid: 174). Agamben's analysis of the process by which the state of exception has become generalised shows, however, that our conception of the camp should not be limited to historico-geographical instances. Rather, the camp, as the space of the exception, must be understood as an ever-present condition existing in potential within the political order.

Today, as politics has been transformed 'into the realm of bare life (that is, into a camp)' ( ibid: 120), and the exception has been realised as a permanent and stable condition, 'all citizens can be said [...] to appear virtually as homines sacri' ( ibid: 111).

BIBLIOGRAPHY / FURTHER READING

Agamben, G., 1995. 'We Refugees'. Translated by M. Rocke. Symposium. 49(2), Summer, pp. 114-119. Agamben, G., 1998. Agamben, G., 1999. Agamben, G., 2005. Agamben, G., 2007. 'The Work of Man'. In: M. Calarco and S. DeCaroli eds., 2007. Foucault, M., 1990. Foucault, M., 2003. '
Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Translated by D. Heller-Roazen. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive. Translated by D. Heller-Roazen. New York: Zone Books.
State of Exception. Translated by K. Attell. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Giorgio Agamben: Sovereignty and Life. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction. Translated by R. Hurley. London: Penguin.
Society Must Be Defended', Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975-76. Translated by D. Macey. M. Bertani and A. I. Davidson eds. London: Penguin.
Raulff, U., 2004. 'An Interview with Giorgio Agamben'. German Law Journal, 2004, Vol. 5, No. 5, pp. 609-614. [Pdf] Available at <https://www.germanlawjournal.com/pdfs/Vol05No05/PDF_Vol_05_No_05_609-614_special_issue_Raulff_Interview.pdf> [Accessed 17 June 2015].

[1] 'The decision [on the exception] reveals the essence of State authority most clearly' (Schmitt quoted in Agamben, 1998: 16).
[2] The juridical order 'withdraw[s] from the exception [bare life] and abandon[s] it' ( ibid: 18). [3] During World Wars I and II, Agamben writes, 'the democratic regimes were transformed by the gradual expansion of the executive's powers' (2005: 6); 'World War One (and the years following it) appear as a laboratory for testing and honing the functional mechanisms and apparatuses of the state of exception as a paradigm of government' (1998: 7).

Call for contributions to 'Key Concepts'.

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Sovereign Exception: Notes on the Thought of Giorgio Agamben

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Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, the first book of his multi-volume Homo Sacer project, urges a reconsideration of theories of sovereignty as put forward 'from Hobbes to Rousseau' (1998: 109).

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Ridley's Temporary Restaurant - the-decorators

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Visible Award Temporary ParliamentQueens Museum, New YorkDecember 2017 'the shabbier the collected chamber, the better the democracy', Carne Ross On Monday 12t...

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Right of Death and Power Over Life, Michel Foucault, Reviewed by Sharon Tran 

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Right of Death and Power Over Life, Michel Foucault, Reviewed by Sharon Tran 

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Design in Dialogue - Exhibitions - Friedman Benda

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Inaugurated on April 1, 2020, Design in Dialogue is a series of online interviews hosted alternately by curator and historian Glenn Adamson (Wednesdays) and designer Stephen Burks (Fridays). Conversations are held on Zoom for 1 hour, beginning at 11am Eastern Standard Time, including a participatory Q&A.

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This exhibition explores the power of design in shaping the world of tomorrow.

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Mariana Pestana, an architect and independent curator based in Portugal, spoke about past and future projects, including her work within the collective The Decorators and plans for the forthcoming Istanbul Design Biennial.

Please join us for upcoming live conversation by registering here: http://www.friedmanbenda.com/exhibitions/current/design-in-dialogue

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Anti-Social Club, Cornwall: Social Distancing

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Anti-Social Club, Cornwall: Social Distancing

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A Cornish hotel has said it has revamped its restaurant so that it conforms to social distancing guidelines, and it will open early next month.

St Moritz Hotel & Spa, which promotes walks to nearby St Enodoc Golf Club on its website, says it will be 'the UK's first purpose-designed and built socially distanced hotel restaurant.

'Nicknamed 'The Anti-Social Club', it will consist of 16 private dining rooms, with a maximum of 96 covers and featuring multiple dining times.

All individual dining rooms are accessed from the outside, with the service function being provided from a central atrium, and all food and drink is delivered to each room via a set of hatches.

It is due to open on July 4.

'Mixing elements of private members' clubs, private dining rooms, beach clubs and summer pop-up restaurants, clear guidance and exacting operating procedures ensure the two metre rule and new environmental health requirements are met at all times,' said a spokeswoman.

'The service team don't need to go into the dining rooms, and the individual, staggered dining times mean that guests won't run into each other. Each and every room can be completely cleared and appropriately cleaned, then re-set-up, to meet all requirements, between each dining party.

'The Anti-Social Club will require a team of at least 20 to run across the high season, providing vital local jobs and economic benefits.'

Co-owner Hugh Ridgway said: "Covid-19 has stopped the industry in its tracks. Like all hotels, bars and restaurants across the globe, the virus has hit our business like an unbelievable sledgehammer. However, as ever, we have dusted ourselves off, and risen to this unpredictable challenge in our own way.

"We can trade our rooms in a safe and socially distanced manner, however we can only sell those hotel rooms if we can feed our guests - and feed them well. "Simply reworking our current restaurants and bars, and operating at 30 percent capacity doesn't allow that, so our specially-designed summer 'pop-up' restaurant overcomes this obstacle."

Hugh's brother, Steve Ridgway, until last week the chairman of Visit Britain and former chief executive of Virgin Atlantic, said: "We are forever talking about the pioneering British spirit and it's true to say that out of adversity comes creativity.

"Within Visit Britain we have been encouraging the industry to discover, and unlock, experimental opportunities that provide a silver lining amongst the Covid challenges.

"We're all exceedingly pleased to have landed on a new concept and dining solution that elevates the summer experience there. Thousands of customers do not want to miss their summer holidays and this will mean that they won't, and that they can holiday in a safe and enjoyable way."

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'Social distancing restaurant' to open in Cornwall in July

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A Cornish hotel has said it has revamped its restaurant so that it conforms to social distancing guidelines, and it will open early next month. St Moritz Hotel & Spa, which promotes walks to nearby St Enodoc Golf Club on its website, says it will be 'the UK's first purpose-designed and built socially distanced hotel restaurant.

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The UK's first purpose-built socially distanced restaurant is coming to save us from the horror of cooking in our own kitchens.

After months of lockdown killing off the dining out experience, The St Moritz Hotel and Spa is offering comfort by unveiling plans for its new restaurant, nicknamed The Anti-Social Club.

This particular spot is designed entirely around allowing for social distancing, with food served to guests through hatches.

The hotel plans to open up the dining option when the government allows venues to reopen next month.

It includes 16 private rooms that can accommodate up to 96 guests, all of whom can enjoy a proper meal while maintaining social distancing guidelines.
Visit our live blog for the latest updates: Coronavirus news live
Staff at the hotel, in Wadebridge, Cornwall, have said that they will be able to ensure the two-metre rule is observed so they can operate under the current restrictions.

Co-owner Hugh Ridgway said: 'Covid-19 has stopped the industry in its tracks.

'Like all hotels, bars and restaurants across the globe, the virus has hit our business like an unbelievable sledgehammer.

'However, as ever, we have dusted ourselves off, and risen to this unpredictable challenge in our own creative, St Moritz way.'

The hotel describe their new restaurant as a part private member club, part dining room.

The layout has been designed to ensure that each dining room is accessible from the outside, with food and drink served through a series of hatches.

Hugh added: 'Our purposeful architecture allows us to trade our rooms in a safe and socially distanced manner, however we can only sell those hotel rooms if we can feed our guests - and feed them well.

'Simply reworking our current restaurants and bars, and operating at 30% capacity doesn't allow that, so our specially-designed summer 'pop-up' restaurant, overcomes this obstacle, adding to, rather than detracting from, our stylish, VIP guest experience.'

If all goes well, the restaurant will start serving up meals on 4 July.
Do you have a story to share? Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.
MORE: Mum creates free breakfast bar by sawing old dining room table in half

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MORE: Burger King: Which restaurants and drive-thrus are open and what's on the BK menu?

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A socially distanced restaurant is set to open in Cornwall

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The UK's first purpose-built socially distanced restaurant is coming to save us from the horror of cooking in our own kitchens. After months of lockdown killing off the dining out experience, The St Moritz Hotel and Spa is offering comfort by unveiling plans for its new restaurant, nicknamed The Anti-Social Club.

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Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985) - Ministry of Information

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Ref 4. Reality is What You Can Get Away With: Fantastic Imaginings, Rebellion and Control in Terry Gilliam's Brazil, Ben Wheeler, 2005

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Ref 4. Reality is What You Can Get Away With: Fantastic Imaginings, Rebellion and Control in Terry Gilliam's Brazil, Ben Wheeler, 2005

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Brazil is the demented, surreal flip-side of George Orwell's dystopian warning- 1984 1/2 was director Terry Gilliam's originally mooted title. Yet it is Gilliam's comic vision that depressingly reflects and permeates our everyday culture. One of the bureaucratic balls-ups, government catch-all catchphrases ("We're all in this together"), and an ineffectual war on terror that, in Brazil, may be down to no more than bad plumbing. Where is Brazil? Somewhere on the hinterland of L.A and Belfast, said Gilliam, summing up the lunacy of la-la land and the then 1985 Troubles town. An expressionist, alt-present sci-fi Gotham inspiration rooted in a 1940s vision of a possible future, with unwieldy gizmos and gadgets, yet timeless in its themes. "It's about the impossibility of escaping from reality," as Gilliam says, but trying all the same. Gilliam threads this satirical and increasingly dark tale through a designer's dream of a film. In an unnamed city, Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) keeps his head down in the Department of Records, covering for ineffectual boss Mr Kurtzmann (a brilliant Ian Holm). Meanwhile in his dreams, he is a winged warrior, who soars amongst the clouds, battling a giant samurai creature and rescuing a Botticelli Venus from her aerial cage. When he meets her earthly counterpart Jill (Kim Greist), determined to right a wrongful arrest, he seeks to help by correcting the clerical error that led to her neighbor's death ("Buttle, not Tuttle!"). From then on, events quickly spiral out of his control. That's just the surface of Brazil. Gilliam and his co-screenwriters (an uncredited Charles Alverson ( Jabberwocky), Charles McKeown and most famously, Tom Stoppard worked on it on and off over six years) stuff the film with subversive bon mots, furiously paced slapstick and sight gags, and the blackest of humour-it is at once thrilling and hilarious. Jonathan Pryce is in virtually every scene, and has probably never been better than here-he absolutely sells this everyman's descent into the abyss.

Gilliam began writing the script in 1979, partly influenced by a book he discovered in fellow Monty Python alumni Terry Jones' home. The book recounted how during the Middle Ages, those accused of witchcraft, convicted and burned, had to pre-pay their torturers for the expense of the trial and questioning/detention. This bureaucratic element comes up in the film-after the Special Patrol Group drill a hole through the unfortunate Buttle's ceiling and haul him off in a sack, having his shaken wife sign his arrest dockets ("Press harder this time please"), the also charged-for replacement for the piece cut out of the ceiling is predictably too small. "Bloody typical," says Nigel Planer's Dept of Works gaffer. "They've only gone back to metric without telling us."

Robert De Niro's rogue heating engineer Harry Tuttle (the real target of the earlier mix-up) becomes Sam's hero after a calamitous air-conditioning foul-up in his flat ("Trouble with your ducts?" Bob Hoskins' Central Services engineer enquires almost menacingly). "This whole system of yours could be on fire and I couldn't even turn on a kitchen tap without filling in a 27b/6," Tuttle tuts, before setting to fix it himself. The address is a nod to dystopian author George Orwell's address in Islington, London-Apartment 6, 27B Canonbury Square. Red tape permeates every facet of Brazil-life. Central Services' cephalopod-ian ducts are everywhere, from high-end restaurants (glammed up to fit the overall decor) to basic citizens dwellings (Tuttle memorably dispatches the meddling Hoskins in a particularly disgusting pipe-switch shit-storm).

Brazil was rightly Oscar-nominated for its script and production design. Wide Angle/Closeup has a fascinating interview with designer Norman Garwood, who'd worked with Gilliam (as Art Director alongside Milly Burn as Production Designer) on Time Bandits. Garwood spent a lot of time brainstorming with Gilliam and costume designer Jim Acheson. "The overall design was art deco with a futurist twist-I started to look at a lot of '30s and '40s, mostly '40s magazines... these inventions they would find... it was almost like 'the shape of the world to come'. Everything fit into a path, once we'd established what the world was and what Central Services was-really there wasn't much terrorism around, it was really Central Services' bad, bad workmanship kept blowing up."

Lowry's apartment is a daffy version of Deckard's in Blade Runner, badly designed-the teasmade that pours out over his toaster, for example, and the switchboard-like telephone controls. Brazil extrapolates earlier period visions of the future, bulky and absurd to our eyes, incongruously chirpy in other ways-such as the Messerschmitt bubble car Lowry drives to Shangri-La Villas to attempt to reimburse Buttle's widow with a troublesome cheque (Lowry is actually not that sympathetic a character, just wanting a quiet life-"You're not being very helpful," he flaps as Mrs. Buttle understandably has a breakdown).

He and his fellow clerks watch westerns on their computer monitors behind Kurtzmann's back, like present-day office workers on Youtube, Twitter, or Facebook. The film is filled at times with Chaplin-esque humor, such as when a newly-promoted Sam struggles to retain his half of a desk in his tiny office/cell, disappearing through the wall to the next grim-faced drone's sweatbox cubicle. Hot-desking in DoubleSpeak.

The film made use of several locations, dressed for the film, as well as studio space. The office was a big studio build, deliberately very monochromatic, grey and somber, cramped and busy, with over-sized machinery and office boys constantly scurrying around. The exteriors around the apartment blocks were shot in France, a post-modernist block in Marne-la-Vallée.

A lot of the oppressive Ministry interiors were forced perspective shots of endless drab corridors, and wide-angle hallways, designed to wear individuality of expression down to a nub. The amazing torture chamber where Sam is to be questioned by his creepy-baby-masked friend Jack (Michael Palin) was a cooling tower for a closed down power station in Croyden (Battersea was used as an exterior only). Gilliam and Garwood (they sound like a sinister secret police duo!) originally were considering the basement area of the location. Garwood recalls: "We found some amazing basement areas of machinery and pipework and tubes and whatever for the chase at the end, then we were just looking around the perimeters of the closed-down power station and there was a huge cooling tower (they were all abandoned and had been left for some years). Basically all it was this huge tower where the water would be shot up in the air at amazing hot temperatures and then it would filter down and cool off and recycle again. We walked into this cooling tower and it was just a wonderful location. I was going to build a torture room and we had very much a different image for that in mind: it was going to be white and clinical. And we walked in and Terry and I both said, 'Well, it's gotta be the torture room.' That was how that arrived. That one was really just an amazing find we had."

Roger Pratt, the cinematographer (he later did Batman), lit it with floodlights on an enormous crane. Pratt was involved at an early stage in the planning of the sets, giving his input into how they could be best lit, showing them off. With Lowry being wheeled into the torture chamber, Brazil seems to predict State cruelty through enforced assessment. "Don't fight it son," a seemingly kindly guard tells a terrified Sam. "Confess quickly! If you hold out too long you could jeopardize your credit rating."

Gilliam apparently had nice guy Michael Palin in mind all along to play the state torturer Jack Lint. As Palin recalls, "De Niro was shown the script and he had a look-through and he said, of all the parts he'd like to do, Jack Lint was the one. So Terry said (this is Terry's story anyway), 'I'm sorry, my friend Mike is going to do that. You have to choose something else!' [LAUGHS] So that must be a rare example of De Niro being turned down!"

Palin and Gilliam settled on playing Jack "as someone who was everything that Jonathan Pryce's character wasn't: he's stable, he had a family, he was settled, comfortable, hard-working, charming, sociable-and utterly and totally unscrupulous." (So much so that when his boss mistakes his wife's name, he insists on her responding to the new moniker in future-career is everything). Nowhere is the "banality of evil" better portrayed than when Sam comes to Jack's office for help. As he enters Jack has his back turned, gripping his face in some existential crisis, white coat bloodied. Quick as a flash he spins around, all smiles, whipping the coat off. They discuss Sam's problem as Jack tidies his little daughter's toys (the little girl was Gilliam's daughter Holly).

"I think because that scene was eventually played with an element of humor," Palin recalled, "it actually concentrates the disturbing element much more, because if it's just desk-to-desk it is more like a stock scene out of any thriller, and you're not quite listening to the lines, you're just observing the tension between the two people. If you're laughing then you're becoming much more involved in the scene, and I think an audience is beginning to feel a sort of catharsis. You know, we've all been children, a lot of [the audience] have children, they've been through that before, and suddenly the chilling line will come through-'There's nothing I can do for you, that's it,' you know?-and I think it makes those lines much more memorable, makes Jack's attitude much more memorable."

It is around the point in the film where Sam "escapes" that difficulties with the studio really came to a head. Universal Pictures refused to release Gilliam's cut, allegedly insisting on a happy ending. Sidney J Sheinberg was the then president of MCA, Universal's parent company ( Brazil was joint-financed by Universal and 20th Century Fox). At the studio screening, Universal's suits hated it (Gilliam said Fox had no problem with it). Sheinberg insists he thought it was brilliant, but needed trimming to bring the running time down. He insisted to Total Film in 1998 that, contrary to popular belief, he didn't want a happy ending, just a more satisfying one-he believed audiences were left confused by it. He also claims Gilliam's attitude hardened once he'd been paid. He refused to budge, even though he had no contracted final cut. Sheinberg ordered his own cut, with Lowry and Jill escaping, Blade Runner original cut style, into the countryside. But Gilliam, like his later cinematic obsession Don Quixote, began tilting at Sheinberg's windmills, making the battle personal. He took out a full-page ad in Variety, personalizing the struggle, boldly asking Sheinberg, "When are you going to release my film Brazil?"

Asked about the problems with the studio raised by his Variety ad on TV show Good Morning America, Gilliam pulled out a large photo of Sheinberg and held it up for the camera. "I don't have any problems with the studio. I have problems with one man-his name is Sid Sheinberg and he looks like this." Gilliam told David Morgan in 1986:

"I wasn't going to budge, and Sid Sheinberg in particular had to show that the studios were in control. So we were locked in this sort of silly, long, drawn-out war of attrition... One thing I knew we couldn't do was take them on in legal ways because they had the lawyers, they had the money, they had all the time in the world and we didn't. There was no way we could win with them on it. It would just get tied up in the courts and go on for years. And so that's why I decided the only way to deal with it was to go very public and do a public battle, and to name names which was something they were totally unprepared to deal with."

By the end of 1985, Sheinberg began to sense that the dispute was generating renewed interest in the film, and that there's no such thing as bad publicity. Brazil was finally released in December 1985 in a limited run. Sheinberg insists it did better than it would have had the dispute not arisen.

As for the original, retained ending, Gilliam insists it is a happy ending-of a sort. As Jack and avuncular Deputy Minister Mr Helpmann remark, gazing at the catatonic, grinning Sam in the torture chair, he's got away from them. Jack wheels Mr Helpmann away, as Sam unblinkingly begins to hum the song, Aquarela do Brasil...
Written by Tim Pelan. Tim was born in 1968, the year of '2001: A Space Odyssey' (possibly his favorite film), 'Planet of the Apes,' 'The Night of the Living Dead' and 'Barbarella.' That also made him the perfect age for when 'Star Wars' came out. Some would say this explains a lot. Read more "

In the video above, Terry Gilliam reveals insights about Brazil, his Orwellian retro-futurist fantasy. Gilliam also talks about his love of 2001: A Space Odyssey, his dislike of middle management bureaucracy, and his experience of casting Robert De Niro.

Below: Terry Gilliam's storyboards for Brazil.

Rob Hedden's 30-minute on-set documentary, What is Brazil?, which includes behind-the-scenes footage, as well as interviews.

In the documentary The Battle of Brazil, critic Jack Mathews charts director Terry Gilliam and producer Arnon Milchan's struggles to get Universal to put out the filmmaker's cut, which the studio found too dark and difficult (marketing division president Marvin Antonowsky suggested it was more of an art-house specialty film than a mainstream movie). The documentary is available on Criterion Collection special edition of Brazil.

Born in Minnesota and a British citizen since the late sixties, Gilliam started his career as a cartoonist before becoming Monty Python's resident animator. He developed his unique voice through writing, directing and co-starring with the comedy troupe, subsequently establishing his trademark cinematic vision with films such as Time Bandits, Brazil and Twelve Monkeys as well as the recent The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Gilliam talked to film critic Mark Kermode about his career highlights, and discusses his animation work on Monty Python, working with Johnny Depp on the set of Fear and Lothing in Las Vegas, and his infamous fight with the studios to get Brazil released. He went on to talk about the challenges of making The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus after the untimely death of actor Heath Ledger, stating in good humour: "All the problems of the previous films were preparation for this one..."

Screenwriter must-read: Terry Gilliam, Tom Stoppard & Charles McKeown's screenplay for Brazil [ PDF]. (NOTE: For educational and research purposes only). The DVD/Blu-ray of the film is available from the Criterion Collection in new, restored high-definition digital transfer of Gilliam's 142-minute director's cut, approved by Gilliam, with DTS-HD Master Audio surround soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition. Absolutely our highest recommendation.

Here are several photos taken behind-the-scenes during production of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. Photographed by David Appleby © Embassy International Pictures, Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox. Intended for editorial use only. All material for educational and noncommercial purposes only.

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Duct Soup: The Daffy, Dystopian Design Nightmare of Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil' * Cinephilia & Beyond

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Brazil is the demented, surreal flip-side of George Orwell's dystopian warning- 1984 1/2 was director Terry Gilliam's originally mooted title. Yet it is Gilliam's comic vision that depressingly reflects and permeates our everyday culture. One of the bureaucratic balls-ups, government catch-all catchphrases ("We're all in this together"), and an ineffectual war on terror that, in Brazil, may be down to no more than bad plumbing.

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Imagine Mary Poppins has a drunken night out with George Orwell. Imagine they consummate their aberrant passion amongst enormous heating vents that snake through their bedroom, barely leaving enough space to dream. Imagine eyes peering at them through every peephole; ears listening through every crack in the technicolored walls that shift and pulse with the writhing air-conditioning pipes.

Their bastardized lovechild, the phantasmagoric acid-trip that results, is director Terry Gilliam's masterpiece, Brazil.

[If you haven't seen the film yet, feel free to read on. This is a spoiler-free review.]

With a Rotten Tomatoes score of 98%, and a hallowed IMDB rating above 8/10, Brazil (1985) tells the story of Sam Lowry, a low-level governmental officer in a bureaucracy gone mad. The totalitarian state regulates every aspect of society with appalling ineptitude, from botched air-conditioning maintenance of the ubiquitous air vents, to torture of innocent civilians accused of treason.

