So, I will now introduce our third speaker of the day. After this little break, I hope that you enjoyed Motoko Ishibashi's performance. There will be a second iteration of the performance this afternoon. So our third speaker is Ingrid Lukigade. Ingrid Lukigade is an art critic based in Paris. She is an editor for Les Enrecupables, Spike Art Magazine and a correspondent for Flash Art, among others. She writes about how artists give form to techno-political shifts in individual and collective subjectivity. As a PhD candidate at Université Paris-en-Porte-au-Sorbonne in Paris with Vincent Sandny, her research centers on artistic autonomy strategies during the 2010 decade. Welcome, Ingrid. Thank you so much, Clémentine, for your introduction. Thank you to Bettina for having me here. And thank you all to be here present today. So, my topic will go back a bit further in time. I'm going to have a bit of a wider historical frame, but that is to speak about the present. I'm trying to go back really to nowadays, but not through chronological reading, and especially not through a teleological one, but rather by identifying several moments in time where a figure of the artist relating to a certain totality, to a certain moment of change out of chaos can merge. So the title of my introduction is called, and that is the wordplay, Majeruismimimimim, but actually I wanted to speak about, first of all, the perils of having a true historical approach of newness, and then second to see maybe how some recursive strategies have occurred over time. So I will start very chronologically with this very first approach of how contemporaries have approached Michel Majeruist's self-professed newness, as the newness has been a characteristic often taken up by commentators at the time of Majeruist's life. A telling example is a 1997 portrait by Daniel Bienbaum in Fritz Magazine titled The Power of Now. This was only one year after the breakthrough show at the 1996 at Kunsthaler Basel, so it was also an article that was to become time-giving. The first sentence is starting and setting the tone. For Michel Majeruist's art history is over. All images that have ever existed appear to be represented in his work simultaneously on an infinitely rich and hospitable present. Another entry point would be the notes of the artist himself that have been compiled through his sketchbook in the publication Notizen by Brigitte Fransen and relating to now-ness one finds several entries. The first would be what is it about these times that makes them so representative in 1995 or all paintings that have been painted anew. When I say all paintings that I mean all those paintings we know and we no longer want to see because they've had that day. You can't drink milk all the time. It turns sour sometimes too. And this was also in 1995. One recurrent expression of Michel Majeruist as we have already seen in the previous conference is referring to his four bears as dead suckers. But with Majeruist's own work, his newness also bears this very same peril, that of turning into history. In her essay for the same catalogue about the notes, Brigitte Fransen brings up this very point. What looks like nothing but pure banality screamed out loud acquired a historical dimension over the years. Suddenly the painting of Michel Majeruist filed into line historically. They are no longer that dynamic and loud, no longer that fleeting and superficial, no longer as obvious as before. And then of course there is the title of this symposium, which is taken from the 2000 painting what looks good today might not look good tomorrow. Regarding to this topic of history, a third point to keep in mind would be a very generational reading. It is also one with bears the same perils of a symptomatic reading. This approach is the one that would emerge later in the turn of the millennium, and also posthumously. To Peter Paquetch, a critic, reminiscing about his first encounter with the work in 1994 through the exhibition at Neuger in Schneider Gallery in Berlin, he would write about Michel Majeruist as the sharp-eyed painter of the cyber generation. Günther Hallowschwister in the same catalogue of the installation from Michel Majeruist would similarly also declare Trondet so as to encompass the death of Michel Majeruist. He was writing about his paintings. He must have had the notion of a virtual structure in his head. And in 2006, the same Daniel Bienbaum, writing posthumously again in Artforum, also chose to embrace this later reading. The cybernetic reception at the turn of the 2000 had then become the dominant one. And in the article Search Engine, he was writing, to an eye not trained as a visual logic of computer games, the space can make little sense. But is it then possible today, with our eyes and minds now trained to encompass this cybernetic logic, to experience the same overwhelming disorientation when faced with the works? Or are the works, on the contrary, condemned to maybe have another reception which would be to help us understand how at the time the senses of the painter and the onlookers were configured? Is the work then condemned to bear witness to a certain historical configuration of the senses? Or can we try to understand differently the meaning of Michel Majeruist's works in history? There is, sorry, there is, however, another way to approach Michel Majeruist's legacy. This reading is the one that I wanted to refer to with the title and with the two terms, mimetic and mimetic. So this mimetic quality would be then to understand a certain way of relating to totality, or more precisely to a certain totality, one that is still time-specific, but recaptures at a wider strategy and potentially also recurring in time. This alternative strand is already present in the early readings of Majeruist, but is only mentioned fleetingly. To come back to the same 1997 portrait, Daniel Bienbaum is also speaking of a will to encompass everything. This, however, is relating to the treatment of the painterly medium. The will to encompass everything is then related to the size of the huge paintings and the fact that no image is no longer irrelevant or worthy of attention. However, it can also be expanded beyond the medium, so as to encompass a relation of the artist to a given totality. Contrary to simply situating oneself inside art history, this would then be a more horizontal reading. It also has to do with a certain compulsion, which is a word that the artist would use time and time again in his notes. In the same notes from April 1995, he is writing, such an order is a preponderance of the compulsion coming from a specific prevailing order. The term is connotating an uncontrable urge, a irrational obsession, as well as a coercive force. One can also keep in mind another much analyzed snippet of the works, which would be folk the intention of the artist, positioned on the 2000 skate ramp. The skate ramp shows from there on a way to approach the strategy of mimetic exacerbation. This strategy or tactic is hinting at a wish to fully merge with a symbolic order, so as to better expose its workings. It is a non-critical one without any value judgment, but at the peril of a paranoiac turnout. The specific phrase mimetic exacerbation appears not so long after the installation of the skate ramp in 2000. It was developed in a 2003 article by Hal Foster titled Data Mime and published by The Journal October. The critic Hal Foster then looks back at the dataist artist, working at the turn of the 1920 decades. In response to another paradigmatic moment of accelerated change and dehumanizing chaos, what interests him in this article is a specific figure of the artist. Drawing from the example of Hugo Bohr's performance at Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, here on the first image, he characterizes the position of the artist as exorcist as possessed at the same time. A key persona of data is a traumatic mime, using the strategy of mimetic adaptation, whereby the dataist then assumes the diastrate of his time, namely the armoring of the military body, the fragmenting of the military worker, and the commodifying of the capitalist subject, and then goes on to inflate them through hyperbole or hypertrophy. Accordingly, the dataist is not giving up on totality, but embracing it to the peril of their own persona and sanity. He is still so convinced of the unity of all beings, of the totality of all things, that he