Sam, who is unusually good at his job, notices a bureaucratic blunder. He finds a typographical error that results in the wrong man arrested for crimes against the state - family man Archibald , rather than air-conditioning terrorist Archibald (played by the dashing Robert De Niro). When Sam attempts to rectify the error, he becomes an unwitting enemy of the clunky, but brutal, state of Brazil.

In addition to the gorgeously designed sets, hilarious social commentary, and megalomaniacal characters that are both absurd, and eerily familiar in today's politics - in addition to all of this, Gilliam raises a tough philosophical question that we should all be discussing in our current political landscape:

Should citizens be allowed complete freedom (or liberty)? Put otherwise, is the state ever justified in stopping a citizen from doing what he wants?

To see the importance, and difficulty, of this question today, consider the dogged debates around gun control, gay marriage, and border control. If the state has unlimited reach, it can nullify your marriage and deport on a whim. On the other hand, if the state has no power, it can't adequately prevent mass shootings. The question of how much power the state should have over its citizens is crucial.

Gilliam's answer seems clear enough. In Brazil, the state is a polymorphous monstrosity, with tentacles that disrupt every aspect of private life. It destroys families (poor Archibald Buttle), drops commandos through your ceiling mid-coitus (not something you ever want to experience), and destroys personal space (Sam Lowry's apartment is nine parts heating vent to one part living space). Gilliam, in other words, provides a case for Anarchism.

In this context, Anarchism is the position that the state is never justified in limiting a citizen's freedom. You want to take your Pitbull, Roughage, for a walk? No problem. The state isn't justified in stopping you. Not when you're walking peacefully. Not when Roughage, who eats a balanced diet, decides to shit on the sidewalk. And not even when you decide to spice things up a little, by instructing Roughage to attack the irritating neighbor who stuck a note to your door last week.

On the other hand, Totalitarians hold that the state is always justified in limiting a citizen's freedom, so long as it serves the goals of the state. These goals usually involve cohesion of the populace under a common ideal, such as social harmony, productivity, or in more flavorful regimes, world domination.

So, which side of the debate do you support? Anarchism or Totalitarianism? I'm guessing: neither. Both are too extreme, you say. There must be some middle ground.

There must be some principle that tells us when the state can intervene legitimately in the lives of its citizens, and when it can't.

Libertarians argue that limiting a person's freedom is alright some of the time, (e.g. preventing you from letting Roughage loose on the neighbor), but usually it's not alright to limit a person's freedom (e.g. stopping you from walking Roughage peacefully on a lead). If you're looking for a Libertarian principle, look no further than the philosophical rockstar, John Stuart Mill.

If you have a philosopher in your life, you've probably seen it happen. You know what I'm talking about: their eyes glaze over; the craters in their perpetually bunched foreheads smooth; their gaze lifts to the heavens; and their voice rises an octave. Yes, that's right. You know what's about to happen.

They're about to quote J. S. Mill.

Mill is the doyen, the Abraham Lincoln, of philosophers. Why? Because he's one of the few of our kind who actually made a difference to anyone at all. Mill was instrumental in giving women the right to vote, in cleaning up Britain's appalling 19 th century sanitation system, and in developing the democratic process. Among all this, Mill came up with a principle for settling the dispute between Anarchists and Totalitarians, called the Harm Principle:

The only time the state may prevent its citizens from acting, is to prevent them from harming one another.

The Harm Principle captures why the state shouldn't allow me to attack my neighbor, because that would harm the neighbor. The Harm Principle also explains why the state can't stop me from walking Roughage peacefully, since that doesn't harm anyone.

Sounds good? You agree with Mill? Well then, think about these cases ...

We don't think of fetuses or animals as citizens. So, on Mill's Harm Principle, the state should allow me to perform medical experiments on my 8 month-old fetus. And the state should have no issue if I want to use fetuses as pothole filler. Since fetuses aren't citizens, the state can't prevent me from abusing fetuses in any way. Similarly, suppose I adore the soothing sounds of animal shrieks. Specifically, every Sunday morning, I enjoy performing vivisection (live dissection) of dogs and chimpanzees. I record the sounds, compile the Best of Vivisection soundtrack, and make millions of dollars on YouTube. The state, on Mill's principle, shouldn't intervene.

Wait! you shout. We can avoid these counterexamples by including fetuses and animals as protected citizens. That way, Mill's Harm Principle protects them just as it would protect anyone else. But if that's the case, then the state is justified in forcing all citizens to become vegetarians (since we can't very well go around eating other citizens). Now you might think that vegetarianism is good, but forcing all citizens to be vegetarians seems a little too Draconian. Not many Libertarians would be happy with this result.

There are other types of problem cases too. What exactly does it mean to 'harm' another citizen? Do we harm another person when we cause them distress (or mental anguish)? If distress doesn't count as harm, then Mill's principle sees no issue with parading oneself nude in front of the neighbor's children. Or renting music-concert-worthy speakers, cranking them up to maximum volume, directing them at the neighbor's bedroom window, and blaring Tom Jones's Sex Bomb on repeat all through the night. (Yeah, I'm talking to you, unit 6 of my apartment building.)

You might defend Mill's principle, and avoid these cases by including mental anguish as harm to another person. But then the state would be allowed to prevent gay people from having sex because the mere thought of it causes homophobes anguish.

And the problem cases for Mill's principle don't stop there. If I consent to you harming me, is it actually harm? Suppose I enjoy rough sex: whips chains, teeth and all. I beg you to tie me up, and have your way with me. It seems you're not harming me when you do so - at least not harming me in a way that the state should be able to prevent. But if you agree that consensual harm isn't really harm, then on Mill's Principle, the state can't prevent me from selling myself into slavery, or from selling my organs to pay off a loan shark, or from instructing my GP to give me a lethal shot of potassium because I haven't enjoyed the recent rainy weather.

So where does this leave us? Anarchism is too weak - it doesn't allow the state to prevent me from attacking my neighbor with Roughage. Totalitarianism is too strong - Nazism was never a great solution. And Libertarianism isn't convincing - Mill's Harm Principle doesn't provide a good way to distinguish when the state can and can't intervene in the lives of its citizens. Libertarianism can't handle problem cases involving harm to fetuses and animals, mental anguish, and willful slavery.

I have a solution to the problem for you, but first, I want to know: what do you think? Answer in the poll below.

[socialpoll id="2426520″]

If you trawled the trove of political articles prior to the last election, everyone and his Pitbull seemed to know the answer to this problem. But it seems there's no good solution. What's interesting is: why? Why there is no good solution to the problem of state intervention?

The reason, I think, is that politics is nonsense.

What do I mean by this?

The question of how much power the state should have over its citizens essentially comes down to the question: "how should the state act towards its citizens?" But this question, I think, is fundamentally misguided.

We think of the state as an institution that governs a collection of people - its citizenry. But it doesn't make sense to think about the actions committed by institutions as actions that 'should' or 'shouldn't' happen. This is because it only makes sense to think about 'shoulds' in terms of morality, and morality involves individuals (rather than institutions and collectives).

When I do something right or wrong, it's because my action (as an individual) impacts other individuals in a positive or negative way. It's wrong for me to attack my neighbor, because that attack impacts the neighbor, as an individual, negatively. If you want to know whether you, as an individual, should intervene in my action, consider whether doing so will have a net positive benefit for everyone involved. Should you stop me from attacking my neighbor? Yes, because that will prevent his suffering.

The solution, then, is to drop discussion of politics altogether, and talk about the morality of individuals instead. Don't ask what the government should or shouldn't do. There's no good answer to that question. Ask instead what individuals should or shouldn't do to other individuals. Should I, as a border guard, let through this immigrant? On balance, would it benefit everyone to do so?

Think in terms of individuals, and the problem of state power becomes a different beast. A beast we can grapple with.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. What's your solution to the problem of how much power the state should yield?

Human. Male. From an obscure planet in the Milky Way Galaxy. Sci-fi novelist with a PhD in philosophy. Likes chocolates, Labradors, and zombies (not necessarily in that order). Werbeloff spends his days constructing thought experiments, while trying to muster enough guilt to go to the gym.

He's the author of the sci-fi thriller trilogy, , two novels, Hedon and The Solace Pill, and the short story anthology, Obsidian Worlds. His books will make your brain hurt. And you'll come back for more.

Subscribe to his newsletter to receive a free book, and a lifetime of free and discounted stories.

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A philosophical review and analysis of Brazil (1985) | Libertarianism philosophy strengths and weaknesses

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Imagine Mary Poppins has a drunken night out with George Orwell. Imagine they consummate their aberrant passion amongst enormous heating vents that snake through their bedroom, barely leaving enough space to dream. Imagine eyes peering at them through every peephole; ears listening through every crack in the technicolored walls that shift and pulse with the writhing air-conditioning pipes.

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, writer-director Terry Gilliam's dystopian satire, took a while to become the cult classic it is today. But in 1986 it managed to score two Oscar nominations (for Best Original Screenplay and Best Art Direction/Set Decoration). Set in a retro-futuristic time period, the movie centers on Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce), who lives in a bureaucratic world of nonsense. In February of 1985, Brazil was released in Europe without any issues. But when Gilliam tried to get it released in the U.S., it ran into trouble. Eventually Universal Studios acquiesced to Gilliam's demands, and it opened in select cities on December 18, 1985. Budgeted at $15 million, the film grossed just $9 million domestically, but 30 years later it remains an influential film.

1. ACCORDING TO TERRY GILLIAM, BRAZIL DIDN'T PREDICT THE PRESENT WORLD.

When Terry Gilliam released his latest film, 2013's The Zero Theorem, critics saw a resemblance to Brazil. "Those films are not really about the future," he told Esquire, which offered up how much Brazil supposedly predicted our current times. "I think both films were really about the present, which I tried to disguise with some future elements. There are many elements in The Zero Theorem that I thought would be in the near future, but by the time we were shooting the film they were already in existence." He also said a similar thing to Rolling Stone: "It's just easier for me to put something outside of a contemporary time, because then I can amend things." He further emphasized his non-soothsayer status to The New York Times. "People think I am a prophet and that Brazil described the world we're living in now a few years ago," he said. "But we were living in that world then; people just weren't paying attention the way they do now."

2. KATHERINE HELMOND GOT BLISTERS FROM HER MAKEUP.

Katherine Helmond previously worked with Gilliam on Time Bandits. He called her up to play the part of Sam's mother, who is really into plastic surgery. In an interview with Emmy TV Legends, Helmond recollected the grueling process of shooting the film in England and having to wear a glued-on mask for 10 hours a day. "I broke out from the glue and had all sorts of blisters on my face and they had to postpone my shooting, and I had to come back to the States and go to a doctor to clear up my face," she recalled. "And the doctor said, 'Don't ever do this again,' but I went back and had one more scene to do, and they glued my face again, and I broke out again. I think, ultimately, it was worth it because the character had such a fabulous look to it."

3. BRAZIL'S THEME SONG BECAME U.S. PROPAGANDA.

In 1939, Ary Barroso wrote the samba song " Aquarela do Brasil", which translates to "watercolor of Brazil." Before Geoff Muldaur and Michael Kamen reworked it for , the song landed in the U.S. in 1942, in the Disney film Saludos Amigos. Walt Disney had heard the song while visiting Brazil, as part of FDR's Good Neighbor Policy, which involved Brazil's president Getúlio Vargas wanting to "regard America as a friend," according to a BBC article. The song and Disney film aimed to portray South America in a better light than just as " feckless Latinos." Since then, the song has been covered by Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney, Kate Bush, and Arcade Fire. "Its appeal transcends genre as well as politics-few songs with such political baggage have such a strong melody, or are quite as danceable," read the BBC article.

4. GILLIAM WAGED A SUCCESSFUL WAR AGAINST UNIVERSAL STUDIOS.

It's well-documented that Universal, which released the film in the U.S. (Fox released it overseas), refused to release the film in America with Gilliam's original ending. The studio re-cut the film to portray a happy ending, a.k.a. the " Love Conquers All" ending, where Sam gets the girl instead of descending into insanity. In order to get the film released, Gilliam took out a full-page ad in Variety, directed at the head of Universal, Sid Sheinberg. Gilliam corralled L.A. film critics to watch the film in clandestine screenings, even though there was an embargo in showing people the film. The movie won three L.A. Critics awards, and Universal decided to release the film. "They [Universal] were in such a flap-they immediately released it in New York and Los Angeles, and they had no posters," Gilliam told The Believer. "They had nothing-they had a Xeroxed copy of the artwork they were going to eventually make a poster of. That's all they had. And it did proceed to do the most business per theater of any film at that time."

5. SID SHEINBERG HAD MORE PROBLEMS WITH BRAZIL THAN JUST ITS ENDING AND RUNNING TIME.

The big problem with the film at first not being released in the U.S. came down to a contract dispute over the length of Brazil. Gilliam delivered a film 17 minutes over what he was contracted to do (over the two-hours-and-five-minutes limit) so the studio chopped it down to 94 minutes. But Sheinberg told the Los Angeles Times, "I don't want a happy ending; I want a satisfying ending," and he said that 52 percent of viewers responded negatively to test screenings.

Sheinberg also felt that Gilliam, who had only directed three films at this point, didn't have the clout to be so demanding over final cut. "If Steven Spielberg brought me a movie four hours long and said, 'It has to go out this way,' I guarantee you that's the way it would go out," Sheinberg said. "But Terry Gilliam is not Steven Spielberg." At one point Sheinberg contemplated selling the film for half price, and Gilliam was willing to do whatever he could to salvage the film. Well, almost. "I will talk to Sid, I will get in a Jacuzzi and drink wine with Sid," Gilliam told the Los Angeles Times. "I will do anything to get this film released, except get in the editing room with him."

6. JACK LINT BECAME MORE SINISTER DURING A RESHOOT.

Robert De Niro wanted to play the part of villain Jack Lint, but Gilliam said fellow Monty Python member Michael Palin needed to play the role. In the scene where Lint meets Sam at his office, Palin didn't feel good with the way it initially turned out, so they went back and reshot it. "A little voice in the back of my mind said, 'You know, this could be better,'" Palin told Wide Angle/Closeup. "So I was actually quite relieved when after a month or so, maybe longer, Terry said, 'You know, there are some problems, it might be worth it trying this scene again.' And after I got over the feelings of hurt pride-couldn't get it right the first time-I realized yes, well there were things wrong, and maybe we'd be able to improve on it."

The second time around they added more of a family element, integrating Lint's young daughter, played by Gilliam's real-life daughter. "I enjoyed having Holly there," Palin said. "It gave me something to do which enabled the sort of jargon and the sinister side of what Jack is saying to come out as though he's just sort of playing with his girl, playing with his family at the same time he says these things about, 'Well, you have to be destroyed, you'd have to wipe him out,' and all that sort of thing."

7. GILLIAM THINKS FALLING IN LOVE IS A BAD IDEA.

The director told The Believer what he felt the movie was about: "To me, the heart of Brazil is responsibility, is involvement-you can't just let the world go on doing what it's doing without getting involved. And of course what [Sam] does is he falls in love, so he falls vulnerable and his whole world starts falling apart. Never fall in love."

8. GILLIAM CONSIDERS HIMSELF AN OPTIMIST.

Gilliam admitted that he's "terribly optimistic about things," which comes through in the film's ending. "I have a theory about Brazil in that it was a very difficult film for a pessimist to watch but it was okay for an optimist to watch it," he told Wide Angle/Closeup. "For a pessimist it just confirms his worst fears; an optimist could somehow find a grain of hope in the ending. Cynicism bothers me because cynicism is, in a way, an admission of defeat, whereas skepticism is fairly healthy, and also it implies that there is the possibility of change."

9. THE LOCATION WHERE SAM WAS TORTURED IS NOW AN IKEA.

The torture scene at the end of the movie was filmed in a former coal- and gas-fired power station in Croydon, England. In 1991, everything but two chimneys was demolished. In a strange turn of events, IKEA opened a storefront where the plant used to be, causing shoppers to engage in capitalism.

10. WHEN BRAZIL WAS RELEASED, PEOPLE WALKED OUT OF THEATERS.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Gilliam said " Brazil'sgoing to be on my gravestone," but he also finds it funny that people revere it so much today. "What people don't remember is half the audience would walk out. Now it's held as a classic, blah, blah, blah- bulls--t! They were walking out. So I'm used to some of my films not being appreciated at the time."

11. GILLIAM OFFICIALLY RENOUNCED HIS U.S. CITIZENSHIP IN 2006 BECAUSE OF GEORGE W. BUSH.

Gilliam was born in America but has spent most of his life living in England. In 2006, after George W. Bush was reelected, he finally gave up his American citizenship. In an interview with The Economist, Gilliam joked about Bush: "The situation today is depressing because we kind of predicted it in Brazil back in 1985. A couple of years ago I was considering suing Bush and [Dick] Cheney for infringement of copyright! The best way to control people is to keep them scared."

12. WITH BRAZIL, GILLIAM POSSIBLY POPULARIZED STEAMPUNK.

The definition of steampunk is taking designs from the 19 th-century Victorian era and infusing them with the retro-future, which is basically what Gilliam did with Brazil's production design. Anna Froula, who co-edited the book The Cinema of Terry Gilliam: It's a Mad World, attributes the invention of steampunk to the director. "His anarchic ability to make absurdist art on the cheap and expose the guts of any system-often literally through the guts of a cartoon human or plumbing system-informs the playful DIY at the heart of steampunk," she said. "Just look at the weird cut-outs in his Monty Python animations: the way he would trace classical and Renaissance art in the British library and then combine the illustrations with ducts, images from Edison's early films, and Victorian and World War I imagery to create absurdist humor has developed one way or another in all of his films."

13. COLOR SCHEMES AND THE 1930S PLAYED IMPORTANT ROLES IN THE MOVIE'S DESIGN.

Norman Garwood, Brazil's production designer, purposefully had certain sets be enveloped in grays-such as Sam's workplace-whereas other moments were filled with colors. "The characters like Sam's mom, that's where the beautiful bursts of colors would come insomuch as that was the difference between her life and the other poor people who were in this very colorless bureaucracy," he explained to Wide Angle/Closeup. Her life was full of color, and I tried to emphasize that with her apartment. The bedroom where [Sam and Jill] finally make out together was just again very beautiful and colorful, but Sam's apartment was again a gray world which was attached to the world in which he worked."

In developing the look of the film, Garwood took inspiration from magazines of the 1930s and 1940s. "It was these inventions that you would find in the '30s books, it was almost like 'the shape of the world to come,' what people thought armored vehicles would look like in the 21st century, and what airplanes would look like," Garwood said. "And then it was just taking that and building upon that."

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writer-director Terry Gilliam's dystopian satire, took a while to become the cult classic it is today. But in 1986 it managed to score two Oscar nominations (for Best Original Screenplay and Best Art Direction/Set Decoration). Set in a retro-futuristic time period, the movie centers on Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce), who lives in a bureaucratic world of nonsense.

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Designer Ben Kelly will unveil new work Columns at The Store X in October. Taking place alongside new multi-artist exhibition Strange Days, in collaboration with The New Museum, Columns will revisit and expand on one of the fundamental architectural features of Kelly's design for the iconic Manchester club.

Having built the touring set for fashion designer Virgil Abloh, with whom he collaborated on mythical nightclub installation at The Store X last year, Kelly will interrogate the totemic properties of 12 columns, from power and classicism to romanticism and decay.

Kelly will play on the ambiguity of the twelve columns, subtitled by a phrase he discovered engraved on an architectural site in Puglia, Italy: "Concerning the building of these columns, we have no certain news."

Ben Kelly's Columns will open on Tuesday 2nd October and run until 9th December alongside Strange Days: Memories Of The Future, which you can explore in more detail here.

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Designer Ben Kelly to present new work Columns at The Store X this autumn - The Vinyl Factory

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From the man who built The Hacienda. Designer Ben Kelly will unveil new work Columns at The Store X in October. Taking place alongside new multi-artist exhibition Strange Days, in collaboration with The New Museum, Columns will revisit and expand on one of the fundamental architectural features of Kelly's design for the iconic Manchester club.

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GAFFER Issue 02: Ben Kelly Designer Interview | GAFFER

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Photography: William Marsden / Creative Direction: Hamish Stephenson / Interview & Words: Tom Everest This article is an excerpt from the Ben Kelly interview feature from Issue 02 of GAFFER: Heart & Soul. Available now from our online store now. In July 2019, PUMA Football officially launched its ground-breaking partnership with Manchester City by releasing a pair of brand-new kits.

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Ben Kelly Design

Manchester, England, was the world's first industrial city. It may have also been the place where post-industrial chic came into style.

That at least is the thesis put forth by the Victoria and Albert Museum's British Design 1948-2012: Innovation in the Modern Age exhibit. The show highlights significant moments in the nation's post-War design history, looking particularly at how subversive design came to define Britain's visual culture.

A recreation of the Hacienda's interior on display at the V&A museum with ephemera from another subversive icon, the Sex Pistols, in the foreground.

A major moment in that transition occurred in 1982. It was a difficult time for de-industrializing Manchester, which was struggling with a lost sense of civic identity. This was tough for a city never known for being particularly cheery (it's no coincidence The Smiths hailed from there).

Manchester-based Factory Records tried to capitalize on the mood, transforming a former warehouse into The Hacienda nightclub. Factory Records founder and local television personality Tony Wilson was an ardent socialist who found inspiration for the project in a section from a Marxist manifesto, Formulary For a New Urbanism:

...without music and without geography, no longer setting out for the hacienda where the roots think of the child and where the wine is finished off with fables from an old almanac. That's all over. You'll never see the hacienda. It doesn't exist.

The hacienda must be built.

The Hacienda was not an instant hit, taking almost a decade to find a mass audience. The club's design was a playful take on the industrial aesthetic. But for many young Mancunians, working in factories and warehouses was still a way of life, not something to be deconstructed. "For so many of the young people who we hoped would enjoy it, it was actually too close to reality at that point," former Factory Records art director, Peter Saville told The Guardian's Miranda Sawyer. "We [Factory Records] were playing out our own romanticism about the industrial and the post-industrial city and what you could do in it."

Its design may have been rooted in romantic notions of industry, but some of its most memorable visual features were as functional as they were stylish.

The Hacienda's dance floor with its famous painted stripes. Image courtesy Ben Kelly Design.

The caution sign-esque striping pattern, now synonymous with Factory Records and The Hacienda, wasn't just for looks. "We established a sort of tongue-in-cheek safety hazard language," said the club's designer, Ben Kelly. "There were 3 or 4 huge steel beams on the dance floor, which could be unsafe and so the stripes served as a sort of warning for patrons."

The Hacienda took off in the late 1980s, and quickly became known as the most important nightclub in the country. More clubs were born in surrounding abandoned warehouses, and Manchester's famed Ecstasy-fueled music scene earned a new nickname, "Madchester."

But drug issues became the club's downfall. Turf battles sprung up between neighborhood dealers and led to frequent acts of violence inside and out of the club. In late 1997, The Hacienda closed due to financial troubles (rampant drug use led to low alcohol sales). Its main floor reopened as a snack bar in later years, but the city's urban renaissance created demand for more high-end land use and the club was never to return.

The Atlantic Monthly's Eric Schlosser reported on the Hacienda's impact in 1998, just months after the club's closing. He described it "as notorious in the United Kingdom as Studio 54 once was in the United States."

The Hacienda was demolished in 2002, but nostalgia for it remains. In fact, a Hacienda theme park of sorts has emerged. A new cafe called Caf51 (The Hacienda was alternatively known as Fac51) is in some ways the equivalent of an indie Hard Rock Cafe, decorated in a Hacienda theme, located 4 miles from the old club.

The luxury dwelling that replaced the club has kept the name, calling itself The Hacienda Apartments. Gentrified dwellings might go against the vision Factory Records had for their city, but the club's fame propelled a once-depressed neighborhood into a young, stylish section of a now confidently postmodern Manchester.

New apartments signify a city better off than it was 30 years ago. But many involved in or attached to the old club can't bear to see its reincarnation. The apartment's branding clings to the club's legacy. Familiar black and yellow stripes now cover the concrete columns in the new parking garage, visible from the street at times. "The cheeky bastards," Kelly jested, later adding, "but it's a compliment."

The former headquarters of Factory Records, now remade into a Hacienda-influenced club. Image courtesy Ben Kelly Design.

As for local club-goers, a slight compensation now exists at Fac251- a new music venue inside Factory Records' former headquarters. It too has been designed by Kelly - originally for the offices and again for the new club. His redesign references The Hacienda but avoids total nostalgia. "Instead of painted steel beams, we used neon lighting that referenced that striped form. It was important from a design perspective to keep moving forward even if we're also embracing that past," he said.

Manchester's history is one of innovation. It was there where the first railway station was built, as well as the first computer. It was where the atom was first split. They weren't the first to build a nightclub, but they ended up creating one of the most important ones.

British Design 1948-2012: Innovation in the Modern Age runs at the V&A until August 12, 2012.

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The Warehouse That Made It Cool to Be a Warehouse

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Manchester, England, was the world's first industrial city. It may have also been the place where post-industrial chic came into style. That at least is the thesis put forth by the Victoria and Albert Museum's British Design 1948-2012: Innovation in the Modern Age exhibit.

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In Michael Pollan's video series COOKED, there are examples of cooking by tribal Australians, by barbecue pitmasters from the American South, by urban women in India, by bread-bakers in Moroccan villagers, and by Michael Pollan's own friends and neighbors in Berkeley, California. The series is full of fabulous images of kitchen activities, of mould spores forming on cheese, of bread dough in every stage from kneading to rising to baking, of the exotic locations where some of the cooks live and work, and much more.

The series, in my opinion, converts a fairly intellectual book (also titled Cooked) into a delightful sensory experience -- except that unfortunately you can't smell or taste the products! Though Pollan covers a good deal of research by food scientists, anthropologists, and historians, the series is impressive mainly for the range of visuals. Here are some examples from the four parts of the series:

In the Atlantic this week is an article that goes perfectly with "Cooked" -- More Than Half of What Americans Eat Is 'Ultra-Processed'. The article begins by quoting Pollan's most famous line: "eat food, not too much, mostly plants," which they ideintify as "oft-quoted, less oft-followed." They conclude: "ultra-processed sugar bombs are replacing 'more nutrient-dense foods,' and leaving people "simultaneously overfed and undernourished." Best of all, they have a clear and useful definition of ultra-processed:

"Formulations of several ingredients which, besides salt, sugar, oils, and fats, include food substances not used in culinary preparations, in particular, flavors, colors, sweeteners, emulsifiers and other additives used to imitate sensorial qualities of unprocessed or minimally processed foods and their culinary preparations or to disguise undesirable qualities of the final product."

Pollan's quest for traditionally processed foods -- bread, cheese, fire-cooked meats, braised meat and vegetables and much more -- offers an alternative to industrial, ultra-processed foods.

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In Michael Pollan's video series COOKED, there are examples of cooking by tribal Australians, by barbecue pitmasters from the American South, by urban women in India, by bread-bakers in Moroccan villagers, and by Michael Pollan's own friends and neighbors in Berkeley, California.

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1900-1920: A period of rampant immigration introduces new cultures and cuisines to the United States. By the second decade of the century, some 4 million people had come from Italy alone, bringing with them the foods and cooking styles of their homeland.

1918: "The War to End All Wars," aka World War I, ends with Germany's defeat and the emergence of the United States on the world stage.

1919: The National Prohibition Act, outlawing most adult beverages, is passed. It would remain in place until 1933.

1919: Roy Allen uses a root beer recipe he bought from a pharmacist and sells the brew for a nickel a glass; three years later, he and partner Frank Wright begin A&W Root Beer.

1919: Restaurateurs form The National Restaurant Association in Kansas City, MO, to deal with issues of rationing, price gouging, unions and Prohibition.

1921: The first White Castle restaurant opens in Wichita, KS. The "white" was chosen to signify purity, and the "castle" to indicate permanence and strength.

1921: The Pig Stand, one of the first "drive-ins," opens in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

1923: Merritt J. Osborn starts the Economics Laboratory company with a product to clean hotel carpeting. His mission to provide customers with "economic" solutions developed through "laboratory" research is the beginning of Ecolab.

1924: Caesar Cardini concocts the salad that will become a restaurant staple named after him: the Caesar Salad.

1924: Twenty-two local restaurant associations collaborate with the National Restaurant Association on issues of importance to the business. Most would become today's state restaurant associations.

1926: The Palm Restaurant (originally called The Parma but misspelled by a license clerk) opens in NYC. It would close, in a different location, in 2015, though spinoffs remain open today.

1926: The Charleston hits its peak as a dance craze. The provocative gyrations were seen as a way of mocking the proponents of Prohibition.

1927: J. Willard Marriott, a Utah transplant living in Washington, D.C., uses $3,000 to open an A&W franchise in the district.

1928: Sliced bread is invented.

1929: The U.S. stock market crashes and the Great Depression sets in.

1932: The Krystal hamburger chain opens its doors in Chattanooga, Tenn., its name purposely misspelled with a "K" to snag attention.

1933: Prohibition ends, giving a boost to fine-dining restaurants and supper clubs such as The Pump Room in Chicago and The Rainbow Room in New York City. "21," a well-known New York City speakeasy, can now operate legally.

1935: Beer is sold in cans for the first time.

1935: A New England ice cream seller named Howard Johnson hits on the idea of letting other restaurant operators use his business' name for a fee. Restaurant franchising is born.

1935: Duncan Hines, a traveling salesman from Kentucky, publishes "Adventures in Good Eating," believed to be the first nationwide restaurant guide.

1936: The 40-hour work week is mandated by Congress.

1936: Robert Wian opens a hamburger stand in California. The following year he comes up with a double-decker burger and a mascot for his business, and Bob's Big Boy is born.

1937: Victor Bergeron opens Trader Vic's in San Francisco. His exotic cocktails, adorned with miniature umbrellas, foreshadowed today's mixology.

1937: Vernon Rudolph opens the Krispy Kreme doughnut shop in Winston-Salem, N.C.

1938: At age 19, Bill Darden opens his first restaurant, The Green Frog, which promises "Service with a Hop." He would go on to develop a bargain-priced full-service seafood concept, Red Lobster, which would be the foundation for the company that bears his name, Olive Garden parent Darden Restaurants (it sold Red Lobster in 2014).

1939: President Franklin D. Roosevelt serves Nathan's Hot Dogs to the King and Queen of England during their visit to the U.S.

1939: The New York World's Fair features innovative cuisine from nearly 60 countries, giving many Americans their first exposure to exotic ethnic foods.

1940: A veteran dairyman who respected cows as the queens of the business opens a shop in Joliet, Ill. J.F. McCullough calls his brainchild Dairy Queen.

1941: An entrepreneur scrapes together the money to open a hot dog cart in Southern California. That enterprise from Carl Karcher would become the Carl's Jr. burger chain.

1941: Japan bombs Pearl Harbor, pulling the U.S. into World War II.

1941: Regular TV broadcasting begins in the U.S.

1943: Wartime rationing comes to restaurants. Restaurants are allowed to use 1 pound of coffee for every 100 meals and 1 pound of sugar for every 33 customers.

1943: Ike Sewell and business partner Ric Riccardo open a restaurant in Chicago called Pizzeria Uno, introducing the nation to deep-dish pizza.

1945: World War II ends, leaving a much-changed world. A war-weary U.S. settles into a post-war period focused on family, financial security and creature comforts, including a new thing called television. A massive shift of the population from city to suburbs reshapes the nation.

1946: Frances Roth and Katharine Angell establish the New Haven Restaurant Institute to train returning military veterans to become chefs. It would move to Hyde Park, N.Y., and become the Culinary Institute of America.

1948: Harry Snyder and his wife, Esther, open a drive-thru restaurant featuring burgers, fries and little else. He names the California outpost In-N-Out Burger.

1950: Dunkin' Donuts is founded by Bostonian Bill Rosenberg, whose business plan is simple: "Make and serve the freshest, most delicious coffee and donuts quickly and courteously." He would begin to franchise the concept, making it a pioneer of the development strategy that would change the industry a decade later.

1952: The first sugar-free soft drink, No-Cal, is introduced as a specialty beverage for diabetics. It was initially available only as a ginger ale.

1953: The first McDonald's featuring "golden arches" architecture opens, in Phoenix.

1953: Burton Baskin and Irvine Robbins combine their California ice cream shops to form Baskin-Robbins. From the beginning, pink spoons were offered to let people sample any flavor.

1954: A milkshake blender salesman named Ray Kroc visits his star customers, Dick and Mac McDonald, to see why they were buying so many of his machines. He finds a glass-walled drive-up place that can sell hamburgers for 15 cents, or roughly half the prevailing rate, because of its batch-cooking system and operational procedures. Kroc realizes he's witnessing a breakthrough and pursues a collaboration.

1954: Jim McLamore and Dave Edgerton decide to open a new burger concept, differentiating it from the pack by broiling the patties over open flames. Burger King is born.

1954: Southern Californian Glenn Bell sees an unoccupied niche in his native area's booming fast-food industry and decides to open Taco Tia, a restaurant featuring a Mexican street-food staple in a crunch taco shell. He would later change the name to Taco Bell.

1955: Disneyland, a theme park dedicated to fairy tales and Disney characters, opens in Anaheim, Calif.

1955: Waffle House is founded.

1959: Gennaro and Carmela Sbarro open an Italian grocery store in Brooklyn, N.Y. Out of that retail base would come a pizza and pasta restaurant chain called Sbarro.

1960: The National Restaurant Association moves its annual convention in Chicago to McCormick Place, drawing 50,000 attendees.

1960: Thad Eure Jr. and Charles Winston turn a red barn in North Carolina into a restaurant with an emphasis on hospitality and strong value for families. The Angus Barn would become one of the nation's highest-grossing establishments and a driver of fine dining's "casualization."

1961: The first astronaut orbits the earth.

1962: The first model food and sanitation code is drafted, with input from the National Restaurant Association.

1964: Harland Sanders sells his Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants to John Y. Brown and Jack Massey, with the deal entitling Sanders to an annual salary for life for serving as company spokesperson.

1965: Ronald McDonald makes his debut on television. He would become the chain's official spokesman a year later.

1965: Alan Stillman notices the young partiers flocking to bars in New York City, and figures he'd try something geared specifically to those single professionals prowling for fun. He opens a quirky place called TGI Fridays, the first of what would initially be called fern bars, and then casual-dining chains.

1966: A young, charismatic entrepreneur sees a gap in the restaurant mix of Dallas: Young families and singles in the 25-to-44 age bracket had to choose between fast food and the sedate full-service restaurants frequented by their parents. Norman Brinker decided to sandwich something in between. He called it Steak and Ale, inspired by the hit movie "Tom Jones," and featured steak and other upscale choices at prices young people could afford.

1969: Jack in the Box introduces a breakfast sandwich, believed to be the first offered by a quick-service chain.

1969: After selling off his Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises, bored Midwesterner Dave Thomas decides to enter into the quick-service sector's biggest market, burgers. Although that arena is already packed, Thomas hatches the idea for a new type of place, featuring burgers made with fresh meat, baked potatoes and chili. He names it Wendy's, after his daughter.

1969: Based on a school project, the Victoria Station chain is launched by three graduates of the Cornell Hotel School. To lower opening costs, the restaurants were converted from railway boxcars. They featured prime rib at a bargain price and the restaurants quickly became a hit in the 1970s-but the business model ultimately proved unsustainable.

1969: John Baugh, a small food distributor in Houston, convinces eight other distributors to join forces and create a national distribution network called Sysco. Sales that year were $115 million; estimates for sales in 2012 topped $42 billion.

1971: A Chicago entrepreneur named Rich Melman opens a restaurant featuring a salad bar consisting of some 40 items. R.J. Grunts would become a hit, and Melman would go on to build Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, the model multiconcept restaurant operation, or a collection of concepts varying in format and name.

1971: The first Starbucks opens in Seattle's Pike Place Market, with its name taken from a character in Herman Melville's "Moby Dick."

1971: The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy organization, is formed in Washington, D.C.; the following year, its founder, Michael Jacobson, popularizes the term "junk food."

1973: Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I., introduces what would become its College of Culinary Arts and begins offering an associate degree in that field.

1973: McDonald's introduces the Egg McMuffin, an idea hatched by a franchisee.

1973: The first Golden Corral opens in Fayetteville, NC.., offering its now famous "endless buffet" of comfort food items.

1974: The first personal computer is manufactured.

1974: Burger King's game-changing "Have It Your Way" marketing campaign is launched, introducing customization as a major point of differentiation.

1974: The first Ronald McDonald House, providing comfy lodgings for families seeking care for an ill child far from home, opens in Philadelphia. It is funded by sales of the chain's Shamrock Shake.

1974: The Brennan family takes over New Orleans' iconic Commander's Palace Restaurant, updating both the exterior and its acclaimed kitchen.

1975: McDonald's' Hamburger University training facility opens, offering would-be managers a degree in hamburgerology and a minor in french fries. The college campus-like facility would be much copied by competitors.

1976: Windows on the World, the brainchild of New York City restaurant creators Joe Baum and Michael Whiteman, opens on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center.

1977: Denny's introduces its signature Grand Slam Breakfast to honor baseball great and home-run record breaker Hank Aaron.

1977: Fresh from creating Atari, game inventor Nolan Bushnell creates the first Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre in San Jose, Calif.

1978: McDonald's launches kid-sized portions paired with toys and calls them Happy Meals.

1979: Paul Prudhomme opens K-Paul's restaurant in New Orleans, sparking a renaissance in Cajun cooking and heightened interest in American cuisine.

1979: The National Restaurant Association relocates its headquarters and most operations to Washington, D.C., a reflection of its greater involvement in public advocacy.

1980: McDonald's offers a new dish of "chopped chicken meat, mechanically compressed and factory shaped" known as the Chicken McNugget.

1982: During a major snowstorm in Atlanta, George McKerrow places a sign in the window of his year-old LongHorn Steakhouse, promising "Drinks $1 While It Snows." The place is packed for the three days of the storm. LongHorn takes off, helping to foster the herd of cowboy-themed steakhouses such as Lone Star, Texas Roadhouse and Logan's Roadhouse.

1982: A British magazine coins the term "foodie," to describe a person "... for whom food became ... a hobby, pastime, and topic of discussion."

1983: Hooters opens its first restaurant.

1985: Dairy Queen introduces a super-thick milkshake studded with mixed-in treats such as candies and crumbled cookies. The Blizzard would become one of the most successful new products of all time.

1985: After watching crowds flock to Wolfgang Puck's original Spago for so-called gourmet pizza, attorneys Rick Rosenfield and Larry Flax decide to adopt the notion for a new mass-market concept called California Pizza Kitchen.

1985: Two men begin selling rotisserie chickens and sides in Newton, Mass., and call the business Boston Chicken; in 1995 they expand the offerings and change the name to Boston Market.

1987: The original owners of Starbucks sell the brand to a former manager and supplier, Howard Schultz, who had his own coffee brand at the time, called Il Giornale. Schultz would convert his cafes into Starbucks outlets and expand the brand.

1989: Drawn together for a story and photo slated to run in Restaurant Business, 14 prominent women in the foodservice industry decide there is a need to promote more diversity in the field. They form the Women's Foodservice Forum to develop leadership talent and foster career advancement of executive women.

1990: With backing from six major industry organizations, the National Restaurant Association launches the ServSafe program to foster voluntary food safety training. The course and certification process teaches restaurant professionals to safeguard their business by ensuring the safety of guests and employees.

1990: McDonald's opens its first unit in the Soviet Union and begins serving more than 50,000 people a day.

1991: The last Horn & Hardart Automat closes in New York City.

1991: Domino's Pizza puts out a warning to franchisees that war is likely, based on record orders of pizza from the Pentagon the previous evening.

1993: Steve Ells, a Culinary Institute of America grad and former line chef at Stars in San Francisco, opens the first Chipotle Mexican Grill.

1993: TV Food Network, the first of what would be a flurry of cable and network TV programs devoted to cooking and celebrity chefs, airs its first broadcasts. Restaurateurs welcomed the attention brought to the industry by the interest-whetting onslaught of food programs, but they would rue the great knowledge of food amassed by viewers. It was harder to get any slack from customers.

1995: Restaurant industry sales totaled more than $295 billion, up nearly sevenfold from sales of approximately $42 billion in 1970.

1997: Tricon Global Restaurants is formed to manage three quick-service chains spun off from PepsiCo: Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. The name would change in 2003 to Yum Brands.

1998: Chuck Templeton founds OpenTable, allowing diners to make dinner reservations online.

2001: Seventy-three employees of Windows on the World are among the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks

2002: Burger King introduces its Value Menu of 11 items priced at 99 cents.

2003: Darden Restaurants opens the first Seasons 52 restaurant, featuring seasonally inspired menu items and a wide array of wines. The concept is intended to be the next logical progression for consumers who had grown up on fast food, graduated to casual dining, and were looking for more healthful and sophisticated fare.

2004: The administration of George W. Bush sounds what is believed to be the first viable call for voluntary menu labeling.

2005: Hurricane Katrina devastates the dining mecca of New Orleans and surrounding areas.

2006: Restaurant sales are forecast by the National Restaurant Association to pass the $500 billion mark.

2006: Three out of four adults report they are trying to eat more healthfully in restaurants.

2006: The three major soft drink companies agree to stop selling sweetened sodas in schools.

2006: The New York City Board of Health votes to institute a ban on trans fat oils and shortenings in restaurants.

2008: Three out of four full-service restaurants have a website.

2009: A National Restaurant Association survey of American Culinary Federation chefs identifies the use of local produce as the restaurant industry's No. 1 food trend.

2009: Industry icon Norman Brinker, widely recognized as a father of casual dining, dies at age 78.

2012: ServSafe issues its 5 millionth ServSafe certification.

2012: Locke-Ober, the iconic watering hole of Boston politicians and Brahmins, closes after being in business since 1875. Other fine-dining graybeards similarly fire down their ovens, the victims of a shift in consumer preferences to more casual fare and settings.

2012: Hurricane Sandy pummels New York and New Jersey, hurting thousands of restaurants and small businesses throughout the area. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates the damages at $65 billion.

2013: The National Restaurant Association hosts the first annual Restaurant Innovation Summit, focusing on "customer engagement through emerging technology."

2013: Burger King introduces Satisfries, a lower-calorie, healthier french fry; less than a year later, the product is removed from all U.S. menus.

2014: The U.S. Senate rejects legislation that would have raised the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour.

2014: Burger King pays more than $11 billion to purchase iconic Canadian donut chain Tim Hortons.

2014: The Food and Drug Administration releases its final menu labeling regulations, passed in 2010 as part of the Affordable Care Act.

2014: California passes a law mandating paid sick leave for all employees who have worked for one employer for more than 30 days.

2014: Seattle votes to increase its minimum wage to $15 an hour.

2015: Restaurateur Danny Meyer, founder and CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, announces that his restaurants will phase out tipping in an attempt to "... address a system that is broken and that is not sustainable."

2015: McDonald's announces plans to offer a number of its breakfast items throughout the day.

2015: The Supreme Court rules that gay and lesbian couples have a constitutional right to be married.

2016: Republican Donald Trump is elected the 45th president of the United States.

2016: Famed New York City restaurant the Four Seasons closes in July, only to open later in a different location, to varied reviews.

2016: A Technomic study, done in conjunction with the Food Marketing Institute, shows a growth of $15 billion in supermarket foodservice over the last eight years.

2018: After 10 years of fits and starts, federal menu labeling requirements take effect. The National Restaurant Association had been a proponent of the regulations, which set out precisely how nutritional information must be displayed on the menus of chain restaurants.
Click here for more insights and information on the Centennial.
2018: While overall restaurant sales are flat to slightly positive, delivery booms. Sales through third parties during the first half of the year topped $5 billion, a 55% increase over the prior year. That volume would have made the delivery specialists the industry's third-largest chain, behind McDonald's and Starbucks.

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Timeline: How today's restaurant industry came to be

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1900-1920: A period of rampant immigration introduces new cultures and cuisines to the United States. By the second decade of the century, some 4 million people had come from Italy alone, bringing with them the foods and cooking styles of their homeland.

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1. 960 - 1279 Sung Dynasty China
- Two major southeastern cities: Hangchow and Kaifeng have cultivated a rich restaurant culture, which is similar to ours today.

2. 14th Century, England
Middle English epic, several travellers gather in a specific inn sharing a meal, according to The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.

3. 1368 - 1644, Ming Dynasty China
Restaurants became more tpopular and began to offer takeaway.

4. 1688, London
Coffeehouses first appeared in London.

5. 1762, New York
Samuel Fraunces established a public food house and sent regular meals to George Washington.

6. 1784 - 1633, France
Marie-Antoine Carême, who grew up in poverty, later became ‘King of Cooks’.

7. 1789, Paris
French Revolution shuffled the social class and brought restaurants to the ordinary people.

8. 19th Century, Europe
The restaurant business was regarded as fully developed and as ‘convenience in the modern lifestyle’

9. 1827, New York
The fine dining experience was introduced by Peter and John Delmonico.

10. 1868, Chicago
George Pullman, who also invented locomotive sleeper cars, created an early prototype of mobile restaurants for wealthy travellers.

11. 1902, Philadelphia
- Horn and Hardart developed several ‘automats’. They were self-service restaurants in which food was bought via a system smilier to a modern vending machine.
- Customers inserted their change in the machine, and their food was dispensed after. It was a rather sanitary process.

12. 1925, Massachusetts
Newsstand and soda shop was widely favoured in Cape Cod. Due to financial restrictions, the owner happened to develop an idea of the franchise.

13. 1948, California
The McDonalds brothers, Maurice and Richard decided to renovate the fast-food business model.

14. 1972, New York
The first cooperative restaurant was founded in the United States.

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A Timeline of The Restaurant

The hospitality industry has existed since the beginning of Western culture. People have always been forced to travel for one reason or another, which means there has always been someone there to make money from travelers. Food, a bed, shelter from the storm - these are things people have always and will always need.