suffers from the dissonance to the point of self-disintegration. It is a dangerous game where there is no sublimation nor catharsis at the end of the process. It is also uncertain in its effect, as it's assuming a position of a critique that flaunts its own fertility. At the very end of the article, it's also suggesting a way to enlarge this position and maybe expand it to a post-war artist like Andy Warhol, which would be a version of this figure refitted to consumer society. There are several clues in mission-measure's works that would corroborate this take. As early as 1998, one of the two works installed for Manifesta II in Luxembourg already indicated that paranoia is a trait of fine arts. But to look like a detective for the small clues in the work would be to miss the point. The idea is much rather that of a total chaos that demands to be left as such, left as a chaotic moment, left as a totality, and then maybe that would be best exemplified by the skate ramp, which we have already seen. The point of the skate ramp then is not so much to be a large painting, it is not so much a size, than the fact that it has a convex surface. To see the painting, one has to enter it, to be lost in it, and to walk over it or skate it. In short, this is already to subject oneself to a feeling of totality, of being engulfed in a pool, and this, in turn, produces, rather than only reproduces, represents or abstracts, adhesion and descent of totality. It is not a coincidence that this ramp would appear in the later part of Michel Madre's production at the turn of the decade. In 2000, it was not only that the painter's own production has changed, deepened or expanded, but it was more fundamentally that the conditions of the time and the settings of the totality it was relating to had changed. The same year, in 2000 as well, Michel Hart and Anthony Negri published their very influential essay, Empire. Empire was a theorization of a new world order, which was breaching with the older imperialist modernism, and now enveloping the globalized super-national world. The new order envelops the entire space of civilization, meaning that from now on, any response, involvement, or attempt to push against it can only occur from inside and against Empire. In their recent 2019 article published by New Left Review, they are commemorating the 20 years of its publication and writing. The fact that no nation state is able to fill the hegemonic role of the emerging global order is not a diagnosis of chaos and disorder, but rather it reveals the emergence of a new global power and structure and indeed a new form of serenity. The legacy of Michel Madre is also one that can be read with a timely conscience of having to work from the inside of a new scale and a new reality. Such a way of situating oneself horizontally in relation to the totality would then start with a dataist to echo Michel Madre's but also encompass another iteration in time, and namely the loose grouping of artists that were growing up in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis that dropped out of art school and that came together on the platform of the Web 2.0, trying to produce images from yet another moment of chaotic imagery and ever-exaggerated perceptual conditions and ultimately also imploded when they set foot in the institutional setting. So here as well, the notion of time is of course very present. This magazine, because it's the artist I wanted to take as a third comparison, were active from 2010 to 2016. And here I wanted to look more especially at the 9 Berlin Biennale curated by the collective and titled The Present in Drag, not only because there is a approach of time but also because it's the point when the collective would explode and seize its activities. The introduction to the catalogue starts with, welcome to the post-contemporary. The future feels like the past, familiar, predictable, immutable, leaving the present with the uncertainties of the future. And then as a declaration of intent, let's give a body to the problem of the present where they occur so as to make them a matter of agency and not of spectatorship. This other totality calls for a similar strategy. It is not so much that the visual material is comparable because the order has, since those decades, become less and less legible. So where we used to have cybernetics and video game, we now have the seamless air-condition co-working spaces and the branding that has gotten way more effective. But a first example to the parallel can be maybe the way of intervening in physical space. And so from there, I want to come back to this image from the 1998 manifesto in Luxembourg. Michel Margerit chose to install one of his true works in this cafeteria space at the Utopolis Cinema. And actually there is a telegram to Ulrike Gross who was responsible for the project where he is explaining his choice, saying they've got this huge popcorn bar there. I think it's the only one at the whole cinema. Just where the bar starts on the left, there is a concrete wall five meters wide. This is just the wall from the work, the gym shoe and the color waves. The environment itself with a Coca-Cola advertisement doesn't immediately signal the art quality of the painting and that actually was also a reason of its very popular success at the time. This as well initially started. They are very practiced by investing in non-art spaces. And here it is a view from the 2014 show that produced called This Own Not For Everyone taking place in spring of 2014. And that was an art exhibition posing as a retail store according to the press release and which was set at Red Bull Studios in New York. So it was a collective show with artists and collectives and just to name a few, K-Hole, Telfar, Dora Bouddard, Simon Fujihwara, Lizzie Fitch and Ryan Tricartin, or Amalia Ullman. So here instead of the gossip magazines such as Bravo, all the Disney movies such as Tron, we now had Ikea bags, Ikea laundry bags with this logo or with stock photography collaged on it.  But this to them was a way specifically of showing also the structural condition they were working against in the sense that they wanted so the collective to produce aura without the hypocrisy since any museum as well was permeated by this very commercial logic. At the Berlin Biennale, it's a bit of a different approach since this was already a Biennale, so already an institution space and there were however several examples of those environments and to keep in tune with the cafeteria space I wanted to choose the juice bar from Deborah Del Mar Cop called Mint and installed in 2016 at the Academia der Künste for the Berlin Biennale. This also was mining the iconography of all the health-driven and very exploitative lifestyle but it was also a function in bar so taking place inside institutional space and selling green juice. The similar strategy of exposing certain structural workings by Mimesis is at play because the name itself is an acronym of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey which were the fruit exporting markets at the time that of course didn't receive as much in return as the developed countries which were branding and then selling the juices. Reportedly, Majer is two works at Manifesta had a very different reception between both. The first one, the one with tennis shoe was an instant success with the art world. The other one, however, with the more classical setup like this was received as a relative disappointment and this one was the one which was set in the building of the Manifesta itself. But then for the 9 Berlin Biennale, the reception was very different. I wanted to take this example of a much quoted article in The Guardian by Jason Farago titled Welcome to Lol House how Berlin's Biennale became a slick, sarcastic joke and which is mentioning among the incriminating evidence the juice bar we have just seen or also the selfie-up work at the entrance of the Kavi building in Berlin. What is very interesting is that this article is precisely leading its charge in the name of newness. At the very least, the right. No one seems to have read an art history textbook. There is a century of precedence for artistic intercession into mass culture that undermined the fetishised newness parodied here. The other then compares the Biennale to historical precedence that to him on the contrary had been very successful. So he's naming Bada once again or Marcel Duchamp