Abraham's Hospitality

Photo by vaticanus

"Looking up, he saw three men standing near him. As soon as he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them and, bowing to the ground, he said, `My Lords, if it please you, do not go on past your servant. Let a little water be brought; bathe your feet and recline under the tree. And let me fetch a morsel of bread that you may refresh yourselves... Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, `Quick, three seahs of choice flour! Knead and make cakes!' Then Abraham ran to the herd, took a calf, tender and choice, and gave it to a servant-boy, who hastened to prepare it. He took curds and milk and the calf that had been prepared and set these before them; and he waited on them under the tree as they ate."

Genesis 18:2-8. Jewish Publication Society translation. New York: Jewish Publication Society, 1985.

The experience of leaving one's home to have a meal somewhere for pleasure, however, is a fairly new concept, and like so many other ideas, traditions, and experiences, it began in the East long before people began doing it in the Western world. What follows is a timeline featuring some of the most important events in the evolution of restaurants.

960 to 1279 * Sung Dynasty, China

The Sung Dynasty marked a wonderful period of cultural and culinary achievement in China. The culinary achievements of the period stemmed from a new strain of rice grown in Vietnam, which was heartier and more easily produced. It also went a long way towards ending a widespread famine at the time.

Once the famine ended and people weren't struggling to eat, they could spend time producing food to sell instead. Agricultural commerce began to thrive. Open-air markets allowed everyday people and urban cooks to buy more produce, herbs, and other ingredients than ever before.

Once people were able to easily meet their basic sustenance needs, luxury foods became popular. Sugar cane became a popular sweet, and tea went from being an indulgence of the wealthy to a staple of everyday life for all Chinese people.

Two major southeastern cities of the era, Hangchow and Kaifeng, cultivated a rich restaurant culture that was actually quite similar to our restaurants today.

The main difference, however, was that these restaurants, referred to as "wine restaurants," were exclusively for men and were almost always associated with brothels. These wine restaurants were very high-society. They featured art from the most popular artists, had ever-changing menus, and were lavishly decorated. They also fell in and out of favor regularly with their fickle clientele.

These cities also featured a number of less esteemed restaurants in the form of tea houses and noodle shops. These businesses also catered almost exclusively to men, but they were usually day-laborers rather than the Chinese elite.

14th century * England

One of the earliest references to restaurants in England can be found in the well-known Middle-English epic, The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. In it, several road-weary travelers meet in a particular inn to share a meal. The host of the inn then proposes a storytelling contest, of which the winner will then receive a free meal, courtesy of his (or her) fellow travelers, when they make it back to the inn on their return journey.

1368 to 1644, * Ming Dynasty China

People were often traveling through China in this time period, and restaurants became even more popular. It was around this time that they also began to offer takeout and cater special events at the homes of their more affluent patrons.

17th Century*, America

The Colonial Tavern

Public houses were a popular attraction in England during this time period, and when English settlers came to America, they brought the idea with them. The American public houses were very similar in style and form to those in England, and they were very popular places where men, especially wealthy men, could get together for meals, drinks, and conversation. Beer was common in these houses, and the proprietors often served meals, though the patrons did not get a choice in what they were served.

1688, London

Coffeehouses and Commerce in England

London is famous for having one of the world's first "coffeehouses." Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse was a popular one, and the first reference to it can be found in a very old London newspaper. The shop was located on Tower Street and served mostly maritime insurance types and merchant shipowners. They'd often meet at Lloyd's to conduct their business, and it became known as a hot-spot for discussing and finalizing insurance transactions. A group of insurance underwriters bought it in 1771 and renamed it Lloyd's of London.

1698 , London

Public Gatherings for Business and Pleasure

In the mid-17th century, chocolate and tea were almost unheard of in England, even so, this year saw the operation of 2,000 coffeeshops in the city of London alone.

1762, * New York

The Tavern

During this period in history, catering services were not widely available. However, Samuel Fraunces opened his public house on the corner of Canal and Queen streets and was known to send regular meals over to George Washington, who lived nearby. Fun fact: A restaurant called Fraunces Tavern, still operates in this same spot today; however, it has mostly been rebuilt from the ground up.

1765 , Paris

The Word "Restaurant" Arrives

The word "restaurant" actually originated quite a bit differently than one might imagine. A soup vendor from Paris named Boulanger began selling a sheep's foot soup called a restaurant, which literally meant "restorative soup." A group of competing shop owners, known as traiteurs, argued that the soup was a ragout, instead, which only traiteurs were allowed to sell. A lawsuit ensued, and the judges ruled against the traiteurs, insisting the soup did not fit the category of a ragout. Boulanger continued calling his soup a restaurant, and his business improved greatly thanks to the publicity.

1782, * Paris

The Restaurant Comes To The West

Another Parisian traiteur by the name of Beauvilliers had a shop called La Grande Taverne de Londres, but he decided to expand it by setting up several tables and offering a small selection of selectable menu items.

1784-1833, * France

Marie-Antoine Carême

Often called the "Cook of Kings and the King of Cooks," Marie-Antoine Carême grew up in poverty during the tumultuous French Revolution but made a name for himself as a great chef. As an adult, he traveled all over the country to cook for the wealthiest and noblest families in Europe. Some of the most famous of his clients were:

Czar Alexander of Russia

King George IV, when he was Prince Regent

Talleyrand in France

and many, many others.

He often wrote about his travels and his dishes and is known by many as the ultimate founder of French cuisine.

1789, * Paris

Bastille Day

Of all the things people know about the French Revolution, one thing most people don't realize is it is probably what brought restaurants to the common people. With the death of the wealthy elite, well-trained and incredibly skilled chefs were out of work. They began cooking for the masses instead. They began opening restaurants and cooking for anyone who could afford to pay them.

1794, * New York

Coffeehouses and Commerce in America

The Tontine Coffee House was opened at the convergence of Water and Wall streets. In a very short time, it became the go-to spot for up-and-coming investors, who eventually established the New York Stock Exchange.

19th Century, * Europe

Restaurant Comes of Age

The restaurant business was fully established and booming by the early 19th century, at least in the middle-class and wealthier circles. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin termed the restaurant as "a convenience in the modern lifestyle" in 1825, going on to say that restaurants offered a much wider selection of meal choices than could ever have been created in one's own kitchen.

1825, Philadelphia

The Soda Fountain

Pharmacist Elias Durand began supplying customers of his drugstore with seltzer water remedies, and the soda fountain was born.

1827, New York

America Welcomes to Fine Dining

Americans were introduced to the fine dining experience by Peter and John Delmonico. The Delmonicos opened a restaurant to serve delicious, hot meals to businessmen at lunchtime. The Delmonico's restaurants were the gold standard in dining for almost a century.

1868, Chicago

Railroads Luxury

George Pullman, the creator of locomotive sleeper cars, decided to branch out and created dining cars, as well. These were basically mobile restaurants for wealthy travelers. They had ever-changing menus that featured local produce and trained chefs and service staff.

1872, Providence in Rhode Island

Evolution of the Diner

The first glimpse of the typical American diner came when food vendor Walter Scott began selling his food from the back of a horse-drawn buggy. This allowed him to sell more food without having to continually run back to his home for extra supplies.

1876, Topeka in Kansas

Affordable and Respectable Traveler-Dining

In Topeka, Fred Harvey opened his establishment at the railroad depot of Atchison, Topeka, and Sante Fe, providing the first affordable dining for travelers.

1890, New York

The Ultimate Opulence

Confectioner Louis Sherry opened a restaurant/hotel; after a successful eight years, he relocated to 44th and Fifth, where Sherry's became even more lavish and upscale. Fun Fact: The New York Horseback Riding Club had their horseback dinner at Sherry's in 1903, running up a $50,000 tab.

1893, New York

The Maître D'

The Waldorf-Astoria opened its gorgeous dining room, which was famous for being mirrored. For several years, it was managed by a man named Oscar Tschirky. Tschirky became the first high-society maître d'hôtel and set the standard for the stereotype of elbow-rubbing the famous and snubbing those considered "less than."

1893, Chicago

An American Cafeteria is Born

John Kruger opened a self-service restaurant at the World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago. It was inspired by the Swedish style of eating called a "smorgasbord." He named it cafeteria, which translates to "coffee shop" in Spanish.

1898, New York

Cafeteria Convenience

Carrying food dishes back and forth to the tables could be quite inconvenient; therefore, Samuel and William Childs introduced the tray into self-service cafeterias, making it simpler and more convenient for patrons to transport their food.

1902, Philadelphia

Technology in the cafeteria

Despite the fact that people make a big deal about robots taking over their jobs, automated service has been around for over a century. For example, the Horn and Hardart company opened several "automats" in 1902. These were self-service restaurants where food was purchased through a system very similar to a modern-day vending machine. People put their change into the machine, and their food was dispensed to them. It was a very sanitary process.

1912, Providence in Rhode Island

Diners at the Roadside

Known as "lunch wagons" at the time, these mobile restaurants became so numerous they often blocked off city streets. A law was put into place that forced them out of traffic by 10:00 am. The proprietors, needing to serve all day to make money, began parking their wagons in deserted lots, allowing workers to visit them on their lunch and other meal breaks.

1916, Wichita in Kansas

Single Diner to Hamburger Chain

Walter Anderson opened a diner that featured that all-American favorite, hamburgers. The hamburger joint was so popular, that in 1921, Anderson takes on Edgar "Billy" Ingram as a partner, and they open a fourth establishment. These were the first White Castle restaurants.

1919, *United States

18th Amendment

Prohibition went into effect January 17, 1920, putting several Gilded Age establishments out of business, making way for the rise of family-oriented restaurants, such as cafeterias. Drinkers began to patronize speakeasies, which were the foundation for the supper club fashion, a trend popular in 1933 after the repeal of Prohibition.

1925, Massachusetts

The First Restaurent Franchise

Newsstand and soda shop owner Howard Johnson's soda shop was so well-liked, people in Cape Cod wanted a second one. Because of monetary restrictions, he was unable to open one alone. He persuaded someone to open one in his stead using his layout and plans and selling his products; the idea worked well, and by 1941, he had 150 franchises spanning from Florida all the way up to New England.

1926, Los Angeles

Novelty Road Restaurant

A hat-shaped restaurant, The Brown Derby, opened in Hollywood, starting the fad of gimmick restaurants. This restaurant was also the first to offer Cobb salad.

1929, New York

Speakeasy Turns Into Supper Club

The famous '21' Club opened in New York, in the same spot where it still stands today. This was the fourth opening for owners Charlie Berns and Jack Kriendler, who first opened "tea rooms" in Greenwich. The tea rooms were so popular, they had to move locations to meet the needs their growing clientele.

The first nightclub they built was '42.' 42 was set to be torn down in order to build Rockefeller Center; on New Year's Eve, the owners threw a party, providing guests with axes, mallets, and crowbars to help them demolish the building. Because 21 began it's life as an illegal establishment, it was equipped with mechanized liquor cabinets that rotated to hide liquor in case of a raid. It was never raided successfully.

1934, New York

Continental Cuisine in America

A deluxe supper club, known by the name " Rainbow Room ", opened at the Rockefeller Center. The menu featured European-inspired dishes, and the room featured a dance floor covered in flashing lights that blinked in time with the orchestra's centerpiece, the organ.

1936, Oakland in California

Theme Restaurants

In 1936, theme restaurants were all the rage in California. Victor Bergeron owned Hinky Dinks, a beer joint, and he reopened his business in an LA hotspot with a Polynesian, tiki-theme, renaming it Trader Vic's. The tiki room theme was so popular, Bergeron eventually opened several Trader Vic's, soon establishing it as a well-known chain restaurant. He also created the popular drink known as a Mai Tai.

1938, Chicago

Everyone is Welcome, even VIP's

Inspired by the Pump Room spa in Bath England, Ernest Lessing Byfield opened a similar club inside the Ambassador Hotel. He wanted to make a lavish, glamourous atmosphere that nonetheless welcomed people from all wealth and social castes.

However, he did institute a rigid seating hierarchy. Booth One was only open to the most elite of the elite, such as high-class, grade A movie stars like Marilyn Monroe. The booth would remain empty if no one with that kind of star-power visited that night. The food was presented as flamboyantly as possible; even hot dogs were delivered on flaming swords.

1939, New York

Haute Cuisine in America

In 1939, The World's Fair came to Flushing, Queens and featured exhibits from 60 countries, including restaurants serving traditional dishes inside their tents. The most frequently visited pavilion was the French Pavilion, and its waiting list was often many weeks long. These pavilions were America's first exposure to French chef system and cuisine, and they were largely responsible for culinary geniuses Henri Soulé and Pierre Franey's immigrations to America.

1948*, San Bernardino, California

Fast Food

Even in 1948, fast food workers weren't always reliable. Angered at the inconsistent quality of workers at their establishments, the McDonalds brothers, Maurice and Richard, decided to reevaluate their business model. They got rid of the carhop positions and trimmed their original menu from its initial 25 items to only hamburgers, milkshakes, and fries.

Customers then had to park their cars and come into the restaurant to fetch their food. In 1952, they decided to redesign the building, adding the distinctive Golden Arches people know and love to this day. In 1954, the McDonalds brothers sold their restaurants to Ray Kroc, who took the McDonalds franchise and turned it into a multi-billion Dollar corporation.

1950s, America

Soda Fountain Culture

The 1950s were the time of the soda fountain, and an entire culture rose up around soda counters at drug stores. It became all the rage to sell drinks made of ice cream, known as floats, at drugstores; in fact, these drinks started selling better than the original water seltzer remedies created by Durand in 1825. The fifties also saw the rise of the soda-jockey.

1972, Ithaca in New York

Social Conscience

One of the first cooperative restaurant ventures in the United States was opened by several friends who regularly gathered together to eat meals. They opened the establishment as a sort of community project, calling it the Moosewood Restaurant.

They served vegetarian meals and made a particular effort to create new dishes centered around the most traditional dishes from countries around the world. The vegetarian menu and community aspect of the restaurant aligned with and appealed to their political beliefs.

Reading List:

Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives by Kwang-chih Chang.

Larousse Gastronomique: The Encyclopedia of Food, Wine, and Cookery by Prosper Montagné.

America Eats Out: an Illustrated History of Restaurants, Taverns, Coffee Shops, Speakeasies, and Other Establishments That Have Fed Us for 350 Years by John F. Mariani.

From Boarding House to Bistro: the American Restaurant Then and Now by Richard Pillsbury.

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The History of Restaurants - The Cuisine Network

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The hospitality industry has existed since the beginning of Western culture. People have always been forced to travel for one reason or another, which means there has always been someone there to make money from travelers. Food, a bed, shelter from the storm - these are things people have always and will always need.

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How we made: Ben Kelly and Peter Hook on the Haçienda club

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'We even had an inflatable pool in there one night - and it burst'

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The Haçienda was without precedent. Acknowledged as reinventing and reinvigorating the nightclub genre, it was a real-life stage-set, built with everyday materials which were used to maximum effect. Working to Factory's brief of; "big bar, small bar, food, stage, dance-floor, balcony, and a cocktail bar in the basement", BKD was given unlimited freedom to convert the former yachting showroom (which consisted of a massive, single volume space), into a true 'people's palace'. The space was painted in cool blue and grey tones with brightly clad balcony supports and diagonal stripes painted on columns. The urban theme continued with bold directional and warning markings, neon bar signs, bollards and cats-eyes which mapped out the dance-floor. From outside, the only clue to what lay within was the hand-carved granite nameplate, "FAC51 The Haçienda", inlaid with silver leaf and red enamel paint; the code representing its Factory Records catalogue number.

Client Factory Records

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The Haçienda was without precedent. Acknowledged as reinventing and reinvigorating the nightclub genre, it was a real-life stage-set, built with everyday materials which were used to maximum effect. Working to Factory's brief of; "big bar, small bar, food, stage, dance-floor, balcony, and a cocktail bar in the basement", BKD was given unlimited freedom to convert the former yachting showroom (which consisted of a massive, single volume space), into a true 'people's palace'.

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A History of The Restaurant Part B, BBC World

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A History of The Restaurant Part B, BBC World

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a Host: Bridget Kendall
Guests: Rebecca L. Spang, Patricia Van der Eeckhout, Luke Barr, Nawal Nasrallah and Christian de Pee

Patricia Eeckhout thinks that the emergence of automatic restaurants (vending machines), in the early 20th century has changed the human dining habit again.

Before Long, Georges Escoffier has developed the famous Brigade System, which means the distribution of work to each 'kitchen staff'. Rebecca Spang is convinced that he Georges has not only modernised restaurant management, he has also begun to employ cooking equipment brought by the Industrial Revolution in his kitchen.

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A History of The Restaurant Part A, BBC World

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A History of The Restaurant Part A, BBC World

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a Host: Bridget Kendall
Guests: Rebecca L. Spang, Patricia Van der Eeckhout, Luke Barr, Nawal Nasrallah and Christian de Pee

The program begins with a discussion about how to define a restaurant in modern times. Rebecca suggests dynamic of the menu, service hours, accompany whom you eat with should not be a stranger, excellent management, and the overall atmosphere. Whereas, Patricia argues that a prefixed menu, which can be cheaper and waste less but can also make a decent restaurant.

The discussion then moves on to the history of human eating. They believe that it was since the 11th Century in Song Dynasty in ancient China, people have begun to 'order food from a menu'. Not until the 18th century, Paris, have restaurant emerged and changed the western cuisine culture.

Liter the term 'restaurant' means 'restore a state'. When it first appeared in the 18th century, most of them, unliked today fast-chain restaurants, are much more focused on providing healthy food. In the 19th century, people tended to go to restaurants in well dressed. Most restaurants had mirrors which can reflect a customer situating in the space. Rebecca Spang believes it has become a cultural phenomenon to express one's sensativity.

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"When we learned to cook is when we became truly human"

This is the opening of the documentary. Cooking has been one of the most fundamental l human activities for a long time. However, the host argues that because of the arise of cooking show, people nowadays have seemed to cook less than previous centuries. The modern way of dining, meaning having a meal at a restaurant, has been changing the perception of human eating behaviour. Most of the population have never hunted, while a vast majority of younger generation have never even prepared their own food in a kitchen.

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Examples of the meals on offer can be found in the folder ‘Wartime menus’, ACC 3527/371. A table d’hôte menu from 1941-2 lists a choice of two starters, several main courses and four puddings and a small coffee, all for 1/6d. A tea shop menu contains tea at 3d per cup or 4d per pot (per person) with scones at a penny halfpenny.

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Subject:

Rationing

Fair Shares: Rationing and Shortages (p. 85)

Diverting the country's manpower and production into the war effort meant that consumer goods of all kinds became scarce and shortages were inevitable. To ensure an equitable distribution of basic essentials, rationing was imposed through a 'points' system and prices were controlled. Ration books and clothing coupons were issued to all, with adjustments to meet special needs, like pregnant women, young children and vegetarians. By and large the public supported rationing as ensuring fair shares for all, and though a black market developed it never seriously threatened the system. It is generally accepted that food rationing improved the nation's health through the imposition of a balanced diet with essential vitamins. The UK Civil Series volumes on Food and on Civil Industry and Trade have detailed information about the policy behind rationing and its implementation. Meat, butter and sugar were rationed from early 1940, other foodstuffs, including tea, were added later, and entitlement varied at different times during the war. Bread, potatoes, coffee, vegetables, fruit and fish were never rationed, though choice and availability of the last three were often limited. 'The main grouse of people at the moment is that they are not able to buy all they want at the shops, especially in the food line. It isn't the rationing they complain of, but their inability to buy unrationed goods', wrote a Harrow cinema manager to the Ministry of Information in March 1941 (IWM Department of Documents, SMB collection box 5). Clothing was rationed from 1"1, and fuel was subject to restrictions from early in the war.

Cabinet-level policy decisions on rationing are documented in PRO CAB 75, in BT 64, Board of Trade Industries and Manufacturers Department papers, and in POWE 3, Solid Fuel and Rationing where the representation papers have information on clothing and fuel rationing. Some matters of wartime diet and nutrition are covered in MH 56, Foods.

The Ministry of Food had begun as a department of the Board of Trade just before the war, and was later absorbed into the Ministry of Agriculture. Its records therefore have the prefix MAF. They reveal the great spread of its responsibilities, working through Food Control Committees for local authority areas. The Supply Departments, covered generally in MAF 67, were subdivided by type, the Cereals Group in MAF 84, the Dairy Produce and Fats Group in MAF 85, the Meat and Livestock Group in MAF 88, and others. MAF 99, the records of the Distribution Group, concern emergency services, rationing and communal feeding arrangements. The Food Standards Group, in MAF 101, was concerned with standards and labelling and the distribution of welfare foods such as cod liver oil and orange juice. The Wartime Meals Division encouraged the setting up of industrial canteens, and lent local authorities money to start British Restaurants for the public. But the wartime Londoner's main contact with the Ministry would have been through the Local Food Offices, documented in MAF 100, which issued and replaced ration books. The IWM has an interesting painting by Grace Golden, 'The Emergency Food Office', showing a patient queue waiting for new ration books in the incongruously stately surroundings of St Pancras Town Hall. Their Department of Documents has some official correspondence and papers of F.A. Bates, Area Bread Officer for the metropolitan area, in 94/24/1, and the diary of Miss J.M. Oakman, in 91/20/1, describes working in the Chelsea Food Office in the war. Fred Barnes was a Food Officer, enforcing rationing regulations and investigating the black market under cover in Whitechapel, his recorded memories are in the IWM Sound Archive, on tape 11852/2.

Food rationing loomed large in most Londoners' lives and receives frequent attention in letters and diaries. Ration books effectively tied people to one butcher and one grocer, with whom it paid to stay on good terms. Queues were inevitable, imposing an extra time-burden, particularly on working women with household responsibilities. 'Home to lunch at 1.15. Stewed rabbit - and lucky to get that by all accounts', wrote Anthony Heap, whose long-suffering mother had probably queued half the morning at the butchers (LMA ACC 2243/15/1, 5 January 1941). The demoralisation resulting from queues and shortages of food was recognised by the editor of the Times, R.M. Barrington-Ward, in a letter to the Minister of Information at the height of the flying bomb attacks on 27 June 1944 (HO 262/15 HI 1033/1, Morale of civilian population at home). He pleaded for greater public acknowledgement of Londoners' sufferings. Could more food be diverted to South London, he asked: 'I am told that the food queues, especially it seems, for fish and vegetables, are adding a great strain to the life of women in these vulnerable places, and they have already stood a great deal'.

The system permitted a little extra for special family celebrations where possible: 'With Ma to Food Centre to get extra for our Golden Wedding. Ma left her book behind so I went for it whilst she went to Meads. Jumbo [the dog] and I went to meet her...', wrote Byron Penn, of Hendon, in his diary for 27 March 1945 (Barnet Archives MS 6111/1-12). Although everyone had enough to eat, the lack of variety became boring. Any novelty, such as fruit sent from friends in the country, was especially welcome - Mrs Macmullan's letters, in Kensington Local Studies Library MSS 36148-247, contain annual references to gifts of plums sent by her family in Cambridge.