which had already turned himself into a cooperation with the Monte Carlo band in 1924 but also interestingly a nineties collective called Art Club 2000 who was staging mock fashion shows with gap closing. So something very interesting is happening here because what is it really that makes the strategy of the Biennale and of this magazine so different in its similar fusion with the consumerist mentality? What is it that makes its reception so opposite? What is it that has shifted so that one would perceive those strategies so differently as to write for them? Art is hopelessly tainted by commerce and the past is for circus. What has happened between a playful dismissal of dead circus and a past that can be only for circus because this magazine is not cultured enough to have opened a history textbook? And again the ambiguous celebration of newness here is read as a charge of not knowing what comes before whereas in the nineties Michel Majors was read and received as a painter of newness. This was on the contrary a way of knowing art history but then repurposing it. Michel Majors spatial intervention that we have seen and that I will maybe speak a bit more quicker about also includes so this work the Schleunigang at Munich Central Station. This is another one that was also interesting to me because it is in a hotel hall and a bit earlier and then also the social palace that we have seen but then also the television accidental television footage on CNN. So throughout his life those attempts at bringing art into the public space which were maybe less attempts at bridging art and life but maybe rather of heading towards an unprecedented fusion were all very well received, encouraged and even requested. I am speaking about an unprecedented fusion because this is a work the word that is used by two smartness in her essay the complex answer for the catalogue of the Ninth Berlin Biennale again and she is writing it is known that we need to collapse the core premises of aesthetics the distances separate art from institutions, viewers and the artists themselves. However this implies a nearness or unprecedented fusion of substances having remained in the path for so long that it could demand new organs that is a whole theory of relevance of senses in an epistemology to come. So this again is further dismantling a chronological reading of new organs because by then by 2016 we would have fully have the time to develop new organs since the 90s. So what separates both moments has then less to do with the relation to totality rather than to its institutions. With Majeru's the act of remixing content or translating it back to art history extends to institutions because similarly institutions are not fully dismissed as his interventions in public space or in commercial spaces are always framed by a certain context and that would be manifesto for instance or open art Munich. So they are enacted as a side step and intervening in parallel also between real shows. However with this magazine it is another paradigm the conditions that they are responding to have hardened the phase in institution is then at its lowest and in the wake of the economic crash of 2008 and the post-occupied war three years then this name has worked from the outside at first and seek autonomy from any artistic institution. So a last entry point would then concern an ultra contemporary approach of totality and that would be this time the meme. Majeru's was aspiring to an art aimed lower but wider but this was still aimed at art history because the phase in the present was still strong at his time. So with the dataists as well as Majeru's they were living in moments of tremendous change but it was still a change and not a stasis even the data is sometimes changing not for the better but still mutating and accelerating. So as there was still something that could be repurposed whereas afterwards it became a moment of stillness. Majeru's production period was encapsulated as we have already seen between the birth of the Internet in 1996 and the advent of a globalised world order but after him and after the 2016 Berlin Biennale this would coincide with a moment that was to become riddled by crisis depth and art for the 1%. And to go even further this means that the recurrence of the mimetic exacerbation tactic might have come to an end in 2016 with the Berlin Biennale. This also was more profoundly a way of highlighting a certain hypocrisy that then was going to come to its fullest expression. In an art firm article Christopher Glazek for instance is writing large corporations under right museums exhibition all the time. The difference with this was that they highlighted here Red Bull's involvement instead of consuming it. And with the Biennale it was also retrospective that was a performative ending as a platform was closed in the following months. So if history returns then as we know first as fast but maybe then as a meme. And in his 2019 book Can the Left Learn to Meme Mike Watson who is a philosopher who has worked a lot of Adorno is also diagnosing the lack of utopian vision of the very current generation due to a collapse of the avant-garde stream of democratising creativity. But he still has a hope in an attempt to match the madness of our media world either through interaction with its absurdity or by temporarily staving off a safe and wholly fabricated space within it. Except that in his approach which is very still comparable to dataism and later iterations. The art world now has been totally cut out of the equation and this also means any artistic production that would try to put back inside the museum, inside art history the aesthetics of what is emerging online. For him the trouble is that the art world has become inextricably linked with finance while remaining as culturally elitist as it always was. So for him it is not that there can't be any freedom agency or creativity within that very same shared midgetic sphere of experience. It is not that there can't be any user friendly response to totality but rather that any time that the aesthetic of online memes, video games of do-it-yourself videos are put back into anything that resembles art history of art institutions. This only means to reproduce a capitalist mechanism where anything that looks outside the system and then being cannibalized and put back in. So therefore to my question still, art is today perhaps the most archaic metagia in existence and even when art appropriates these aesthetics. So I think to look back at Michel Majore's work in the way that they relate to a certain totality and in the way as they enact a certain strategy it is also a way of learning from his work accuracy. Twenty years later it is very probable that the tactics that he was employing would miss the point because the time has changed and he is not responding to those same coordinates. But at the same time Michel Majore was not prescient and his work did not by any higher consciousness anticipate the recent or present technometric condition and I think that's maybe a big peril of wanting to put back his work in a post-internet genealogy. But I think to say so, to say that he was responding very specifically to his own conditions is also a tribute to the work's accuracy and to a certain perceiving body's discernment. It is also a testimony to how an individual voice can emerge in a playful interaction with a mesh of common denominators which are both at the same time restricting a subject but also a way for him or her to push back. Thank you Ingrid. So yeah, as you demonstrated first through this slide and also when you quoted the statement from the this Berlin Biennale, it seems that we're a bit stuck in a moment like we're experiencing a kind of stasis that has been widely discussed also by Marc Fischer. And as contrast to that, it seems that Majore was living in a time of drastic change but also of excitement and of playfulness and of curiosity maybe. And I was wondering and I was very interested in the way you contrasted the aesthetics of the end of the 90s when Majores was active and his aesthetics. So using like Disney characters, comics, etc. How you contrasted it with the very sleek aesthetics for instance of this. I was wondering if you could expand a bit more on these aesthetic tendencies that are 20 or 30 years apart. A point also that maybe I didn't get enough across was the idea of paranoia. And that is also why I wanted to go