The Ministry of Agriculture's 'Dig for Victory' slogan encouraged people to grow fruit and vegetables on any available land - gardens, parks, allotments. Records of local allotment associations survive in some local collections; Kensington, for example, has correspondence concerning the use of two tennis clubs as allotments in the war, in 940.5317 AR/A, and Guildhall Library has material from the Metropolitan Public Gardens' Association's wartime allotments scheme in MS 22,293. The London Passenger Transport Board supplied its staff canteens with vegetables grown alongside railway tracks. Some people kept pigs, rabbits and chickens in suburban gardens to supplement their diet, feeding them on household scraps.

Maximum Price Orders and Current Price Orders, imposed by the Ministry of Food, proved a very successful method of price control. Human nature inevitably led some people to make illicit attempts to get round the rationing and price restrictions, and examples are common in the court records. The Marlborough Street Petty Sessions register, for instance, records frequent cases of 'unlawfully acquiring rationed goods', or of overpricing. John Gilbert 'did expose for sale strawberries at 10/- and 15/- per 2 lb basket which exceeded the maximum price' and was fined £2, with fourteen days to pay, on 10 July 1944, documented in PS/MS/A2/113. The fine cannot have made a serious dent in his profits.

Eating out (p. 86)

Meals eaten away from home, whether in expensive West End restaurants or industrial canteens, were 'off ration' and a popular alternative with Londoners who could afford them. The conspicuous ability of the rich to enjoy almost pre-war levels of gastronomy at top hotels led to such resentment from Londoners at large that the government prevented restaurants charging more than 5/- a meal from 1942. This curbed the most ostentatious examples, though it did not completely solve the problem. Other restaurants fell more within the average Londoner's experience, especially the country-wide chain of Lyons' tea shops and Corner Houses. Reliable and reasonably priced, they provided a respectable meeting place for all and were popular right across the social spectrum.

Among the records of J. Lyons & Co in LMA is a detailed account book of meals served daily at the Oxford Street Corner House from 1928-52, ACC 3527/58, just one of many branches in Greater London. It remained open throughout the Blitz except for three days in September 1940 when they had no water supply, but even then the 'Front Shop' managed to continue trading. Examples of the meals on offer can be found in the folder 'Wartime menus', ACC 3527/371. A table d'hôte menu from 1941-2 lists a choice of two starters, seven main courses and four puddings and a small coffee, all for 1/6d. A tea shop menu lists tea at 3d per cup or 4d per pot (per person) with scones at a penny halfpenny. 'FOOD is a munition of War Don't Waste it' warn all the menus sternly. In the early 1990s the firm appealed for ex-'Nippies', as Lyons waitresses were called, to write in with their memories; a file of correspondence is in ACC 3527/235. Mrs Edith Walsh, from Streatham, remembered the importance attached to staying open however difficult conditions. She worked in the largest of the Brixton teashops in 1941, arriving one post-raid morning, after a bad journey, to find that the nearby railway bridge had been hit. They opened up the shop: 'Word soon got round that Lyons were open and serving food and drink (we had our own generators). It seemed that the world and his wife came into our shop that day. Mrs Hedley (our manageress) told us not to try to keep to our own "stations" just give the people the drinks and food as the counterhands placed it out for us. The teashop was so crowded we couldn't recognise who we'd "put what down for" so we just gave a bill for what we thought was OK. That night we couldn't believe how many bill books we'd used and how much adding up we had to do from the slips at the top. As you can imagine our commission was the best we ever had'.

British Restaurants supplied another almost universal experience of eating away from me. Here a three course meal cost only 9d. Standards varied, but the best were greatly appreciated and had a large regular clientele. British Restaurants were run by local authorities, who set them up in a variety of different premises such as schools and church halls. They evolved from the LCC's Londoners' Meals Service which originated in September 1940 as a temporary, emergency system for feeding those who had been bombed out. By mid-1941 the LCC was operating two hundred of these restaurants. Records of this service are in the LMA, among those of the Restaurant and Catering Department in LCC/RC/GEN. LCC/RC/GEN/2/1, for example, relates to negotiations to take over the Bun House Restaurant, 111 High Holborn WC 1 - 'practically facing Holborn Tube Station'- from March 1943. The LCC already ran a British Restaurant in Princeton Street nearby and required different premises. They rejected Slaters at 55-6 High Holborn as too badly damaged and the Express Dairy, 294 Holborn, as too small. Records for British Restaurants beyond the LCC area are scarce. Hertfordshire RO has some menu books for the restaurant in Rickmansworth - strictly speaking outside the Greater London borders, but only just - in ACC 2908.

British Restaurants were open to all, but mainly served office and industrial workers. The one in Standard Road, Acton, catered for nearby factories without their own canteens. In January 1943 the Acton Gazette reported that the local Food Executive Officer had criticised it as inadequate - 'Workpeople do not like the place', they wrote, there had been 'quite a number of complaints'. Taking up the cudgels on behalf of his borough's catering sub-committee, the Town Clerk wrote to the Food Executive Officer to protest that eight hundred people regularly patronised the Restaurant quite contentedly. The FEO denied any slur on the borough's arrangements, saying he had been misreported. The Acton Borough Minutes, November 1942-3, contain further details.

Londoners proved fonder of British Restaurants and their equivalents than did inhabitants of the rest of the country. The Wartime Social Survey monitored public attitudes to food and rationing in some depth between February 1942 and October 1943, presenting the results in the report 'Food during the war' by Gertrude Wagner (PRO RG 23/9a) quoted earlier in the section on morale. They found that in the main people had accepted rationing, would not object if it continued after the war, and welcomed price control in this context.

The food trade made special arrangements for wartime, and the records of some trade associations may prove useful as most were based in London. For instance, the Soft Drinks Industry (War Time) Association's records are in the Bodleian Library MSS Eng Misc b 389-92', c 819-40, d 1237, and Guildhall Library MS 19,816 has the minute book of the London Wholesale Fish Trade Ltd, set up to deal with arrangements for fish distribution if Billingsgate market were badly damaged or destroyed. Fortunately it was never needed and the organisation was wound up in 1945, but the records contain information about the wartime fish trade. The Modem Records Centre at the University of Warwick has records of several other food-trade associations, including the British Dextrine Manufacturers' Association, MSS. 200, and the Edible Nuts in Shell Association, MSS.313. The experience of an individual potato merchant, including his acrimonious relations with the Ministry of Food, is covered by E.F. Franklin's diary in IWM 91/5/1.

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History in Focus: War - Rationing in London WWII

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Subject: Rationing Fair Shares: Rationing and Shortages (p. 85) Diverting the country's manpower and production into the war effort meant that consumer goods of all kinds became scarce and shortages were inevitable. To ensure an equitable distribution of basic essentials, rationing was imposed through a 'points' system and prices were controlled.

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Wartime Fayre

When it opened in 1938, the newly-extended Woolworth store on the seafront of the English resort of Blackpool was the largest in the world. It had been designed and purpose-built to the highest standard to serve the hundreds of thousands of tourists who stayed in the north-western town each week in peak season.

Its three triangular salesfloors offered all manner of items for sixpence or less, displayed to show that they were worth much more. But even the splendour of the magnificent counters was eclipsed by what stood above.

With many tourists opting for bed and breakfast accommodation, Woolworth aimed to provide good food for every visitor with an extensive lunch and dinner menu, with two whole restaurant floors which opened from dawn to 11pm. But, just a year after it opened, Britain went to war. Despite all of the challenges of the conflict, the Restaurant went from strength to strength, becoming the favourite haunt of local airmen, and maintaining an air of optimism and tranquility to help people through the darkest hours.

Thanks to the generosity of the family of Mrs Sybil Preece, we a proud to feature a wartime menu on this page, preserved from September 1941. Main article.

ABOUT

The Museum celebrates the shops that once dominated the shopping scene in Europe and North America

The Woolworths Museum

REGISTERED TRADEMARK ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

UNITED KINGDOM AND REPUBLIC OF IRELAND

GERMANY, MEXICO, JAMAICA &AMP; BARBADOS

SOUTH AFRICA, AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

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When it opened in 1938, the newly-extended Woolworth store on the seafront of the English resort of Blackpool was the largest in the world. It had been designed and purpose-built to the highest standard to serve the hundreds of thousands of tourists who stayed in the north-western town each week in peak season.

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World War Two British Restaurant.  Film 91022

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'British Restaurants' was not a general term for restaurants in Britain. It was the name given to dedicated restaurants set up to meet the needs of wartime on the Second World War British home front - see below.

Why British Restaurants were set up and what they did

In 1941, to combat the severity of rationing in World War Two, the Government set up what were known as British Restaurants. They were to sell basic meals at reasonable prices, off-ration.

These British Restaurants were sited so that they were in fairly easy reach of most families.

How British Restaurants were staffed

One reason why British Restaurant meals could be provided relatively cheaply was that the catering, cooking and washing up, etc were all done by volunteers - normally older women who regarded their input as a contribution to the war effort. They tended to be members of the Women's Voluntary Service (WVS) and they wore green uniforms.

Dick Hibberd

WVS ladies wore the WVS uniform in dark green - something like 'olive' green or perhaps 'British Racing Green'. There was a red and green emblem on the breast, and I am pretty sure, a belt of brown leather. There was also a felt hat, but I can't remember the exact style, except that it had a brim and was something like a smaller version of the Australian bush hat.

Michael Sullivan

I was told by an ex-WVS lady that WVS women had to buy their own uniforms out of their clothing ration.

British Restaurant buildings

Another reason why British Restaurants were quick and cheap to set up was because existing halls were requisitioned for the purpose. Church halls and working men's clubs were typical locations because they already had basic cooking facilities and tables and chairs.

Dick Hibberd

Where suitable facilities were not available, special pre-fabricated buildings were put up on waste ground - see the photo.

Our British Restaurant in Edgware, north London, where I grew up was such a prefabricated building. It was painted white and was on the site of what later became the public library.

My mother never took me into our British Restaurant, so I have relied on others to explain how the system worked.

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British Restaurants in 1940s wartime Britain

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'British Restaurants' was not a general term for restaurants in Britain. It was the name given to dedicated restaurants set up to meet the needs of wartime on the Second World War British home front - see below. In 1941, to combat the severity of rationing in World War Two, the Government set up what were known as British Restaurants.

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"You are not welcome home," hostile comments against overseas Chinese students who returned to the country during the coronavirus pandemic are spreading across the Chinese social media. They have been accused of bringing the virus into the country and occupying medical resources. I received a comment from a Chinese student studying abroad who said he felt isolated and helpless, especially after reading hostile comments online. Are overseas Chinese students really "virus smugglers"? Can the Chinese government help them? It is time to tell their story.

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Are overseas Chinese students really 'virus smugglers'?

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"You are not welcome home," hostile comments against overseas Chinese students who returned to the country during the coronavirus pandemic are spreading across the Chinese social media. They have been accused of bringing the virus into the country and occupying medical resources.

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Chinese students flying home from overseas to escape the coronavirus pandemic face a frosty reception from sections of the public who view them as wealthy, spoiled - and potentially contaminated.

The number of officially reported cases in China has dwindled dramatically over the last month, but the country is now taking drastic steps to try and stem a second wave of infections brought in from abroad.

With most international flights canceled and nearly all foreigners barred from entering the country, the vast majority of returnees are Chinese nationals, including many students.

The situation has exposed animosities over class and privilege in Chinese society, fueled by online posts stereotyping returning students as ungrateful and even dangerous - using the irresponsible behavior of a few individuals as proof.

"Right now, public opinion in China is very unfriendly towards Chinese overseas students, and quarantine facilities there are mixed," said Hestia Zhang, a master's student at Yale University.

She has decided to stay in self-isolation on campus rather than go back, despite the United States now accounting for almost a quarter of reported global infections.

"There are also a lot of risks on the journey home, so I might as well stay here and wait it out," she said.

Meanwhile Cathy, who landed in China on Tuesday morning, is resigned to the fact that she may encounter prejudice. Using her English name to conceal her identity, she said she had "no choice but to bear it."

Nearly half of China's 800 imported virus cases are overseas students.

Most returnees need to spend two weeks in isolation, and a widely shared video of a returned student who tried to escape her quarantine accommodation in the city of Qingdao has prompted outrage online.

A similar angry reaction met clips showing another returnee angrily demanding bottled mineral water from quarantine facility workers in Shanghai.

"They eat food from our bowl, yet turn on the motherland as soon as they stop eating. We don't need to take them back," wrote one user, garnering thousands of likes.

There is a widely held belief that international students see themselves as superior to their fellow citizens, said Yik-Chan Chin, a professor of media and communications at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University.

This is often compounded by perceptions of the students' extreme wealth and multiple nationalities, she said.

The vast majority of China's 1.6 million outbound students are still overseas, according to the education ministry.

Many want to come back but face astronomical ticket prices and grueling multiple-transit flights, plus the increased risk of infection en route.

Beijing chartered a flight Monday to rescue some 200 overseas students left stranded in Ethiopia after their transfer flights to China were cancelled last-minute, and another took off on Thursday to bring students back from the UK.

"I hope those you're taking back are conscientious and patriotic, and not a group of ungrateful, China-hating wretches who are only concerned with living a life of luxury," one user fumed.

However there has been some sympathy, especially as many overseas students donated medical supplies in the initial stages of the outbreak.

"Who emptied global supermarket shelves of protective supplies and sent them back to China? International students!" wrote the film director Lu Chuan in a Weibo post.

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Chinese students fleeing virus face uneasy reception back home | The Japan Times

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Chinese students flying home from overseas to escape the coronavirus pandemic face a frosty reception from sections of the public who view them as wealthy, spoiled - and potentially contaminated. The number of officially reported cases in China has dwindled dramatically over the last month, but the country is now taking drastic steps to try and stem a second wave of infections brought in from abroad.

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The public will be advised to wear face coverings in crowded places and wash their clothes regularly, as the government imposes "smarter controls" to limit the spread the coronavirus until a successful treatment or vaccine is found.

After Boris Johnson's address to the nation on Sunday, which prompted a backlash from unions and opposition politicians about the lack of a clear message, the government published a 60-page document called Our Plan to Rebuild.

More outdoor activities are being allowed from this week but the public will be expected to take extra caution, including by wearing face coverings in some situations.

People should "wear a face covering in enclosed spaces where social distancing is not always possible and they come into contact with others that they do not normally meet, for example on public transport or in some shops", the government document says. Children under the age of two should not have their faces covered, and nor should any of primary age who do not have somebody with them who is supervising them.

This is aimed at preventing people who have the virus but are not experiencing symptoms from passing it on to others.

Q&A
Coronavirus: should everyone be wearing face masks?

People over 60 or with health issues should wear a medical-grade mask when they are out and cannot socially distance, according to new guidance from the World Health Organization, while all others should wear a three-layer fabric mask.

The WHO guidance, announced on 5 June, is a result of research commissioned by the organisation. It is still unknown whether the wearers of masks are protected, say its experts, but the new design it advocates does give protection to other people if properly used.

The WHO says masks should be made of three layers - with cotton closest to the face, followed by a polypropylene layer and then a synthetic layer that is fluid-resistant. These are no substitute for physical distancing and hand hygiene, it says, but should be worn in situations where distancing is difficult, such as on public transport and at mass demonstrations.

The WHO has been reluctant to commit to recommending face coverings, firstly because the evidence on whether they offer any protection to the public is limited and - more importantly - because it was afraid it would lead to shortages of medical-grade masks for health workers.

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The chief medical officer for England, Prof Chris Whitty, stressed that face coverings were "not a substitute" for physical distancing and urged the public not to buy surgical or medical masks, needed for frontline carers, but to rely on scarves or DIY-type masks instead.

The public should wash their clothes regularly, the advice suggests, "as there is some evidence that the virus can stay on fabrics".

The government is increasing fines for people who breach the new guidance, with the new penalties ranging from £100 for a first offence to a maximum of £3,200.

In his foreword to the document, Johnson suggested much of the document applied to all four nations of the United Kingdom, calling it "a plan to rebuild the UK for a world with Covid-19".

But there has been tension with Scotland and Wales, which will make their own decisions about issues including when schools will reopen, and which have warned against any significant easing of restrictions.

The document sets out a three-step "second phase" of the government's approach to tackling the outbreak, in what is called an "indicative roadmap":
Can I meet friends and family? England's new coronavirus lockdown rules explained

More people will be "actively encouraged" to go back to work from this Wednesday.

Potentially from 1 June, some schools and businesses, including non-essential shops, will reopen, and some sporting and cultural events will be allowed to take place behind closed doors.

Potentially from 4 July, some remaining businesses, such as hairdressers, and social spaces such as cinemas and pubs, will be allowed to reopen.

The document makes clear that the exact timing of each of the steps will depend on scientific advice.

The government's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, said he and his colleagues had "strongly supported the conditionality" of the government's approach, and each step would have to be science-based, not "date-based".

The government seeks to stress in the document that decisions are not being made solely on the basis of economics and health, but by balancing both, in what it repeatedly calls a "fair" way.

It says the aim is to "return life to as close as normal as possible, for as many people as possible, as fast and as fairly as possible ... in a way that avoids a new epidemic, minimises lives lost and maximises health, economic and social outcomes".

Facemasks explainer

Phase two, the first step of which begins this week, will aim to "gradually replace the existing social restrictions with smarter measures that balance its aims as effectively as possible".

As well as advising the public to wear face coverings, employers are being urged to redesign workplaces to minimise the number of individuals people come into contact with, including increasing ventilation. This approach is described as "making contact safer by redesigning public and work spaces, and those with symptoms self-isolating".

During this first, immediate stage, parliament will be expected to hold more physical sessions, to "set a national example of how business can continue in this new normal".

The government is also changing its guidance to allow more childcare providers to reopen. The document says "paid childcare, for example nannies and childminders, can take place", as long as health guidelines such as avoiding crowds and washing hand are followed.

Unlike the UK-wide "stay at home" advice, the document makes clear some measures could be applied locally, with the government's aim described as "detecting infection outbreaks at a more localised level and rapidly intervening with targeted measures".

The government has delayed plans to allow members of the public to mingle their household with another, creating a " bubble ", along the lines of measures that have been taken in New Zealand.

Vallance said: "We have been asked to look at this, and we will look at it and come back with the scientific advice."

For the time being, contrary to what Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, suggested in interviews on Monday morning, the public are only permitted to meet one other person, outdoors - not both parents, for example.

Ministers are still aiming at a 1 June return for some pupils, as part of the second step, which would allow "reception, year 1 and year 6 to be back in school in smaller sizes", according to the document.

"This aims to ensure that the youngest children, and those preparing for the transition to secondary school, have maximum time with their teachers. Secondary schools and further education colleges should also prepare to begin some face to face contact with year 10 and 12 pupils who have key exams next year, in support of their continued remote, home learning."

It adds: "The government's ambition is for all primary school children to return to school before the summer for a month if feasible, though this will be kept under review."

Government officials suggested parents would be strongly encouraged to send their children to school once classes had reopened. Teachers who are in the most vulnerable, "shielded" group will be expected to remain at home, while others who are vulnerable, such as pregnant women, could take part in "non-pupil-facing" work, such as lesson planning.

There will be little change for "those aged over 70, those with specific chronic pre-existing conditions and pregnant women. These clinically vulnerable people should continue to take particular care to minimise contact with others outside their households, but do not need to be shielded."

However, the document hints that some individuals could be moved out of the shielded group as scientists understand more about the risk factors.

"As the government learns more about the disease and the risk factors involved, it expects to steadily make the risk-assessment more nuanced, giving confidence to some previously advised to shield that they may be able to take more risk, and identifying those who may wish to be more cautious," the report says.

When to enact the various steps will depend on advice from a new joint biosecurity centre, which will "bring together the UK's world-leading epidemiological expertise and fuse it with the best analytical capability from across government in an integrated approach".

The government makes clear that a "new normal" will have to persist until a vaccine or treatment for the virus can be found. "There is no easy or quick solution. Only the development of a vaccine or effective drugs can reliably control this epidemic and reduce mortality without some form of social distancing or contact tracing in place," it says.

It also rejects the idea that " herd immunity " was ever part of the government's approach to dealing with Covid-19, despite Vallance at one point appearing to advocate it.

"In the medium term, allowing the virus to spread in an uncontrolled manner until natural population-level immunity is achieved would put the UK government's Covid-19 recovery strategy under enormous pressure. At no point has this been part of the government's strategy."
Topics

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Public advised to wear face coverings under UK government's lockdown easing plan

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The public will be advised to wear face coverings in crowded places and wash their clothes regularly, as the government imposes "smarter controls" to limit the spread the coronavirus until a successful treatment or vaccine is found.

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Face Mask Wear Rules

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People in England must wear face coverings on public transport from 15 June, and could be denied the right to travel if they do not.

The new rule comes on the day non-essential shops will re-open across the nation and a significant increase in people using public transport is expected.

Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, admitted that remaining two metres away from other people can be difficult on crowded commuter trains and buses.

Exactly how this will be enforced is open to interpretation. Police would have the right to deal with people refusing to wear a mask, but the government says it does not expect to encounter many serious issues with refusal.

It did not suggest free masks will be available at stations, but there will be a concerted promotional campaign so people are aware before they travel.

He said the requirement to wear a face covering is in order to ensure people are still protected, and to minimise the chances of spreading the virus.

What is the Government advice?

For several months the UK offered different advice about how important face masks are, compared with many other countries which have long required the public to wear them out and about.

Alongside the new rules on public transport, people are asked to wear face coverings when they are in "an enclosed space where social distancing isn't possible and where you will come into contact with people you do not normally meet", for instance in shops.

A Government document published last month states that, while wearing a face covering does not protect the wearer, it may protect others if people are infected but have not yet developed symptoms.

Who should wear one?

Anyone on public transport. But beyond that it is more complicated.

Experts have previously suggested that, in order for the use of masks to be an effective tool in reducing infections, around nine in 10 people need to wear them.

Some groups - such as people with breathing problems or young children - may struggle to wear face coverings.

The Government states that face coverings should not be used by children under the age of two, people with respiratory conditions or those who may find it difficult to manage them correctly - such as primary school age children unassisted.

What sort of face coverings should I use?

Scarves, cotton home-made coverings that cover nose and mouth and other boughtmasks that are not ones used by the health service are fine.

Officials said that people can make coverings at home, but added that "the key thing is it should cover your mouth and nose".

People have been advised not to use surgical masks or respirators as these should be reserved for health and care workers and for people in industrial settings such as those exposed to dust.

Do health workers get priority?

The World Health Organisation has said it is imperative that medical masks are prioritised for health and care workers.

Concerns have previously been raised about the prospect of dwindling supplies for health workers following an instruction for the general public to wear masks.

But health and care workers are required to wear specific types of surgical masks or respirators depending on the type of care they are giving a patient.

The government suggests that surgical masks and respirators must be reserved for those who need them to protect against risks in their workplace.