back to dataism so that it wouldn't seem like history is progressing on one way line. So I think what is different however with now relating as opposed to dataism to the 90s and even to the early 2010 is the fact that now we can't feel any change. And what I wanted to prove in their works is that even when there is a change and even when the speed is maybe going too quick for the human to take a step back and represent things there is a certain figure of the artist who wants to show not so much how you represent it but how you can make the viewer feel those settings and which is also a way of... I like this expression of new organs but it's also a way of helping I think you are to grow new organs not through the artwork because that is another sphere of experience but also as a way to then become more conscious of what you are actually experiencing in your real life and for me it is a very critical strategy in a way of a political one to educate people to be more in touch with their senses so that they can have a critical reflection when they go out again after. Any question in the audience? I found that super interesting thank you so much for your talk and this Mark Fisher just seeing Mark Fisher's name makes me think about his famous quote that it's easier to think of or imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism and I think that you know I spent a lot of time with the Dispianial and thought a lot through it because it was so poorly received indeed in Berlin and they're actually quite positively received in New York and I came to realize that the kind of aesthetic strategy of dis and a lot of the artists surrounding dis and that were in the Berlin Biennale was one of kind of thinking through the commodity object and thinking through alienation and using that as a strategy a critical strategy and that echoes this idea from Mark Fisher of like how do you actually like at this late stage in capitalism how do you actually not necessarily work against it because that's just not going to work but actually work through it and I think that that was very very badly received in Berlin because there is this really vibrant important history of resisting capitalism resisting gentrification there's a vibrant street culture of protest you know many many buildings have been saved from demolition because of the squatting the squatters and various neighborhoods and so I think it was interesting to see that kind of culture clash happening and I'd never thought about that before in terms of Majeros' work and where he exactly fits into that and his kind of approach to maybe a criticality in terms of how he's thinking through his relationship to capitalism and mass media and I was wondering if you could just share some thoughts on that like the context of Berlin and you know I don't even know if you know this but like how he was received in that way in terms of like this kind of idea that Berliners have a very very critical relationship to you know commodity culture and capitalism and he was so so much embracing it well from what I've seen in all the because I looked a lot of the on the reception actually also for exactly because of what you are saying because we haven't known him so for me it was interesting to see the different periods of how that was changing and also because it was a very few group of very important people writing about his work so it was really a few articles that became so tone setting that everyone then was embracing it but for me actually being neither German nor American weirdly he was always passing as something else when he was in the US he was a German painter and when he was in Berlin he was very Los Angeles and I think it's also something in his notes I don't have it at hand but he's saying a bit the same that he wants to pretend that he's in Los Angeles when he's in Berlin and yeah he doesn't say the opposite but that's a bit implied as well but then relating to Berlin and the dis I think it's interesting but for me it's purely because the city was a bit late in its development but now it is exactly what is happening and I see that I had a discussion with Metis Altman who is doing a show on that especially now about the commodification of and that is even worse on the alternative culture of Berlin and how that is being co-opted by startups very quickly actually so actually how this is even more perverse because contrary to another city you don't have this middle ground so you don't have bourgeois culture so it's from one to the other but yeah with Majores for me it was really interesting to see that this book Empire which I know have been influential for a lot of artists and that was also much more read than a theory book normally is and they were a bit to me maybe not the first but the one who did it at that scale who showed that actually there is no outside and they are interesting because there are very leftist thinkers so you can't there is not the same suspicion that you would have with a generationist or you know this whole other kind of thinkers they were very leftist in their thought they wanted to oppose Empire but still it was in 2000 and the skate rumps for me is a very clear example of this that people also started to feel that they themselves didn't really know how to go outside from that or how to situate them and so for for militants and for artists alike it also meant that if you didn't live in a kind of utopian world but that would be totally detached and have no impact on the real world you had to respond to this and then again the idea of paranoia I think is very interesting as well it means if you do that you are at risk of losing yourself and that always happened but it's where the strength is lying as well thank you thanks any other question no okay thank you so much Ingrid


The next item of business is a member's business debate on motion 12265, in the name of Polly McNeill, on Prison Officers Association campaign 68 is too late. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put. I would ask those members who would wish to speak in the debate to please press the request of speaker buttons and I would advise members that I will be seeking to ensure that they all stick to their allocated time as they have signed up to and agreed to because we are resuming our business at 2pm and we must allow our staff to have sufficient time to clear the chamber in preparation for the start of the afternoon session and with that I call on Polly McNeill up to seven minutes please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. When I was first asked to host the drop-in jointly with Orgy Nicolle, Maggie Chapman and Liam McArthur on the 68 is too late campaign, my reaction was that 68 is too late for everyone, but certainly for prison officers. If I may put on record, I did not manage to get to the women's demonstration today, but like everyone else here in the chamber I endorse their fight to continue for justice. When we think of the risks that prison officers manage on a day-to-day basis and the incredible physical courage and patience they have to display, it is clear to me that a 68-year-old prison officer is far too old to deal with the physical challenges of this nature, certainly in the main. Most prisons and custodial institutions are inherently violent places, but the skill and professionalism shown by prison officers is what limits the frequency and severity of incidents. In his 2001 review of public sector pensions, Lord Hartman of Farnest produced a list of uniform services that he proposed to protect from the state pension age rising to 68. Insisting that, for the armed forces, police and firefighters, the pension age has historically been lower to reflect the unique nature of their work, and therefore a pension age of 60 is appropriate. Prison officers are clearly a uniform service, but they were unfairly left off that list. If they fail their annual physical test, a prison officer is generally allowed to retire, but then they do not get their full pension. Hardly fair when the police and firefighters are able to retire almost a decade earlier. Of course, prison officers, unlike most public sector workers, cannot go and strike. They are prohibited from taking any form of industrial action. Given that, we need to make sure that the Government is not taking advantage of that restriction and underrewarding prison officers. The prison services' peer review body has continued to raise