Last month, Scotland issued guidance on the use of face coverings in public, urging people to use coverings in enclosed spaces where the two-metre social distancing rule is hard to maintain - in food shops or on public transport for example.

What is the science behind face masks?

Officials have said that the science behind the use of face masks and face coverings is "not straightforward".

It appears that one of the main routes of the spread of the novel coronavirus is through droplets - usually through coughs and sneezes, but these can also spread through talking.

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) thinks the evidence of masks preventing the spread of infection from one person to another is "marginal but positive".

Studies into coughs and flu have previously shown that a medical mask can help prevent the spread of infectious droplets from an infected person to someone else.

They might also prevent potential contamination of the wider environment by these droplets.

But the World Health Organisation has stressed that there is no evidence that wearing a mask - whether medical or other types - by healthy persons in the wider community can prevent them from infection with respiratory viruses, including Covid-19.

What do experts say?

Trish Greenhalgh, professor of primary care at the University of Oxford, said: "The science on this is clear: Covid-19 is most commonly transmitted by droplets emitted when we cough, sneeze, shout, sing and even just breathe in close proximity to others.

"Cloth face coverings are highly effective at blocking droplets coming out of the mouth and nose. They're not perfect, but if you can stop 90% or 95% of the droplets this will cause a very dramatic reduction in the number of people who catch the virus.

"Face coverings, which can be made out of a double layer of cloth, are a crucially important measure for bringing the country out of lockdown, since in reality few of us can get properly back to work without getting within two metres of other people (either while travelling to work or in offices and factories).

If I develop symptoms, can I go out if I wear a covering?

No. The official advice states: "If you have symptoms of Covid-19 (cough and/or high temperature) you and your household should isolate at home: wearing a face covering does not change this."

The rules around having coronavirus and self-isolating are the same regardless of any type of covering.

Are there any downsides to using face coverings?

Concerns have been raised that masks could give a false sense of security and mean that people are less stringent with other preventative measures such as social distancing and hand hygiene.

Problems could also arise without the proper use of a mask - including possible self-contamination if people touch and re-use a contaminated mask. Depending on the type of mask used, some people may incur breathing difficulties.

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Explained: the government's new lockdown advice for wearing face masks

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People in England must wear face coverings on public transport from 15 June, and could be denied the right to travel if they do not. The new rule comes on the day non-essential shops will re-open across the nation and a significant increase in people using public transport is expected.

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Maskaphobia - Racist Attack

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Chinese students at UK universities are "fleeing back to China" amid concerns about the British government's handling of the spread of the virus and an increase in racist attacks triggered by so-called maskaphobia.

While some students have already returned, many of those who remain are struggling to secure seats on a dwindling number of flights, which are being sold at inflated prices. There are also reports that some are trying to book private jets to get home.

"I was a bit shocked by how quickly the UK is hit by the coronavirus," said Tao Wang, a politics PhD student at the University of Manchester. "Many Chinese students are now fleeing back to China, and I have been struggling to make a decision."

Wang said many in the Chinese student community believed they would now be safer in China than in the UK, and their families were begging them to return. "I think people are very suspicious about the [UK] government measures. Here, until now, we've seen some soft measures calling for people to wash their hands. As a Chinese student you expect more draconian measures."

Chinese students also report an increase in racist attacks as a result of the Covid-19 crisis, with some wearing masks becoming targets for racists.

Yinxuan Huang, a sociology research fellow at City University London, has been conducting research among Chinese Christian communities in the UK, who have been supporting Chinese students during the coronavirus crisis.
Coronavirus fears fuel racism and hostility, say British-Chinese
"Almost all incidents they reported were associated with 'maskaphobia'," said Huang, which is a fear of masks which then triggered racist attacks. "Most of the victims - some got called 'virus' and others got shoved - were wearing masks when attacked.

"Many Chinese students feel that the issue of the mask is the single biggest cultural shock they have ever experienced in the UK. They are now facing a dilemma and have to choose between two bad choices - insecurity (for coronavirus) and fear (for racism)."

One 24-year-old Chinese postgraduate student at the University of Manchester described an incident while out shopping in the city centre with a friend. "Both of us wore face masks. When we were crossing the road, a car passed by and slowed down as it approached us.

"At first, I thought that maybe they just want to let us go first, like most other polite and friendly drivers I met before. But instead, they rolled down the window, and sneezed at us, and then laughed away. Many of my Chinese friends have experienced similar discrimination recently, which has a very bad impact on our study abroad experience."

A 26-year-old Chinese postgraduate student, also in Manchester, said Chinese students were now staying indoors and ordering food online rather than going shopping. "We are not only afraid of coronavirus, but the violence brought by racism is also much more scary now. I have got the feeling I am an outsider in the UK. And now I finally find we are not welcomed by British people. Diversity sounds like a joke."

Universities in the UK have welcomed growing numbers of students from China in recent years. According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, the number rose above 120,000 for the first time last year, up from 89,000 in 2014-15.

Wang commented: "International students choose to study abroad in countries like the UK for a reason. That is, they believe that this is a place that values tolerance, equality, diversity and rule of law. The growing coronavirus-related racism is truly disturbing.

"It may well lead some to question: why should I spend tens of thousands of pounds and travel thousands miles away from home to study in a place where I could be attacked simply because of my skin colour, or because I wear a face mask?"
Topics

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Chinese students flee UK after 'maskaphobia' triggered racist attacks

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Chinese students at UK universities are "fleeing back to China" amid concerns about the British government's handling of the spread of the virus and an increase in racist attacks triggered by so-called maskaphobia. While some students have already returned, many of those who remain are struggling to secure seats on a dwindling number of flights, which are being sold at inflated prices.

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Notes: Madness and Civilization, Michel Foucault

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Notes: Madness and Civilization, Michel Foucault

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Foucault has examined the historical ways of human societies dealing with madness, accompanied by analysis and presumptions about the forms of politics. From the beginning the madmen were thrown into prison, (p.28) to later when they set sail in their fool's boat, (p.30) to be confined in architecture in recent centuries, the author has explained the changes happened as the social values and realisation became different.

Back in March, the news reported that the oversea Asian students in the UK had encountered increased racist attacks due to maskaphobia; neither were they welcome back to their home countries, where they were described as 'Virus Smugglers'.

If the social values were changed in the post-pandemic landscapes, the epistemological foundation for the way of treating the virus as well as for the 'potential virus carriers' should also be different. I believe the prejudice of the people with a particular colour skin is more likely to be the virus carriers, is genuinely discrimination. Blaming that they have brought the virus to the country is even more problematic than the virus itself.

Alternatively, in the post-pandemic landscape, society will become homogeneous population. Neither will they share knowledge and skills with other nations, nor that they will have any communication with the others. 'Diversity' has become a dangerous concept and therefore abandoned. Importantly, they are pleasant to believe that they live better or at least safer than before or others.

Notes:
These madmen were housed and provided for in the city budget, and yet they were not given treatment; they were simply thrown into prison. (p.28)

It is for the other world that the madman sets sail in his fools’ boat; it is from the other world that he comes when he disembarks. (p.30)

prepared for them; it is the tide of madness, its secret invasion, that shows that the world is near its final catastrophe; it is man’s insanity that invokes and makes necessary the world’s end. (p.38)

Madness is no longer the familiar foreignness of the world; it is merely a commonplace spectacle for the foreign spectator; no longer a figure of the cosmos, but a characteristic of the aevum. (p.

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Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, Michel Foucault

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Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, Michel Foucault

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Restaurants:
1. Reduced capacity
2. Extended table spacing
3. Advised to reserve table
4. Service staff required to wear masks and gloves
5. health declaration for guests to sign before entry
6. hygienic storage - paper bag sealed - masks...

The post-pandemic restaurant layout seems to follow social distancing rules, which aims to reduce the physical contact between individuals. The restaurant, used to be a common area where groups of families enjoy their time with a meal, will become an intimate interior where people arrive, get energised and back to work since then.

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With the UK Government slated to review country-wide lockdown on 7 May, questions are beginning to be asked about what Britain's pubs and bars may look like under social distancing measures that advise staying more than 2m (6ft) apart from anyone other than members of your household.

​On 17 April, British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) chief executive Emma McClarkin outlined that Britain's pubs would need a minimum of three weeks' notice to reopen after lockdown measures are lifted ​​, explaining that the reopening process for the pub trade will be "enormously hard".

President Emmanuel Macron previously outlined that France would begin to lift lockdown measures on 11 May with nurseries, schools and colleges to be "progressively opened" first and foremost with cafés, restaurants and bars to potentially follow suit from early June.

Though measures closer to home are yet to be confirmed ​, noises from UK bar groups and operators have ranged from JD Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin stating that he hopes to open his near-900-strong stable of pubs in June to the likes of East Anglia-based group Chestnut, which outlined it will be taking reservations across its 11-strong business from July 1.

In terms of the post-pandemic picture across Europe, a broad range of approaches to social distancing in pubs and bars are being suggested or already taken.

In Sweden, whose approach to the virus has generated international interest given they've eschewed full-scale lockdown under the advice of leading epidemiologists, restaurants and bars have been allowed to stay open provided they adhere to social distancing rules - though a number have closed due to lack of trade.

Restaurants and bars are only allowed to trade if they exclusively offer table service, with operators mandated to space groups one to two metres apart to prevent overcrowding. In the past week, five bars in capital Stockholm were forced to close after failing to follow these rules.

Spilling into open spaces

Across the Baltic Sea in Lithuania, the mayor of capital Vilnius has tabled proposals that some believe will turn the historic city into one big open-air café bar.

Remigijus Šimašius has permitted bar and restaurant owners to transform the historic city's outdoor plazas, squares and streets into outdoor drinking and dining space in order to allow their businesses to serve guests observing social distancing rules.

"Nearby cafés will be able to set up outdoor tables free of charge this season and thus conduct their activities during quarantine," Šimašius explained in a recent statement.

At the time of writing, 18 spaces had been slated as temporary outdoor homes for Vilnius's bars and restaurants.

Phased opening, reduced capacity and table spacing

In the Czech Republic, where sales from pub windows have been allowed to continue under lockdown, authorities have stated that outside pubs, gardens and restaurant terraces will reopen on 11 May.

While inside space may reopen two weeks later, they will be required to follow strict social distancing measures, which are still to be finalised, with non-compliant pubs forced to remain closed.

What's more, in Austria, it's been revealed that restaurants will be allowed to reopen from 15 May if they adhere to rules including a maximum of four adults per table - with at least 1m distance between diners - with service staff required to wear masks while taking orders and serving.

Guests will also be advised to book tables in advance to avoid queues and make it easier to trace possible infection chains should the need arise.

Further south, authorities in both Spain and Greece have stated that bars and restaurants will open under social distancing measures and reduced capacity.

It's been suggested that bar terraces in Spain could reopen from 4 May at 30% capacity and with a number of other distancing rules in place, while Greek businesses, while not opening until at least June, will only offer outdoor service for a reduced headcount.

Take a look at our interactive map of Europe for the most recent information on what measures pubs and bars across the continent are taking amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Minimising contact

Guidance from US-based design and strategy firm Streetsense, which specialises in retail, restaurant, hospitality and real estate solutions, advises that bar and dining areas must be reconfigured to accommodate for social distancing - "dramatically increasing the space between groups".

The firm suggests that implementing social distancing policies may yield a 30-50% reduction in covers for weeks, perhaps months, and that operators should consider using an off-site storage facility to keep their venue clutter-free while measures are in place.

What's more, it's Pandemic Relaunch Toolkit ​ - published in April - also states: "Pick-up and delivery procedures must be mastered and kept safely separated from the dine-in guests.

"Service will need to be modified to minimise contact, reduce table touches and ease potential moments of friction like arrival, table setting, dropping food and payment.

"Stringent sanitation and disinfection procedures require staff retraining and attention to detail, while daily staff temperature testing and contact tracing will be essential to protecting the integrity of your establishment."

Guests signing health declarations

Hong Kong-based group Black Sheep Restaurants has published a full blown Covid-19 Playbook ​that advises scheduled venue sanitising and hand washing every 30 minutes, for example, as well as a blanket ban on physical contact.

What's more, the group has created a mandatory health declaration for guests to sign before entry - or risk being turned away at the door.

Once inside, the guidance advises physical distancing will become the "new normal" for the foreseeable future and it currently using every other table to allow guests required space. In addition, its venues are planning to offer diners hygienic storage - for example, a paper bag sealed with a sticker or a sealed envelope - to store any masks.

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What could social distancing in post-pandemic pubs look like?

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With the UK Government slated to review country-wide lockdown on 7 May, questions are beginning to be asked about what Britain's pubs and bars may look like under social distancing measures that advise staying more than 2m (6ft) apart from anyone other than members of your household.

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Hong Kong police have banned a vigil marking the deadly Tiananmen Square crackdown for the first time in 30 years amid concerns over China 's influence over the territory.

Authorities rejected an application on Monday to hold the annual candlelight vigil, which tends to draw a huge crowd outdoors and commemorates those who were killed in the military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing 's Tiananmen Square in 1989.

In a letter to the organisers of the vigil, police said the event would violate coronavirus social distancing rules which ban gatherings of more than eight people.

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Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

The decision also followed a vote by China's ceremonial parliament to bypass Hong Kong's legislature and impose a controversial national security law on the semi-autonomous region.

Democracy activists and many legal experts have expressed concerns that the law could curtail free speech and opposition political activities, sparking a rush to apply for passports which could allow some residents to move to the UK.

Organiser Lee Cheuk-yan, chair of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, expressed disappointment at the cancellation and urged people to light candles individually and observe a moment of silence.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International said authorities should have facilitated a socially distanced vigil rather than ban it.

" Covid-19 must not be used as an excuse to stifle freedom of expression," Joshua Rosenzweig, the group's deputy director for East and Southeast Asia, said.

"With this ban, and a disastrous national security law looming, it is not clear if Hong Kong's Tiananmen vigil will ever be allowed to take place again."

Hong Kong has reported five local coronavirus infections in the last two days, breaking a nearly two-week streak of no new cases outside of those brought in from abroad.

No hype, just the advice and analysis you need

On Monday, a large crowd lined up at DHL courier outlets across the city with many people sending documents to the UK to apply for or renew a British National Overseas (BNO) passport.

"My BNO passport expired in 2004, but at the time I didn't renew it because I trusted China," Peter Chan, a 40-year-old who waited in line for more than two hours, told AP news agency.

Mr Chan said he was worried about political and security issues in Hong Kong stemming from the national security law as well as a push by the territory's legislature to enact a bill that would make it illegal to insult the Chinese national anthem.

Although he acknowledged rising anti-immigrant and anti-Asian sentiment in the UK, he said it was "still better than Hong Kong" at this time.

The rush for passports came after the UK said last week it was considering allowing BNO passport holders to stay in the country for a year or more.

The UK government has estimated there are 2.9 million people in the city who are eligible for the document, although only about 350,000 Hong Kong residents held BNO passports as of February.
Additional reporting by AP

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Hong Kong's annual Tiananmen Square vigil banned for first time

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Hong Kong police have banned a vigil marking the deadly Tiananmen Square crackdown for the first time in 30 years amid concerns over China 's influence over the territory. Authorities rejected an application on Monday to hold the annual candlelight vigil, which tends to draw a huge crowd outdoors and commemorates those who were killed in the military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing 's Tiananmen Square in 1989.

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Notes: The Birth of Biopolitics, Michel Foucault

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Notes: The Birth of Biopolitics, Michel Foucault

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''Politics and the economy are not things that exist, or errors, or illusions, or ideologies. They are things that do not exist and yet which are inscribed in reality and fall under a regime of truth dividing the true and the false'' (p.20)

Whether the recent political decisions to ban protest made in Hong Kong is truly or falsely because of health and safety, the freedom of gathering has thus been disrupted. What interests me is the further question of whether the coronavirus can become a new raison d'état to manipulate and confine social activities by the authorities.

Notes:
Raison d’État is precisely a practice, or rather the rationalization of a practice, which places itself between a state presented as given and a state presented as having to be constructed and built. The art of government must therefore fix its rules and rationalize its way of doing things by taking as its objective the bringing into being of what the state should be. (p.4)

To govern according to the principle of raison d’État is to arrange things so that the state becomes sturdy and permanent, so that it becomes wealthy, and so that it becomes strong in the face of everything that may destroy it. (p.4)

In other words, the state is not a household, a church, or an empire. The state is a specific and discontinuous reality. The state exists only for itself and in relation to itself, whatever obedience it may owe to other systems like nature or God. The state only exists through and for itself, and it only exists in the plural. (p.5)

So, we have mercantilism with the police state and European balance: all of this was the concrete body of this new art of government organized in terms of the principle of raison d’État. (p.5)

“political economy” also refers to any method of government that can procure the nation’s prosperity. And finally, political economy—the term employed by Rousseau in his famous article in the Encyclopedia 11—is a sort of general reflection on the organization, distribution, and limitation of powers in a society. I think that fundamentally it was political economy that made it possible to ensure the self-limitation of governmental reason. (p.13)

In other words, political economy does not discover natural rights that exist prior to the exercise of governmentality; it discovers a certain naturalness specific to the practice of government itself. (p.15)

Success or failure, then, will replace the division between legitimacy and illegitimacy—but there is more. What makes a government, despite its objectives, disrupt the naturalness specific to the objects it deals with and the operations it carries out? (p.16)

In other words, governments can be mistaken. And the greatest evil of government, what makes it a bad government, is not that the prince is wicked, but that he is ignorant. (p.17)

The principle of maximum/minimum replaces the notion of equitable equilibrium, of “equitable justice” that previously organized the prince’s wisdom. With this question of self-limitation by the principle of truth, I think political economy introduced a formidable wedge into the unlimited presumption of the police state. (p.17)

The principle of maximum/minimum replaces the notion of equitable equilibrium, of “equitable justice” that previously organized the prince’s wisdom. With this question of self-limitation by the principle of truth, I think political economy introduced a formidable wedge into the unlimited presumption of the police state. (p.17)

Politics and the economy are not things that exist, or errors, or illusions, or ideologies. They are things that do not exist and yet which are inscribed in reality and fall under a regime of truth dividing the true and the false. (p.20)

Consequently, it seems to me that it is only when we understand what is at stake in this regime of liberalism opposed to raison d’État—or rather, fundamentally modifying [it] without, perhaps, questioning its bases—only when we know what this governmental regime called liberalism was, will we be able to grasp what biopolitics is. (p.22)

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The Birth of Biopolitics, Michel Foucault

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The Birth of Biopolitics, Michel Foucault

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Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978 - 79, edited by Michel Senellart,

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Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby explain Speculative Design in the presentation. They have been trying to communicate different world views through materialised design, speculating neither the future nor the present but in the middle of parallel time and space. With interdisciplinary majors such as philosophy, anthropology, psychology, they have come up with design ideas such as the 'Risk Watch', 'United Micro Kingdoms', 'Not Here, Not Now', speculating an alternative world view to the audience.

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'Speculative Everything' Talk by Anthony Dunne, Fiona Raby

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'Speculative Everything' Talk by Anthony Dunne, Fiona Raby

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Anthony Dunne, Fiona Raby. "Speculative Everything" Book Presentation

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Dunne and Raby's fictional creation of the United Micro Kingdoms, through materialisation and envision of the potential future transportation, speculating on the consequences of technological advance. In the fiction, future England has been partitioned into four Micro Kingdoms: Digitarian; Commune-nuclearist; Anarcho-evolutionist; and Bioliberal.

They have respectively represented extreme future scenarios. Digitarians love digital technology, and they imply totalitarianism. Algorithms and technocrats govern this society, while people are given choices even if those are merely illusionary. The self-drive digicars are their means of travelling; Communo-nuclearists represents highly centralised society, whom many countries are scared of and adorn, using trains as their primary transportation; Biology is the central perception of the world in Bioliberals, they adore biotechnology and the natural world. People travel by light organically grown automobiles; Anarcho-evolutionists give up technologies. They maintain that humans should adjust themselves to exist on the planet. They are cyclists who enjoy nature.

I have enjoyed the political statement, which presents a dystopian world each, based on the ‘today’s future technologies’. The designers have chosen transportation as a way to materialise their thoughts and communicate with the audience. In my project: Post-pandemic Landscape: Interiors, I would love to take a similar path to conduct my research. I will use design to materialise five interiors and present an alternative world view.

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UNITED MICRO KINGDOMS:
A DESIGN FICTION

The United Micro Kingdoms (UmK) is divided into four super-shires inhabited by Digitarians, Bioliberals, Anarcho-evolutionists and Communo-nuclearists. Each county is an experimental zone, free to develop its own form of governance, economy and lifestyle. These include neoliberalism and digital technology, social democracy and biotechnology, anarchy and self-experimentation and communism and nuclear energy. The UmK is a deregulated laboratory for competing social, ideological, technological and economic models.

UMK MAP

Move your mouse over Tap on the map to discover the kingdoms→

Digitarians

Digitarians depend on digital technology and all its implicit totalitarianism - tagging, metrics, total surveillance, tracking, data logging and 100% transparency. Their society is organised entirely by market forces; citizen and consumer are the same. For them, nature is there to be used up as necessary. They are governed by technocrats, or algorithms - no one is entirely sure, or even cares - as long as everything runs smoothly and people are presented with choices, even if illusionary. It is the most dystopian, yet familiar of all the micro kingdoms.

DIGICARS

The Digicar is a development of electric self-drive cars being pioneered today. The car has evolved from being a vehicle for navigating space and time, to being an interface for navigating tariffs and markets. Every square metre of road surface and every millisecond of access, at any moment, is monetized and optimised. Passengers are required to stand to minimise the vehicle's footprint, and are happier to communicate virtually with distant friends than fellow commuters.

Today, self-drive cars are presented as social spaces for relaxing commutes, but Digicars are closer to economy airlines, offering the most basic, but humane experience. It is essentially an appliance, or computer, constantly calculating the best, most economic route.

pinterest.com/a3sth3t1cs/digitarians

COMMUNO-NUCLEARISTS

The Communo-nuclearist society is a no-growth, limited population experiment. Using nuclear power to deliver near limitless energy, the state provides everything needed for their continued survival. Although they are energy rich it comes at a price - no one wants to live near them. Under constant threat of attack or accident, they live on a continually moving, 3 kilometre, nuclear-powered mobile landscape. Consequently, they are organised as a highly disciplined mobile micro-state. Fully centralised, everything is planned and regulated. They are voluntary prisoners of pleasure, free from the pressures of daily survival, communists sharing in luxury not poverty. Like a popular night club there is a one-out one-in policy, but for life.

TRAIN

The train is comprised of 75 carriages, each measuring 40 metres in length by 20 metres in width. Straddling two sets of 3 metre wide tracks, it travels at 4 miles per hour, and never stops. Inhabitants live inside the mountain carriages which also contain labs, factories, hydroponic gardens, gyms, dorms, kitchens, nightclubs and everything else they need. On the mountains are swimming pools, fish farms, and bookable huts for periods of isolation. The environment surrounding the tracks, like a demilitarised zone has become a natural paradise, a wilderness to be enjoyed by nature-loving Communo-nuclearists from the safety of their train.

pinterest.com/a3sth3t1cs/boards

BIOLIBERALS

Bioliberals are social democrats who embrace biotechnology and the new values that this entails. They live in a world where the hype of synthetic biology has come true and delivered on its promises - a society in symbiosis with the natural world. Biology is at the centre of their world-view, leading to a radically different technological landscape to our own. Nature is enhanced to meet growing human needs, but people also adjust their needs to match available resources. Each person produces their own energy according to their needs. Bioliberals are essentially farmers, cooks and gardeners. Not just of plants and food, but of products too. Gardens, kitchens and farms replace factories and workshops.

BIOCARS

Bioliberals regard the use of huge amounts of energy to overcome gravity and wind resistance to be counterproductive and primitive. Faster is no longer better. People travel in extremely light organically grown vehicles, each customised to its owner's dimensions and needs.

The bioliberal car combines two technologies: anaerobic digesters that produce gas, and fuel cells that use the gas to produce electricity. Bags of uncompressed gas cannot compete with the efficiency of fossil fuels, a fuel based on millions of years of preparation compared to one that takes hours or days. The resulting cars are bulky, messy, smelly, and made of artificial lab-grown skin, bone and muscle, not literally, but in abstracted forms. Wheels, for example, are powered individually using jelly-like artificial muscles.

pinterest.com/a3sth3t1cs/bioliberals

ANARCHO-EVOLUTIONISTS

The Anarcho-evolutionists abandon most technologies, or at least stop developing them, and concentrate on using science to maximise their own physical capabilities through training, DIY biohacking and self-experimentation. They believe that humans should modify themselves to exist within the limits of the planet rather than modifying the planet to meet their ever growing needs. There are a high number of post-humanists amongst the Anarcho-evolutionists, individuals whose physiologies have been improved beyond that which is considered naturally human. They essentially take evolution into their own hands. Very little is regulated, citizens can do as they please as long as it doesn't harm anyone else.

CYCLIST, BALLOONIST, PITSKY AND HOX

The family or clan is the most important social unit. Families evolve around particular forms of transport using a combination of genetic modification, training and the passing down of knowledge and skills from generation to generation. A distinctive physique is associated with each clan, and is a matter of pride. Cyclists have well developed thighs, while Balloonists are tall and willowy and so on.

As well as modifying themselves, Anarcho-evolutionists have developed new forms of animal to satisfy their needs. The Hox is a mix of horse and ox, a hybrid animal bred to move heavy loads and pull carriages, while the Pitsky is a combination of pit bull terrier and husky, designed for pulling smaller loads and personal protection.

VERY LARGE BIKE (VLB)

The Anarcho-evolutionist's world is a world without cars. Their transport is either human, wind or (genetically modified) animal powered. The vehicles are designed around the principle of organisation without hierarchy and embody their social order and values. Sociability and co-operation are more important than speed and competitiveness.

The Anarcho-evolutionists travel in groups, each doing what they are best at, and each is responsible for a bit of the vehicle. The Very Large Bike (VLB) is designed for travelling long distances in groups, pooling effort and resources. Travelling on abandoned motorways, it is gently steered by leaning, each person knowing from experience and practice just how much is required of them. While the elderly, young and weak are not able to pedal and are carried along by the others, their role is that of expert singers and story tellers, providing entertainment and motivation to the others.

pinterest.com/a3sth3t1cs/anarcho-evolutionists

COMMUNO-NUCLEARISTS

A online discussion about the feasibility of a nuclear powered train:

Some information about SSTARs (small, sealed, transportable, autonomous reactors):

DIGITARIANS

For more about how the design of cars might change due to 'robocars', see Brad Templeton, "New Design Factors for Robot Cars":
http://www.templetons.com/brad/robocars/design-change.html

ANARCHO-EVOLUTIONISTS

OTHER

WHAT ARE DESIGN FICTIONS?

Design fictions are a mix of science, design and fiction. The term describes an emerging area of design that uses storytelling as an experimental device to question the world around us. Using a combination of concepts, objects and visuals, design fictions are propositions for how things could be done differently. Depending on the viewer's perspective, these fictions can be understood as anything from a cautionary tale to a Utopian ideal.

London based designers Dunne & Raby have been working with what they refer to as Critical Design, Speculative Design and thought experiments for many years. Combining elements of industrial design, architecture, anthropology, science and sociology they stimulate discussion and debate about the social, cultural and ethical implications of existing and emerging technologies. Dunne & Raby are also renowned educators, with Anthony Dunne heading the Design Interactions programme at London's Royal College of Art, while Fiona Raby is professor of Industrial Design at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.

In conceiving the United Micro Kingdoms, Dunne & Raby have reinterpreted the car and associated transport systems, offering multiple perspectives on a fictional England. Situated between reality and fiction the exhibition speculates about potential scenarios and challenges our perceived notions about the way that products, services and systems are made and used.

CREDITS

Project concept and design - Dunne & Raby

Graphic design and art direction - Kellenberger-White

Animation and website - Nicolas Myers

3D exhibition design and production - Faudet-Harrison

Tariff structure development - Tobias Revell

Computer generated images - Tomasso Lanza

Computer modelling - Graeme Findlay

Biocar covers - Stefan Schwabe

Photography - Jason Evans

Technical research and design - Nick Williamson

Model production and development - Main Titles, CadAdventure, Unit 22 Modelmakers & Alastair Hamer at Rapidform RCA

Design Museum project management - Alex Newson

The Design Museum would like to thank Camira Fabrics and Abet Laminati for their generous support of the exhibition

Dunne & Raby would like to thank The Royal College of Art; The University of Applied Arts, Vienna; Prof Richard Ashcroft; Mark Beatson; Prof Paul Freemont; Simon Ings and Prof Cynthia Weber

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The United Micro Kingdoms (UmK) is divided into four super-shires inhabited by Digitarians, Bioliberals, Anarcho-evolutionists and Communo-nuclearists. Each county is an experimental zone, free to develop its own form of governance, economy and lifestyle. These include neoliberalism and digital technology, social democracy and biotechnology, anarchy and self-experimentation and communism and nuclear energy.

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London-based designers Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby have been speculating on the consequences of technological advance since the early 1990s. In their role as designers, writers and educators at the Royal College of Art, the duo have been pioneers of critical design, creating objects and imagining scenarios that make us think twice about the future of today's technologies.

Their latest vision is currently on view in "United Micro Kingdoms (UmK): A Design Fiction"at London's Design Museum. Located in a small room on the Museum's top floor, the exhibition depicts an unspecified future in which England has been divided into four "micro kingdoms": Digitarian; Commune-nuclearist; Anarcho-evolutionist; and Bioliberal. With their own political ethos, economic system and way of life, the kingdoms have been conceived as glimpses into potential futures for our own society that allow us to debate their desirability.

This fictional scenario has been illustrated by a series of texts, films, visual representations and objects that characterise the designers' interdisciplinary and multimedia approach. At the centre of the exhibition is a large table occupied by models of the four fictional transport systems that the designers have chosen to represent each society, positioned according to their geographical location. Occupying the Eastern corner are the Digitarians, who have taken today's diet of digital technology and market forces to an extreme end. Computer-controlled Digicars, based on emerging self-driving electric vehicles, transport the kingdom's consumer-citizens at a variety of speeds, routes and comfort levels determined by a complex tariff system that tracks their every move. These pastel and neon confections have a simultaneously threatening and cutely retro air, containing a deliberate ambiguity towards the depicted scenarios that is found throughout the exhibition.

To the West are the Bioliberals. They are similarly technological, but theirs is a biological rather than digital society, made up of farmers, cooks and gardeners who grown everything from the food they eat to the cars they drive - slow and smelly vehicles that prioritise the organic over reaching your destination on time. Equally embracing nature are the Anarcho-evolutionists; a radical society in which the body is the focus of technological experimentation. Located in a Northern wilderness, this is a world of creatures such as the hox (horse and ox), and the cyclist, whose Olympian-sized thighs enable them to move around on the multi-person Very Large Bike (VLB), the transport of choice in this car-free society.

Contemporary technological anxieties are most evident with the Communo-nuclearists. Their survival is guaranteed by an endless supply of nuclear energy, but its unpopularity and hazardous nature has confined their society to a continuously moving nuclear-powered train that cuts through the country's middle. This 3-kilometre-long landscape contains every modern convenience, including a bird watching tower whose inhabitants survey a nature they will never encounter.

Accompanying this fictional scenario is an examination of the methods involved in its creation. Alongside a reading room contains examples of the texts that inform the designers' work, from JG Ballard's dystopian fiction to Sternberg Press' Solution series of geopolitical alternatives, are photographs documenting the making of the Bioliberal cars and wall panels that reveal the centrality of models in their approach more generally. While these insights could be seen to jar with the exhibition's installation-led nature, they reveal a surprisingly traditional side to the designers' approach, one that pulls it back to a more recognisable, and accessible, design language.

The issue of accessibility is potentially problematic for "United Micro Kingdoms", as it is for all design fiction exhibitions. Sandwiched between the Museum's recently re-hung permanent collection and its annual "Designs of the Year" celebration, the text-heavy, stripped-back appearance of "United Micro Kingdoms"seemed to deter a number of visitors, who passed all too quickly through the space to reach these more familiar realms. This was unfortunate; the text panels are rich in well-articulated ideas and the objects that are included raise issues that are pertinent to all of us. The challenge is how to make these ideas comprehensible. The stage has been set for a compelling narrative - the props, the storyboards and the scenery are all here.

However, apart from a series of intriguing photographs at the rear of the space, missing are the actors that could potentially provide the empathy, the emotional hook to connect us more strongly to these scenarios. Similarly, while the accompanying website unitedmicrokingdoms.org provides a forum for debate, more evidence of this inside the exhibition would have been welcome. Dunne and Raby have undoubtedly produced an exhibition worth seeing, whose message on the necessity for debate over our technological future is important. "United Micro Kingdoms" shows the potency of design fiction, but also arguably the importance of being able to imagine ourselves in its fictional scenarios, if we are to participate in this debate and make it effective. Catharine Rossi (@cat_rossi)

Through 26 August 2013
United Micro Kingdoms (UmK): A Design Fiction
Design Museum London
Shad Thames, London

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London-based designers Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby have been speculating on the consequences of technological advance since the early 1990s. In their role as designers, writers and educators at the Royal College of Art, the duo have been pioneers of critical design, creating objects and imagining scenarios that make us think twice about the future of today's technologies.

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Dunne & Raby: From Futures to Realities, Yulia Gromova, Timur Zolotoev

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Dunne & Raby: From Futures to Realities, Yulia Gromova, Timur Zolotoev

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Design duo Dunne and Raby, professors at The New School / Parsons, spoke to Strelka Mag about the evolution of speculative design.

Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby have been using design as a tool to spark discussion and provoke creative thought since the early 90s. Anthony has a background in industrial design and Fiona in architecture. Inspired by the radical Italian designers from the 60s and 70s and by Japanese experimental architecture, they set up the Dunne and Raby Studio in London in 1994. They work at the intersection of design, science, and art, developing projects that vary from creating fictional scenarios to designing hypothetical products.

Their project "Technological Dreams Series: No.1, Robots" (2007) is a reflection on the future of robotics in our everyday lives. "Between Reality and the Impossible" (2010) explores possibilities of synthetic biology to extract nutritional value from non-human foods. For "United Micro Kingdoms" in 2014, Dunne & Raby developed a scenario where England is divided into four super-shires inhabited by Digitarians, Bioliberals, Anarcho-evolutionists, and Communo-nuclearists. All of their projects are communicated through a wide range of mediums: they can be an object, a series of photographs, illustrations, or an animation.

Over the years, Dunne & Raby have accumulated a massive and diverse amount of work and had it exhibited and featured in permanent collections, at MoMA, the Centre Pompidou, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and many others.

But first and foremost in their intellectual pursuit is offering an alternative form of design. Speculative or critical design, as we understand it today, in many ways emerged within the Design Interactions program, which Dunne & Raby composed as a research lab at the Royal College of Art. With dozens of their students and collaborators, they have developed a groundbreaking design practice, a new language, and a new intellectual movement.

Their book "Speculative Everything," published by MIT Press in 2013, is regarded as one of the most important texts on the subject.

Dunne & Raby are now based in New York at The New School / Parsons, running what is called the Designed Realities Lab. They are also part of core faculty at Strelka Institute. Anthony and Fiona spoke to Strelka Mag about the transformation of their design and education practices.

At the Designed Realities Lab, Dunne & Raby continue their research and experiments with a focus on an interdisciplinary approach to social and political thought, world-making, and emerging technology. They advance the ideas expressed in their book "Speculative Everything."

"By the time we published it, we had moved on already. For me, chapter 7, "The Aesthetics of Unreality," is the one chapter that we are pushing on and moving forward with. I think we wrote the entire book because of that one chapter!" says Fiona.

Dunne & Raby accept that critical design as a set of practices and ideas has recently begun to evolve rapidly over a very short period of time.

"Design is adjusting and mutating in order to continue to be able to engage with the world. What we are seeing now is a lot of smaller groups that experiment with new types of context, and new sorts of partnerships working with government policy, with different communities and disciplines," Anthony observes.

Speculative design, by not being bound to commercial logic, opens new opportunities for designers to investigate and experiment.

"There is a framework that still makes sense, but designers can ask questions, formulate hypotheses, experiment, and this allows them to participate in more complex issues, in more interesting ways that complement the fine arts, architecture and other fields. We are only really getting into how that is working here at The New Normal," says Anthony.

Dunne and Raby want to challenge the monolithic vision of the future that comes from the industry. "If we start with the things around us, that we already know, and project them into the future, we are going to end up with an extension of the present which is not so helpful when we are trying to think of more radical alternatives. Trying to think of 'alternative nows' is just as important. Our world, in some ways, has become quite restricted ideologically. There is a mainstream of thought in relation to technology, that is taking us in one direction," notes Fiona.

Future visioning may serve different purposes. For the industry, it sets the direction, helps to open a new market, or test ideas. With speculative design, Dunne & Raby aim to avoid that sort of agenda. "What we have been trying to do is move away from futures, and think more about the world views that underlie technological development. How we could work with philosophers, political scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, to construct alternative world views and then start to use design to materialize those."

Dunne and Raby admit that seeing futures as a framing device is extremely limiting. "The minute you see something as a future vision, people want to know how we get from here to there. There are certain limits for what is regarded plausible and realistic. By trying to move away from futures to world views, we are hoping that we can broaden the range of possible ideas you can entertain, possibly more dramatic and radical. We are starting to think of them more as realities, that is why we are calling our lab in New York the 'Designed Realities Lab'," explains Anthony.

Dunne & Raby have been dealing with technology for the past 20 years and now they feel that space to be very narrow. Moving to the New School and starting to work alongside philosophers, political scientists, and anthropologists has helped them broaden their perspective. "We are not sure how these things manifest themselves. In the end we are very interested in design, we do not want to make systems, the object to us is still very important. When we are looking at science and technology there is a materiality to that, you can extrapolate from. However, if you start moving into the humanities, there is less materiality. How you make that materiality is something we are still exploring. It is a work in progress at the moment, but we are highly stimulated by the conversations we are having here. It is very much opening up our thinking."

So what is the most important skill for the designer of the ХХI century? Dunne & Raby believe imagination is the key factor. It is the foundation from which "a whole set of other skills, methods, approaches, and narratives can spring from," says Anthony. Combined with aesthetics and poetics, imagination can lead to really genuinely radical alternatives. "For us, there is a shift into the more fuzzy, soft, and poetic. I would not call them 'skills,' but maybe sensitivities and sensibilities that need to be coupled with very complex, fast-moving political and technological ideas. Somehow trying to construct educational spaces, where people can experiment and learn about that, is the challenge for us as educators."

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Design duo Dunne and Raby, professors at The New School / Parsons, spoke to Strelka Mag about the evolution of speculative design. Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby have been using design as a tool to spark discussion and provoke creative thought since the early 90s.

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A Lost Cyber utopia: What Happened to The Soviet Internet? Alexander Burenkov

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A Lost Cyber utopia: What Happened to The Soviet Internet? Alexander Burenkov

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While it is common today to view computer technologies as a product of capitalism created with the backing of the Pentagon, back in the USSR of the 1960s some scientists and engineers saw computers as "machines of communism" and put forth their own vision of a global information network.

In her sci-fi video project , Iranian artist tracks Soviet cyberneticians of the 1950s-1980s in their attempt to build a fully automated planned economy. Presenting this as an alternative history, she looks at the economic potential of socialist cybernetic experiments and their power to challenge contemporary financial worldview.

In search of alternative narratives of the future, more and more artists, speculative designers, and researchers from around the world are turning their eyes to the history of Soviet cybernetics. "How might we use computation to get us out of our current state of digital feudalism and towards new possible utopias?" she

On one hand, this allows us to think about how this alternative internet could have changed the course of history. What would the Communist Party and the Soviet military have used the new technology for? Would the Soviet internet have created digital tyranny? Having its own internet, how would the USSR have responded to the drop in oil prices, Perestroika, and Glasnost? And how would the USSR have looked at the turn of 1991? How would the Cold War have unfolded if the internet as we know it had been rivaled by a Soviet alternative since the 1960s?

On the other hand, exploring this legacy allows us to envision what impact the ideas of this unrealized digital socialism could have on our contemporary lives. Noorizadeh's work makes us think what would Vladimir Lenin's famous formula "Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country" sound in a world of blockchain and the Internet of Things?

The USSR wasn't the only country experimenting with cyber-socialism. In 1970, under Salvador Allende, the Chilean government commissioned British cybernetician Stafford Beer to develop a computer system known as Project Cybersyn. However, the vision was abandoned due to the violent military coup led by Agusto Pinochet, and the project was deliberately dismantled.

It was the economic boom in the early 1960s USSR that led to the rise of the idea of Soviet communism with a cybernetic face. The ever-growing economy was now more difficult to manage, the massive amounts of data it generated were hard to process, and industry branches were almost impossible to synchronize. It became clear that public administration tasks needed to be facilitated with the computers and industrial control systems (ICS) that had already been widely used by the defense industry.

After Scarcity is focused on the figure of Victor Glushkov, a visionary mathematician and director of the Cybernetics Institute of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences , led Soviet efforts to deal with the looming economic stagnation. Thanks to him, the country saw the emergence of new specialized institutes and departments within major universities, all of which shared one goal-training new computer and ICS specialists.

"While the Stalinists opposed cybernetics, thinking it bourgeois pseudoscience, cyberneticists like Victor Glushkov rose to prominence in the 1960s as increasing bureaucratic demands of the centrally planned economy threatened to turn the Union into an absurdist administrative state," Noorizadeh says in her film.

One of Glushkov's greatest practical goals was the creation of the National Automated System for Computation and Information Processing (OGAS). He believed that in the face of impending economic stagnation it was the only lifeline for the country's further development. Glushkov envisioned thousands of local computers connected to one another through a regional server. The mainframe network was supposed to be synchronized nationwide and connected to the main computing center in Moscow. The main idea behind the project was to make managerial decision-making less biased and dramatically improve industry and transport efficiency.

Glushkov's project wasn't the only failed attempt to create the Soviet internet. In 1959, Engineer Colonel Anatoly Kitov proposed the creation of a "unified automated management system" for the national economy that would link together large networks of computers installed at large factories and government agencies. The project, however, never received the support of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

The political reasons behind OGAS' failure and the complex relationship between information and power are explored by science historian Slava Gerovich in his article InterNyet: Why the Soviet Union did not build a nationwide computer network . "Cyberneticians aspired to reform the Soviet government with a technological tool whose uses the government itself defined. This resulted, quite naturally, in the transformation of the tool itself-from a vehicle of reform into a pillar of the status quo," he writes.

An obituary published in the United States described Glushkov as the "King of Soviet cybernetics." In his book , published a few months after his death, he wrote a visionary prediction: "Soon enough paper books, newspapers, and magazines will be no more. Every person will have an electronic notebook-a combination of a flat screen and a mini radio transmitter. No matter where you are in the world, if you key a specific code in the notebook, you will be able to summon texts and images from giant remote databases. This will forever replace not only books, newspapers, and magazines, but also television."

Despite being written for a mathematically oriented audience, it became popular with people who had nothing to do with computer science. Glushkov also speculated about computational technologies in everyday life: future TV sets and television, multifunctional telephones, programmed washing machines, paperless documents and correspondence, computer games, language-based programming (a prototype of personal assistants like Siri or Alexa), electronic newspapers and magazines, and even electronic money (a Soviet e-currency project was proposed by Glushkov's team in 1962).

For a New Year's Eve party, the employees of Glushkov's institute came up with "Cybertonia"-a virtual country ruled by a council of robots. Cybertonia enthusiasts organized regular activities in Kyiv and Lviv including conferences and children's parties, published brochures, issued its own currency. It even drafted the Cybertonia Constitution, with Cybertonia becoming a speculative design project that imagined a Soviet cybernetic future that never saw the light of day.

In his 2016 book How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet , media scholar Benjamin Peters clearly shows that bureaucracy was to blame for the failure of the Soviet internet project. Instead of creating a collaborative research environment, different self-interested agencies and bureaucrats diligently stood up only for their own agenda. The Soviet Union was unable to build its own internet-not because it lacked technologies or the institution of private property, but because it was impossible to get a project of this scale approved by all of the necessary agencies, whose interests it sometimes contradicted.

"The first global civilian computer networks were developed among cooperative capitalists, not among competitive socialists. The capitalists behaved like socialists, while the socialists behaved like capitalists," writes Peters.

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A Lost Cyber Utopia: What Happened to the Soviet Internet?

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While it is common today to view computer technologies as a product of capitalism created with the backing of the Pentagon, back in the USSR of the 1960s some scientists and engineers saw computers as "machines of communism" and put forth their own vision of a global information network.

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Of Other Spaces (1967), Heterotopias, lectured by Michel Foucault

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Of Other Spaces (1967), Heterotopias, lectured by Michel Foucault

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The great obsession of the nineteenth century was, as we know, history: with its themes of development and of suspension, of crisis, and cycle, themes of the ever-accumulating past, with its great preponderance of dead men and the menacing glaciation of the world. The nineteenth century found its essential mythological resources in the second principle of thermaldynamics. The present epoch will perhaps be above all the epoch of space. We are in the epoch of simultaneity: we are in the epoch of juxtaposition, the epoch of the near and far, of the side-by-side, of the dispersed. We are at a moment. I believe, when our experience of the world is less that of a long life developing through time than that of a network that connects points and intersects with its own skein. One could perhaps say that certain ideological conﬂicts animating present-day polemics oppose the pious descendents of time and the determined inhabitants of space. Structuralism, or at least which is grouped under this slightly too general name, is the effort to establish, between elements that could have been connected on a temporal axis, an ensemble of relations that makes them appear as juxtaposed, set off against one another, implicated by each other-that makes them appear, in short, as a sort of conﬁguration. Actually, structuralism does not entail denial of time; it does involve a certain manner of dealing with what we call time and what we call history.