the pension age as a concern, arguing that it is far too old to cope with the physical and mental demands of being an operational front-line prison officer. The retention rate of newly recruited prison officers is very low. Violence or the threat of violence is always there. It is a difficult and unpredictable job, and that should be acknowledged by the retirement age. At the start of the year, the head of the Scottish Prison Service, Theresa Maythurst, said that Scotland's jails are too full and are reaching tipping point. Overcrowding creates all sorts of pressures inside jails. Andy Hodge, the governor, as Perth, has pointed out that the pressure of population is forcing us to put more people into one room. That is a real stretch to adult men into a room when you have one TV, one kettle, the intentions start to build, people start to fall out and violence amongst the residents start to go up. Prison officers have to deal with the fallout of these increasing pressures and tensions, and that is on top of officers having to deal with violence directed at themselves by inmates. Another pressure that prison officers have to deal with is the increasing number of prisoners suffering from acute mental health problems. There are high levels of self-harm, suicide and also drug deaths in our prisons, all of which are clearly challenging to deal with. However, are prison officers tasked with dealing with these incidents on a daily basis? The Prison Officers Association is extremely concerned about the impact and prolonged exposure to this environment has on front-line staff and particularly those who are required to continue working until age 68. It points out that they are relying on prison officers to work until age 68 results in high levels of sickness and abstinence rates across the service. Prison officers are critical to the rehabilitation of prisoners, and it is not in the interests of the prison as a whole of the workforce fuel that has been unfairly treated compared to other sectors. Prison officers are on the front line of the Kimmel justice system. They do a difficult and dangerous job. I do not believe that the retirement age of 68 for a prison officer is appropriate in the public interest. I ask the Scottish Government to have some discussions with the UK Government about how we can ensure fairness for prison officers. I congratulate Paul McNeill on securing crucial debating time for this important subject. Prison officers show the unique and demanding roles that necessitate that they keep order while functioning on occasion almost as social workers and educators to individuals many of whom are deemed too dangerous for the rest of society. The Prison Act of 1952 vests prison officers with and I quote, all the powers, authority, protection and privileges of police officers, yet despite this clear legal mandate that persists a glaring denial of prison officers' pension rights, indeed expecting prison officers to retire at 68, shamelessly disregard the realities of prison life for those on the services front line. It makes no sense to ask a 67-year-old male or female to confront, subdue and control a physically agile 25-year-old where necessary, potentially armed with a bladed weapon often influenced by history of violence and drug abuse. In these situations, at the retirement age of 68, risks the safety of inmates, prison officers and, ultimately, the public. There were 900 recorded assaults against prison officers in the last three years, a number that is on an upward trend. Moreover, the behaviour of a residence is becoming harder to contain new types of crime and drug use evolve, combined with overcrowding. A recent study conducted by Richard Harris of the Leverhuming Research Centre for Forensic Science, based at Dundee University, revealed that vapes are being utilised in prisons now for drug trafficking and administration. That greatly risks an escalation of drug usage and gang affiliations within Scotland's prisons. The proliferation of mobile phones introduces security risks that acquire constant vigilance. An enormous source told The Guardian last year, and I quote, "'Prisoners are bigger due to steroids, spice turns inmates into zombies and the social media that might know where we live''. Managing these challenging circumstances places significant physical demands on younger staff members, little in those in their seventh decade, who may have dedicated nearly half a century of their lives to the roles in the prison system. Certainly there is no other profession which places such duties and expectations on staff. Pension ages for police officers, the fire service and the military stand at a dignified 60, less in certain circumstances, while prison officers are required to work an additional eight years. The Prisoners' Officers Association has rightly voiced concerns regarding the prolonged exposure of front-line staff in their sixties to this environment. First for PTSD UK indicates that UK prison officers face a significantly high risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder compared to most of their occupations. Burnout, characterised by emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and a diminished sense of personal accomplishment is also more prevalent among prison officers. Given the widely acknowledged risks faced by officers on the job, there is a clear need for increased support. A crucial aspect of this is ensuring timely and dignified retirement. Moreover, for Mark Fairhurst, chair of the PEO, that is a primary reason for the prison system's recruitment crisis. Fairhurst states that, for many 18-year-olds, the thought of working on the prison state for half a century to deter them from seeking to join the service. The PEOA has also found poorer time at prospects essential to their experience hemorrhage of long-serving and experienced officers lost to the service. Meanwhile, years of austerity and real-term pay cuts have intensified pressure on prison officers, resulting in overcrowding and understaffing. That can lead to prisons failing to meet minimum staffing requirements for a safe, fully operational establishment. It is imperative to acknowledge that the challenges faced by prison officers do not cease upon retirement. Many may carry physical injuries, mental scars or emotional burdens accumulated over years of service. They deserve the opportunity to retire at an age where they can enjoy the fruits of the labour, spend quality time with their families and pursue personal interests without the constraints of age-related limitations. I wholeheartedly support the 68 is too late campaign, as we cannot in good conscience allow the situation to persist. It is incumbent to prioritise the wellbeing of our prison officers both in the present and in the retirement. Let us not forget the years of service rendered to our communities. 68, retirement age, is an active profound injustice and disrespect. I support Pauline McNeill's motion. I thank Pauline McNeill for bringing this debate to the chamber. I also thank her for bringing the Prison Officers Association to Holyrood at the end of March, where we heard from them directly on their campaign. The issue of retirement age for these dedicated professionals has sparked widespread concern, particularly in light of the challenging conditions that they face daily. The Scottish Conservatives understand the demanding nature of the work carried out by the prison officers, and we fully understand and appreciate the sentiment that 68 is too late for officers to be conducting front-line work. It is incredibly demanding work that is very physical and it takes a real toll. I have spoken with prison officers and recently visited HMP Kilmarnock, and I have great admiration for the work that prison officers do. The broader context is also important. The SNP Government's justice failures have seen crime levels spiral upwards, overcrowded prisons, delayed infrastructure projects and heightened risks within our prisons. In such a deteriorating environment, expecting officers to continue front-line duties until the age of 68 is asking too much. Prison officers are also faced with increasing gang violence, and new study by the SPS found that gang violence has been fuelled by steroids inhaled through vapes. These steroids were identified in every prison that the study looked at. With many premises overcapacity and understaffed, prison officers are often faced with