Yet it is necessary to notice that the space which today appears to form the horizon of our concerns, our theory, our systems, is not an innovation; space itself has a history in Western experience, and it is not possible to disregard the fatal intersection of time with space. One could say, by way of retracing this history of space very roughly, that in the Middle Ages there was a hierarchic ensemble of places: sacred places and profane plates: protected places and open, exposed places: urban places and rural places (all these concern the real life of men). In cosmological theory, there were the supercelestial places as opposed to the celestial, and the celestial place was in its turn opposed to the terrestrial place. There were places where things had been put because they had been violently displaced, and then on the contrary places where things found their natural ground and stability. It was this complete hierarchy, this opposition, this intersection of places that constituted what could very roughly be called medieval space: the space of emplacement.

This space of emplacement was opened up by Galileo. For the real scandal of Galileo's work lay not so much in his discovery, or rediscovery, that the earth revolved around the sun, but in his constitution of an inﬁnite, and inﬁnitely open space. In such a space the place of the Middle Ages turned out to be dissolved. as it were; a thing's place was no longer anything but a point in its movement, just as the stability of a thing was only its movement indeﬁnitely slowed down. In other words, starting with Galileo and the seventeenth century, extension was substituted for localization.

Today the site has been substituted for extension which itself had replaced emplacement. The site is deﬁned by relations of proximity between points or elements; formally, we can describe these relations as series, trees, or grids. Moreover, the importance of the site as a problem in contemporary technical work is well known: the storage of data or of the intermediate results of a calculation in the memory of a machine, the circulation of discrete elements with a random output (automobile trafﬁc is a simple case, or indeed the sounds on a telephone line); the identiﬁcation of marked or coded elements inside a set that may be randomly distributed, or may be arranged according to single or to multiple classiﬁcations.

In a still more concrete manner, the problem of siting or placement arises for mankind in terms of demography. This problem of the human site or living space is not simply that of knowing whether there will be enough space for men in the world -a problem that is certainly quite important - but also that of knowing what relations of propinquity, what type of storage, circulation, marking, and classiﬁcation of human elements should be adopted in a given situation in order to achieve a given end. Our epoch is one in which space takes for us the form of relations among sites.

In any case I believe that the anxiety of our era has to do fundamentally with space, no doubt a great deal more than with time. Time probably appears to us only as one of the various distributive operations that are possible for the elements that are spread out in space,

Now, despite all the techniques for appropriating space, despite the whole network of knowledge that enables us to delimit or to formalize it, contemporary space is perhaps still not entirely desanctiﬁed (apparently unlike time, it would seem, which was detached from the sacred in the nineteenth century). To be sure a certain theoretical desanctiﬁcation of space (the one signaled by Galileo's work) has occurred, but we may still not have reached the point of a practical desanctiﬁcation of space. And perhaps our life is still governed by a certain number of oppositions that remain inviolable, that our institutions and practices have not yet dared to break down. These are oppositions that we regard as simple givens: for example between private space and public space, between family space and social space, between cultural space and useful space, between the space of leisure and that of work. All these are still nurtured by the hidden presence of the sacred.

Bachelard's monumental work and the descriptions of phenomenologists have taught us that we do not live in a homogeneous and empty space, but on the contrary in a space thoroughly imbued with quantities and perhaps thoroughly fantasmatic as well. The space of our primary perception, the space of our dreams and that of our passions hold within themselves qualities that seem intrinsic: there is a light, ethereal, transparent space, or again a dark, rough, encumbered space; a space from above, of summits, or on the contrary a space from below of mud; or again a space that can be ﬂowing like sparkling water, or space that is ﬁxed, congealed, like stone or crystal. Yet these analyses, while fundamental for reﬂection in our time, primarily concern internal space. I should like to speak now of external space.

The space in which we live, which draws us out of ourselves, in which the erosion of our lives. our time and our history occurs, the space that claws and gnaws at us, is also, in itself, a heterogeneous space. In other words, we do not live in a kind of void, inside of which we could place individuals and things. We do not live inside a void that could be colored with diverse shades of light, we live inside a set of relations that delineates sites which are irreducible to one another and absolutely not superimposable on one another.

Of course one might attempt to describe these different sites by looking for the set of relations by which a given site can be deﬁned. For example, describing the set of relations that deﬁne the sites of transportation, streets, trains (a train is an extraordinary bundle of relations because it is something through which one goes, it is also something by means of which one can go from one point to another, and then it is also something that goes by). One could describe, via the cluster of relations that allows them to be deﬁned, the sites of temporary relaxation -cafes, cinemas, beaches. Likewise one could describe, via its network of relations, the closed or semi-closed sites of rest - the house, the bedroom, the bed, el cetera. But among all these sites, I am interested in certain ones that have the curious property of being in relation with all the other sites, but in such a way as to suspect, neutralize, or invert the set of relations that they happen to designate, mirror, or reﬂect. These spaces, as it were, which are linked with all the others, which however contradict all the other sites, are of two main types.
HETEROTOPIAS
First there are the utopias. Utopias are sites with no real place. They are sites that have a general relation of direct or inverted analogy with the real space of Society. They present society itself in a perfected form, or else society turned upside down, but in any case these utopias are fundamentally unreal spaces.

There are also, probably in every culture, in every civilization, real places - places that do exist and that are formed in the very founding of society - which are something like counter-sites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all the other real sites that can be found within the culture, are simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted. Places of this kind are outside of all places, even though it may be possible to indicate their location in reality. Because these places are absolutely different from all the sites that they reﬂect and speak about, I shall call them, by way of contrast to utopias, heterotopias. I believe that between utopias and these quite other sites, these heterotopias, there might be a sort of mixed, joint experience, which would be the mirror. The mirror is, after all, a utopia, since it is a placeless place. In the mirror, I see myself there where I am not, in an unreal, virtual space that opens up behind the surface; I am over there, there where I am not, a sort of shadow that gives my own visibility to myself, that enables me to see myself there where I am absent: such is the utopia of the mirror. But it is also a heterotopia in so far as the mirror does exist in reality, where it exerts a sort of counteraction on the position that I occupy. From the standpoint of the mirror I discover my absence from the place where I am since I see myself over there. Starting from this gaze that is, as it were, directed toward me, from the ground of this virtual space that is on the other side of the glass, I come back toward myself; I begin again to direct my eyes toward myself and to reconstitute myself there where I am. The mirror functions as a heterotopia in this respect: it makes this place that I occupy at the moment when I look at myself in the glass at once absolutely real, connected with all the space that surrounds it, and absolutely unreal, since in order to be perceived it has to pass through this virtual point which is over there.

As for the heterotopias as such, how can they be described? What meaning do they have? We might imagine a sort of systematic description - I do not say a science because the term is too galvanized now -that would, in a given society, take as its object the study, analysis, description, and "reading" (as some like to say nowadays) of these different spaces, of these other places. As a sort of simultaneously mythic and real contestation of the space in which we live, this description could be called heterotopology.

Its ﬁrst principle is that there is probably not a single culture in the world that fails to constitute heterotopias. That is a constant of every human group. But the heterotopias obviously take quite varied forms, and perhaps no one absolutely universal form of heterotopia would be found. We can however class them in two main categories.

In the so-called primitive societies, there is a certain form of heterotopia that I would call crisis heterotopias, i.e., there are privileged or sacred or forbidden places, reserved for individuals who are, in relation to society and to the human environment in which they live, in a state of crisis: adolescents, menstruating women, pregnant women. the elderly, etc. In out society, these crisis heterotopias are persistently disappearing, though a few remnants can still be found. For example, the boarding school, in its nineteenth-century form, or military service for young men, have certainly played such a role, as the ﬁrst manifestations of sexual virility were in fact supposed to take place "elsewhere" than at home. For girls, there was, until the middle of the twentieth century, a tradition called the "honeymoon trip" which was an ancestral theme. The young woman's deﬂowering could take place "nowhere" and, at the moment of its occurrence the train or honeymoon hotel was indeed the place of this nowhere, this heterotopia without geographical markers.

But these heterotopias of crisis are disappearing today and are being replaced, I believe, by what we might call heterotopias of deviation: those in which individuals whose behavior is deviant in relation to the required mean or norm are placed. Cases of this are rest homes and psychiatric hospitals, and of course prisons, and one should perhaps add retirement homes that are, as it were, on the borderline between the heterotopia of crisis and the heterotopia of deviation since, after all, old age is a crisis, but is also a deviation since in our society where leisure is the rule, idleness is a sort of deviation.

The second principle of this description of heterotopias is that a society, as its history unfolds, can make an existing heterotopia function in a very different fashion; for each heterotopia has a precise and determined function within a society and the same heterotopia can, according to the synchrony of the culture in which it occurs, have one function or another.

As an example I shall take the strange heterotopia of the cemetery. The cemetery is certainly a place unlike ordinary cultural spaces. It is a space that is however connected with all the sites of the city, state or society or village, etc., since each individual, each family has relatives in the cemetery. In western culture the cemetery has practically always existed. But it has undergone important changes. Until the end of the eighteenth century, the cemetery was placed at the heart of the city, next to the church. In it there was a hierarchy of possible tombs. There was the charnel house in which bodies lost the last traces of individuality, there were a few individual tombs and then there were the tombs inside the church. These latter tombs were themselves of two types, either simply tombstones with an inscription, or mausoleums with statues. This cemetery housed inside the sacred space of the church has taken on a quite different cast in modern civilizations, and curiously, it is in a time when civilization has become "atheistic," as one says very crudely, that western culture has established what is termed the cult of the dead.

Basically it was quite natural that, in a time of real belief in the resurrection of bodies and the immortality of the soul, overriding importance was not accorded to the body's remains. On the contrary, from the moment when people are no longer sure that they have a soul or that the body will regain life, it is perhaps necessary to give much more attention to the dead body, which is ultimately the only trace of our existence in the world and in language. In any case, it is from the beginning of the nineteenth century that everyone has a right to her or his own little box for her or his own little personal decay, but on the other hand, it is only from that start of the nineteenth century that cemeteries began to be located at the outside border of cities. In correlation with the individualization of death and the bourgeois appropriation of the cemetery, there arises an obsession with death as an "illness." The dead, it is supposed, bring illnesses to the living, and it is the presence and proximity of the dead right beside the houses, next to the church, almost in the middle of the street, it is this proximity that propagates death itself. This major theme of illness spread by the contagion in the cemeteries persisted until the end of the eighteenth century, until, during the nineteenth century, the shift of cemeteries toward the suburbs was initiated. The cemeteries then came to constitute, no longer the sacred and immortal heart of the city, but the other city, where each family possesses its dark resting place.

Third principle. The heterotopia is capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible. Thus it is that the theater brings onto the rectangle of the stage, one after the other, a whole series of places that are foreign to one another; thus it is that the cinema is a very odd rectangular room, at the end of which, on a two-dimensional screen, one sees the projection of a three-dimensional space, but perhaps the oldest example of these heterotopias that take the form of contradictory sites is the garden. We must not forget that in the Orient the garden, an astonishing creation that is now a thousand years old, had very deep and seemingly superimposed meanings. The traditional garden of the Persians was a sacred space that was supposed to bring together inside its rectangle four parts representing the four parts of the world, with a space still more sacred than the others that were like an umbilicus, the navel of the world at its center (the basin and water fountain were there); and all the vegetation of the garden was supposed to come together in this space, in this sort of microcosm. As for carpets, they were originally reproductions of gardens (the garden is a rug onto which the whole world comes to enact its symbolic perfection, and the rug is a sort of garden that can move across space). The garden is the smallest parcel of the world and then it is the totality of the world. The garden has been a sort of happy, universalizing heterotopia since the beginnings of antiquity (our modern zoological gardens spring from that source).

Fourth principle. Heterotopias are most often linked to slices in time - which is to say that they open onto what might be termed, for the sake of symmetry, heterochronies. The heterotopia begins to function at full capacity when men arrive at a sort of absolute break with their traditional time. This situation shows us that the cemetery is indeed a highly heterotopic place since, for the individual, the cemetery begins with this strange heterochrony, the loss of life, and with this quasi-eternity in which her permanent lot is dissolution and disappearance.

From a general standpoint, in a society like ours heterotopias and heterochronies are structured and distributed in a relatively complex fashion. First of all, there are heterotopias of indeﬁnitely accumulating time, for example museums and libraries, Museums and libraries have become heterotopias in which time never stops building up and topping its own summit, whereas in the seventeenth century, even at the end of the century, museums and libraries were the expression of an individual choice. By contrast, the idea of accumulating everything, of establishing a sort of general archive, the will to enclose in one place all times, all epochs, all forms, all tastes, the idea of constituting a place of all times that is itself outside of time and inaccessible to its ravages, the project of organizing in this way a sort of perpetual and indeﬁnite accumulation of time in an immobile place, this whole idea belongs to our modernity. The museum and the library are heterotopias that are proper to western culture of the nineteenth century.

Opposite these heterotopias that are linked to the accumulation of time, there are those linked, on the contrary, to time in its most ﬂowing, transitory, precarious aspect, to time in the mode of the festival. These heterotopias are not oriented toward the eternal, they are rather absolutely temporal [chroniques]. Such, for example, are the fairgrounds, these "marvelous empty sites on the outskirts of cities" that teem once or twice a year with stands, displays, heteroclite objects, wrestlers, snakewomen, fortune-tellers, and so forth. Quite recently, a new kind of temporal heterotopia has been invented: vacation villages, such as those Polynesian villages that offer a compact three weeks of primitive and eternal nudity to the inhabitants of the cities. You see, moreover, that through the two forms of heterotopias that come together here, the heterotopia of the festival and that of the eternity of accumulating time, the huts of Djerba are in a sense relatives of libraries and museums. for the rediscovery of Polynesian life abolishes time; yet the experience is just as much the,, rediscovery of time, it is as if the entire history of humanity reaching back to its origin were accessible in a sort of immediate knowledge,

Fifth principle. Heterotopias always presuppose a system of opening and closing that both isolates them and makes them penetrable. In general, the heterotopic site is not freely accessible like a public place. Either the entry is compulsory, as in the case of entering a barracks or a prison, or else the individual has to submit to rites and puriﬁcations. To get in one must have a certain permission and make certain gestures. Moreover, there are even heterotopias that are entirely consecrated to these activities of puriﬁcation -puriﬁcation that is partly religious and partly hygienic, such as the hammin of the Moslems, or else puriﬁcation that appears to be purely hygienic, as in Scandinavian saunas.

There are others, on the contrary, that seem to be pure and simple openings, but that generally hide curious exclusions. Everyone can enter into thew heterotopic sites, but in fact that is only an illusion- we think we enter where we are, by the very fact that we enter, excluded. I am thinking for example, of the famous bedrooms that existed on the great farms of Brazil and elsewhere in South America. The entry door did not lead into the central room where the family lived, and every individual or traveler who came by had the right to ope this door, to enter into the bedroom and to sleep there for a night. Now these bedrooms were such that the individual who went into them never had access to the family's quarter the visitor was absolutely the guest in transit, was not really the invited guest. This type of heterotopia, which has practically disappeared from our civilizations, could perhaps be found in the famous American motel rooms where a man goes with his car and his mistress and where illicit sex is both absolutely sheltered and absolutely hidden, kept isolated without however being allowed out in the open.

Sixth principle. The last trait of heterotopias is that they have a function in relation to all the space that remains. This function unfolds between two extreme poles. Either their role is to create a space of illusion that exposes every real space, all the sites inside of which human life is partitioned, as still more illusory (perhaps that is the role that was played by those famous brothels of which we are now deprived). Or else, on the contrary, their role is to create a space that is other, another real space, as perfect, as meticulous, as well arranged as ours is messy, ill constructed, and jumbled. This latter type would be the heterotopia, not of illusion, but of compensation, and I wonder if certain colonies have not functioned somewhat in this manner. In certain cases, they have played, on the level of the general organization of terrestrial space, the role of heterotopias. I am thinking, for example, of the ﬁrst wave of colonization in the seventeenth century, of the Puritan societies that the English had founded in America and that were absolutely perfect other places. I am also thinking of those extraordinary Jesuit colonies that were founded in South America: marvelous, absolutely regulated colonies in which human perfection was effectively achieved. The Jesuits of Paraguay established colonies in which existence was regulated at every turn. The village was laid out according to a rigorous plan around a rectangular place at the foot of which was the church; on one side, there was the school; on the other, the cemetery, and then, in front of the church, an avenue set out that another crossed at ﬁght angles; each family had its little cabin along these two axes and thus the sign of Christ was exactly reproduced. Christianity marked the space and geography of the American world with its fundamental sign.

The daily life of individuals was regulated, not by the whistle, but by the bell. Everyone was awakened at the same time, everyone began work at the same time; meals were at noon and ﬁve o'clock, then came bedtime, and at midnight came what was called the marital wake-up, that is, at the chime of the churchbell, each person carried out her/his duty.

Brothels and colonies are two extreme types of heterotopia, and if we think, after all, that the boat is a ﬂoating piece of space, a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the inﬁnity of the sea and that, from port to port, from tack to tack, from brothel to brothel, it goes as far as the colonies in search of the most precious treasures they conceal in their gardens, you will understand why the boat has not only been for our civilization, from the sixteenth century until the present, the great instrument of economic development (I have not been speaking of that today), but has been simultaneously the greatest reserve of the imagination. The ship is the heterotopia par excellence. In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventure, and the police take the place of pirates.

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This text, entitled "Des Espace Autres," and published by the French journal Architecture /Mouvement/ Continuité in October, 1984, was the basis of a lecture given by Michel Foucault in March 1967. Although not reviewed for publication by the author and thus not part of the official corpus of his work, the manuscript was released into the public domain for an exhibition in Berlin shortly before Michel Foucault's death.

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Stage three project is not necessary to continue stage two. It allows space to one developing a design research based on personal interest. The expectation in Stage Three is different from previous stages. It emphasises on communication of ideas. It focuses on how to translate research into practice through methods such as visualisation, model, texture, animation, etc.

We are advised to distribute daily or weekly tasks for our research process ourselves. We should prepare a focal point to discuss with the help of visualisation or diagram and o on in a tutorial.

The abstract should presents the preferred methodologies to conduct the research in depth. It should well frame our idea as well.

Notes:
1. Learning outcome - critical - communicate research idea
2. Not necessarily continue stage 2.
- What you'd like to explore?
- Making a research
3. communicate ideas
- visual
- model
- texture
- animation
4. design/ research which comes first?
- Timetable/ diagram allocate tasks
5. Abstract - methodologies
- tutorial - what to discuss - frame your idea...
6. visualisation/ Diagram - prepared for tutorial (PPT, Padlet, etc.)
7. Research - Not to know what you're findings are for is okay for now?
8. methodologies!!!
9. excitement & confidence needed to conduct this research

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Notes:
1. Graphic Design background
2. Stage 2 - impossible to predict future architecture - we should build things in time - detail - construction detail - assembling space hands-on.
3. Personal interest in exhibition design continued to develop in stage 3 - How do changing social, cultural and economical conditions in the gallery space, and the engagement with the art audience? - How gallery design can better engage with its' audience or context?
a) historical context - view of the Grand Salon, Louvre - collection of paintings - general public access - museum open for the public - public empowerment.
b) case studies:
- Picasso, MoMa (1939) - celebration/ showcase as the artist's expected?
- Yayoi Kusama Art - respond to social change - arise of mobile photographic technology.
- investigation on different gallery layout: Open-plan vs Traditional
- Nene National gallery, Mies Van der Rohe - circulate space as wish.
- Kimbell Art Museum, Louis Kahn/ MoMa, Alfred Bar-Jr.
- Lina Bobard - display concept
- Amos' world, Cecile B. Evans - movement/ freedom
c) Phil's design
- a staircase to the painting - make an efforts to visit an art piece
- idea of classification

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Questions:
Keywords: Speculative - Post-pandemic - Dystopia - Raison d'état - Change in socialisation and communication

1) Why was the research conducted?
Many governments in the world begin to suffer financial problems, due to the Coronavirus. Some blame the other countries for the consequence, and ask for compensation; some pretend the situation is now safe to let citizens go out and work. Although global efforts are being made to bring out a vaccine, I wonder what if a vaccine never comes? The term, ‘New Normal’, which describes our near future after the pandemic, has been widely discussed by many. Moving away from the present and future, I have wanted to speculate, from a dystopian point of view, an alternative post-pandemic landscape. In the dystopia, extreme measures such as absolute social distancing and one-way shopping system will be seriously imposed in society. Through five significant interiors, I have wanted to discuss how far we are from this alternative future.

During Covid-19, freedom of movement and speech is more or less under suppression in the world. The research aims to delineate a dystopian society, speculating through space how the norm of socialisation could be changed and manipulated by the authorities.

2) How was the research conducted?
The research will be contextualised by taking reference to numerous reading materials, including philosophy, politics, sci-fi novels. With understanding post-anthropocentric theory and biopolitics, I will design five significant Interiors in the post-pandemic society: 1) Restaurants and Pubs, 2) Schools, 3) Factories 4) Retail Shops and 5) Transportation. Through the spatial design, I will draw a summary about the alternative future and reflect the so-called ‘new normal’ we are expecting to enter now.

3) What were the main outcomes and results?
The primary outcomes are expected to be five principal interiors, which will depict a new set of the conceptual design of restaurants, schools, factories, retail shop and transportation, and somehow ironically arouse a social awareness. The speculated interiors will adapt extreme rules to maximise the health and safety of people. Notably, communication and interaction between people will become more restricted because the virus is airborne, while production will be highly emphasised and dependent on machines.

4) What were the principal conclusions, derived from the results or outcome?
Derived from the results, the research aims to present another kind of world view, which somehow bears some resemblance to today circumstances, but different. Different from today society, this speculated society is dystopian and goes even further; it enforces more extreme measures to run and maintain its’ economy, even though risking the ordinary’s health and safety

5) So what is the significance of the research conclusions and outcomes?
Taking the potential of spread of COVID-19 as an excuse, The U.S. has banned the Chinese entering their country; Tiananmen vigil was banned in the first time over the past thirty years in Hong Kong. Significantly, the research conclusions and outcomes try to reflect today political climate, and challenges whether we are still far from that extreme, totalitarian, dystopian society.

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An essential significance of a culture reflects on its' language. If a pandemic is about to engender a 'New Normal', a new culture, I believe there it will also be accompanied with new terms in our language.

a) Restaurant & Bar = ?
b) Schools = ?
c) Factories = ?
d) Retail = ?
e) Transportation = ?

Order is, at one and the same time, that which is given in things as their inner law, the hidden network that determines the way they confront one another, and also that which has no existence except in the grid created by a glance, an examination, a language; and it is only in the blank spaces of this grid that order manifests itself in depth as though already there, waiting in silence for the moment of its expression. (preface xxi)

The fundamental codes of a culture – those governing its language, its schemas of perception, its exchanges, its techniques, its values, the hierarchy of its practices – establish for every man, from the very first, the empirical orders with which he will be dealing and within which he will be at home. (preface x)