terrifying situations. As highlighted to me by one of the POA campaigners, a situation has occurred where the ratio was 66 prisoners to two female prison officers, and at one point just one officer was left alone with the prisoners. The chief executive of the SPS also warned that officers are facing significant danger from organised crime gang members. While we agree that there should be action on the pension age, the Scottish Government also must look at what it can do for prison officers. It can ensure that prison officers are not subjected to such adverse work conditions. Measures such as providing body-worn cameras for officers' safety can be implemented, reversing recent setbacks, like the loss of these cameras when HNP Kilmarnock was nationalised by the SNP. In conclusion, I agree that 68 is too late. It is a long time to expect officers to work on the front-line, especially in such harsh and difficult conditions, but it is also important that the Scottish Government addresses the pressing and systemic issues facing our prison system. The wellbeing and safety of our prison officers must receive greater focus from the Government. I congratulate my colleague Pauline McNeill on securing this important debate. The age at which prison officers can retire from the service at present and collect their pension is set at 67 and is due to increase to 68. Whilst their retirement age continues to be linked to the UK pension age, prison officers also face the real prospect that this could be delayed even further. As it stands, 67 or 68 is too late and puts prison officers themselves, the colleagues for whom they provide backup support and the prisoners they look after all at unacceptable levels of risk. The admission of prison officers from the list of uniformed services for whom a pension age of 60 was agreed to be appropriate, recognising the unique toll that such professions take, was a significant error. As Pauline McNeill has said, the Hutton review in 2011 concluded that uniformed services where age was historically lower for pension to reflect the unique nature of the work should have had a pension age of 60 for prison officers. Of course, we must also appreciate that in other sectors, for example in psychiatric hospitals, the historically has also been lower pension ages. Five fighters, prison officers and the armed sources were all included in 2011, yet prison officers were excluded. The current retirement age fails to recognise the unique pressures on prison staff. It is abundantly clear from speaking to prison staff and reading the many responses that they provided to the Prison Officers Association, all members surveyed on the issue that the situation, as it stands, is untenable, untenable and unsafe. Over 90% of prison officer association members surveyed said that they believed that they will not be able to continue to work until the age of 68, with more than 95% fearing that they will need to leave their job before they reach this age due to the considerable physical and mental health challenges that they face during their work. In the words of one prison officer, by the time we reach 68, we will already be suffering from ill health, hip and knee issues and the stress that comes from working in the job. This includes strokes and heart attacks and high blood pressure. Most of us can barely live until our 70s. The Minister describes how they are already struggling to cope at the age of 49 and the injuries they frequently receive in the course of their duties are taking longer to heal from. Yet this officer will still be required to work a further 19 years of service before they are permitted to pick up their pension. It is clear that the mental and physical impact of carrying out these roles is incredibly high and, as has been said by Sharon Dowey, prison environment in which officers work is becoming increasingly dangerous. Prison officers work in an ever-expanding prison population responding to high levels of prisoner violence, often instigated by those high on psychotic substances. As has already been said in this debate, prisons are becoming more dangerous with the presence of drugs and indeed the increasing numbers of members of organised crime gangs. All of that is coupled with the Scottish Prison Service that is understaffed and overstretch. I urge the Scottish Government to meet with the Prison Officers Association to discuss those issues and thereafter to make appropriate recommendations to the UK Government. I would like to thank Pauline McNeill for her motion and securing this debate today. It was my pleasure to co-host along with Pauline and other cross-party colleagues a drop-in session in Parliament before the Easter recess with the Prison Officers Association. I know that many colleagues will have taken the chance to have a chat with prison officers about the work they do and the conditions in which they must do that work. In those conversations, I heard prison officers talk about the physically demanding nature of their role. Something that staff in their seventh decade, indeed approaching their eighth decade, should not be expected to undertake. Prisons may be controlled environments, but that does not mean that they are safe environments. We have heard already this afternoon and in many different debates in this chamber of the violence and abuse that takes place in our prisons. I would argue that such conditions alone are justification enough for a whole-scale review of our prison system, what and indeed who it is for, why we are still using a castrol system that has not fundamentally changed for decades if not injuries, but that is maybe a debate for another day. Today we have the chance to come together as a Parliament and stand in solidarity with workers who do a difficult and demanding job. We have the chance to make it clear, United called to the UK government, that we agree with the prison officers association's campaign that 68 is indeed too late. Pauline McNeill has mentioned, but I think it's worth reiterating that prison officers as a uniform service should have been included in the 2011 Furnace review of public service pensions. This review stated quite clearly that uniform services should have a pension age of 60 to reflect the unique nature of the work they do. Pauline McNeill outlined very clearly many of the increasing pressures on our prisons, all of which make a retirement age of 68 even less appropriate. Making prison officers work until they are 68 is risky and that lays the foundations for problems in the service in coming years. Experienced prison officers might decide to leave their roles in their 40s or 50s because they want to get another job before getting close to 60 when employment prospects will decline. This is not good for ensuring younger workers have experienced colleagues to support them as they get to grips with a job that many of us would probably want to do. It is not good for the service as a whole. It is also likely that sickness absence rates will increase, putting additional strain on remaining colleagues and potentially making prisons even more dangerous. This cannot be the future we want for the service. I do hope that we can all of us be clear in our commitment to ensure that prison officers are included in the list of uniform services with a retirement age of 60. I also urge the cabinet secretary in her closing to commit to engaging with the prison officers association and others so that we might explore what we can do to support prison officers until we get the change we need at Westminster. I will close with the words of a prison officer who took part in a survey undertaken by the POA earlier this year. I am aged 59 at the moment and have 30 years of experience in working in various establishments. The job that I am required to do has had a lasting mental and physical impact on me, in particular the latter years. The thought of having to go to 67 or 68 fills me with dread, as I feel that I will be less capable of doing what is demanded of me. It is not an environment for anybody over the age of 60. I am pleased to speak in this debate today and I thank Pauline McNeill for bringing it forward. I commend the 68. It is too late campaign that is seeking to address a long-standing anomaly for prison officers in the UK that are unable to access their pension until they are 68 years old. As a former emergency services worker, I recognise the strength of feeling and support behind the campaign. I am astounded at the appalling position taken by UK ministers who view 68 as an appropriate age for prison officers to retire on the grounds that a prison is a controlled environment, completely failing to understand the complexities and challenges of managing a changing 21st century prison population. The UK Government must bring about pension justice for our front-line prison staff and I lend my weight to the efforts to secure this change. I want to continue the theme of wellbeing and acknowledge the commitment of prison officers in Scotland. I highlighted at a recent event that I sponsored in the Parliament on behalf of Aidan Abett, a charity working with ex-prisoners. The event celebrated the publication of the Grud Prison Officer, a collection of reflections written by ex-prisoners, all now practitioners and educators in the criminal justice field. Their personal stories offer an insight into the importance of developing a rehabilitative culture in prison that derives from their empathy, compassion and respect that is shown by prison officers towards them, profoundly impacting their lives and in some cases probably saving their lives. They described what I would call discretionary effort, the lifeblood of every organisation, where staff go just above and beyond their role, day in, day out. If workers do not feel that that is recognised and acknowledged, they will eventually withdraw it. I want to pick up on that point in the context of today's debate. In a recent lecture entitled We Asked for Workers, We Got Humans, the former chief constable of Lancashire Constabulary, Andy Rhoads, set out a compelling argument for placing mental health and wellbeing at the forefront of every operational and organisational decision. The context was policing but this applies across other bodies of public facing workers and in particular prison staff. He spoke of the importance of embedding organisational justice so that a workforce is given the protection and support that it deserves and is better able to respond to the public in a competent and compassionate way. That ties closely with the survey findings in the 68 is too late report that highlights the impact prolonged exposure to the prison environment has on front-line staff, in particular those required to continue working to 67 and 68 years of age. The report includes some powerful quotes shared with the POA, including the one that Maggie Chapman used in her contribution, and I am going to repeat it now. I am aged 59 at the moment and have 30 years of experience in working in various establishments.  The thought of having to go to 67 or 68 fills me with dread as I feel that I will be less capable of doing what is demanded of me. It is not an environment for anybody over the age of 60. I would have felt exactly the same. To conclude, I wish the Prison Officers Association well in their campaign. I hope that today's debate shines a light on the injustice that is faced by prison staff in Scotland and the UK. As I begin my contribution, I also thank my colleague Pauline McNeill for bringing this important debate to the chamber. I know that she is a strong campaigner on these matters and will continue to stand firmly on the side of prison officers in Scotland. I was very privileged to have the opportunity to meet with the Prison Officers Association Scotland members in the Parliament just last month. I had some excellent discussions about what challenges are presented to both prison officers and service delivery as a result of retirement age remaining at 68. In setting out my position today, I start by firmly reiterating my support, as I did to the members for this campaign. 68, as we have heard across the chamber today, is too late. The UK Government ministers must act and Scottish Government ministers must really redouble any efforts that is currently making to deliver this much-needed change in retirement age to 60. As the Prison Officers Association Scotland's report ahead of today's debate states, I quote, "...prison officers are manifestly a uniform service and, as such, it is clear to me, Presiding Officer, that they should be treated in the same manner as other uniformed services and see their retirement age return to 60 without detriment to their pension." Indeed, the report that we have all read acknowledges that this was previously the case and due to a 2011 review which admitted prison officers from uniformed services, they are now expected to work until 68. Prison officers have explained to me the mental and physical challenges associated with working in the prison setting until that age, and other members have described that well. I fully agree that it is totally unacceptable and indeed untenable to continue. In the report, the Prison Officers Association highlighted that over 90 per cent of those surveyed believed that 68 is too late, and indeed over 95 per cent have concerns that they will not be able to work until 68 due to the physical and mental demands associated with that extremely challenging job. Across the benches, we all agree that this is no way to treat our prison officers who deliver an absolutely essential service, and they must be treated with dignity as they reach their retirement age, and that they deserve to have that challenging profession treated in the same way as other professions in the way that we describe them as uniformed officers. It cannot be forgotten that prisons, as we have heard, can be very violent places, despite them being described as managed environments, and that officers are indeed expected to attend regularly incidents and often violent incidents. By their own admission, prison officers are rightly concerned about their ability to provide physical support to their other perhaps younger colleagues as they encounter situations as they start to approach their sixties, and that they have concerns for their safety and the safety of others. We really cannot continue to expect, or we hope that the UK Government can take a position where they understand that this is a risk to the physical and mental health of those officers and others. The UK Government must act, and it must listen to others who are lobbying them. I hope that the Scottish Government will continue to do that as constructively as it can to achieve progress. I thank Pauli McNeill for bringing the debate to the chamber and also to all the other members who I know support this motion. I welcome the opportunity to respond to this vitally important debate, and I want to place on record my thanks to Pauli McNeill for tabling the motion and to the many speakers who have made a valuable contribution this afternoon. I also pay tribute to members who have worked together on a cross-party basis to support the POA Scotland in their quest. I very much agree that 68 is too late, and as members will expect, I do meet with the POA and will continue to do so. We all agree that prison officers play a vital role in our justice system, helping to ensure that our prisons are safe, secure and stable environments for prisoners and staff. They are very much hidden in plain sight. They are a hidden part of our criminal justice system, and I think that the more that we can do together to show the nature of their work, the nature of the challenges and the value of their work to the general population in Scotland, the better. In my time, my tenure as Cabinet Secretary for Justice, I have taken the opportunity to visit every prison in Scotland and I have seen the dedication, professionalism and engagement from prison officers. Whether it was in my past as a prison-based social worker or my present as a justice secretary, I have seen them working in a way that is person-centred, inclusive, trauma informed, rights-based and every day that makes a difference to people's lives. I was always struck but not surprised by the words of an individual in custody in HNP Greenock quoted in a recent HMIPS report when they said that staff have been exceptional in helping me through my sentence. All the staff are wonderful and easy to speak with. This is my first time in prison and I have felt supported at each step of the way. Of course, Rodri Nicolle spoke to the work of the good prison officer project, where people with experience of incarceration spoke very powerfully in their personal testimonies about how prison officers have helped them to turn their life around. The Scottish Government and the Scottish Prison Service fully recognise that prison officers work in very challenging environments and, at times, put themselves in danger and at risk. We have a high and rising prison population and, behind the numbers, as members have accurately reflected, there is increasing complexity. Whether that is the increasing numbers in custody with links to serious and organised crimes, challenges around drugs and psychoactive substances and increased demands for social care due to an ageing prison population. The Scottish Government and partners across the justice sector, including the SPS, are fully committed to tackling those issues and reducing the impact and harm that are caused. You will be relieved, Presiding Officer. I will not repeat the content of the two previous statements that have been made to Parliament on those matters, but I very much recognise that prison officers carry out front-line operational duties, including controlling restraint, until the state pension age, which is due to rise to 68. That is hugely challenging and carries with it significant stresses and strains. Of course, the Scottish Prison Service takes the safety and security of its staff extremely seriously. It is a matter that I discuss with the SPS on a regular basis in terms of staff well-being. The SPS provides support to staff to remain at work in meaningful employment when they cannot undertake full contractual role, including workplace adjustments and redeployment to alternative roles across the organisation, and every effort will be made to accommodate requests for a change or adjustment where the request is evidence-based. However, that does not in any way detract from the point of principle that prison officers deserve parity with other uniformed services, because it is well-established. First, I apologise to Pauline McNeill for missing the opening minute of her speech. She was a bit of a lunch stampede. It was hard to get back on the chamber, but I have been listening with the great intent of the debate. It is an area of interest to me and a formal role in this place, and I have to say that I am very sympathetic to what has been said and concur with a lot of what has been said. On the issue of parity with other uniformed services, one of the big push-backs over the years that this has been rumbling on in Westminster is that various Government ministers have said that the reason they are able to reduce the pension age for police officers is that they up front have been all along paying higher contributions to their pension as employees during the course of their career. Is it the case in Scotland that police officers here do have to pay higher contributions to allow them to retire early? Will that have to be the case for prison officers as well? It is more of a technical question rather than a policy intended one. I am happy to write to Mr Greene on that matter, because it is indeed a technical matter. In terms of prison officers, they do not have a separate pension scheme. They are part of that UK-wide civil service pension scheme that all devolved civil servants are part of. I would say that it was deeply regrettable that the Hutton review, in my opinion, what it did not take account of was the 1952 prisons act that said that prison officers should have equal protection and privileges and rights and authorities as that of police officers, but there was no account taken of that. It is of course well established, and many members have articulated it, that some occupations are restricted by capacity and age due to the physical demands of those roles, making it untenable to expect them to their duties to be carried out until state pension age. That was recognised by the Public Service Pensions Act 2013, which at that time set the age for 60 for firefighters, police officers and armed forces. Prison officers, as I said, do not have their own dedicated pension scheme. They are part of that wider UK civil service pension scheme. Over the years, the Scottish Prison Service and the Scottish Government have strongly supported the position of POA Scotland on this issue. We oppose the changes to public pensions following the Hutton inquiry, and in particular the requirement that prison officers should have the normal retirement age of 68. Successive cabinet secretaries for justice have made representations to the UK Government. We will continue to do so, raising concerns around the physical demands of the prison officer role. The UK Government has consistently maintained its position that there is not a sufficiently strong case to make an on-going special provision for operational prison staff. However, the testimony and the contributions of members across the chamber today would, I politely stay, beg to differ. To conclude, Presiding Officer, I know time is pressing. I very much want to acknowledge the work of POA Scotland on behalf of its members. I would like to point out that prison officers in Scotland have the right to strike, unlike England and Wales. They have a very constructive partnership agreement with the Scottish Prison Service. That has been in operation for over 20 years. I am very much welcome to the POA's support in bringing HMP Kilmarnock into the Scottish Prison Service family. I will end by reiterating the great value that we place in the work that prison officers do to keep our prisons safe and stable. Their commitment and dedication make a difference to people's lives every day, and I want to put in record yet again just how much I appreciate everything that they do.


Bi1015550 is a parade for inhibitor that has been shown to have antifibrotic properties in healthy male subjects and patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, IPF. In a phase 1 study, it was found to be safe and well tolerated when administered as a single dose or in multiple dosing regimens. Additionally, in a phase Ic study, it was found to be safe and well tolerated when administered at a dose of 18 mg twice daily for up to 12 weeks. This article was authored by Toby M. Mayer, Christina Schlecker, Doreen Lutke, and others.


I'm Lisheng Kong, I'm a PhD student at the University in Ren. In this talk, we even focus on our current work for the design of a hand-to-hand device for navigation. For a variable hand-to-hand device, the hand-to-hand extermination includes valuable tank towels, skin strength, etc. The body parts to place the device range from the hand to the foot. Developing such a device involves the target objectives, including the form factors, the weight, the impairment, and the comfort to the user. The company device for navigation requires a pen-to-hand managing and recognition load. Based on the objectives, we present a variable hand-to-hand device, which is small-sized and lightweighted. It can be wore on the forehead, the arm, and the back of the hand. The device is composed of a catastrophic structure that's using two linear motors to move a pin on the plane parallel to the skin. And in the section of the guide, we fix the cylinder pin, which also hosts the metallic sphere. The sphere provides location feedback when it is free to rotate in its housing, and skin-thread feedback if it does not rotate. Spring on the pin ensures that the sphere is always in contact with the skin, applying a constant pressure throughout the interaction. Driven by two linear motors, the pin has a workspace of 12 x 12 mm. In the perceptual evaluation, we tested the GND for reference location stimuli from 1 to 11 mm, with a step size of 0.1 mm. In the sub-revenition evaluation, the participant will ask to recognize five different shapes straightened on the screen when the device was wore on the forehead, the arm, and the back of the hand. Safe recognition and the serpentines were generated by the continuous movement and effect. The horizontal line was found the easiest to recognize. The navigation experiment was carried out with a motion tracking system in real time, but it depends who asked to wear the device on the forehead, keep their heads pointed forward, and follow the guidance feedback. The feedback was proportional to the distance of the user from the pass. If the person had to turn left, the pin would move the sphere towards the left. For turning right, the pin moved towards the right. We consider three target paths. The angle was calculated at the average distance of the user from the pass throughout the trial. In conclusion, we present a weblock of the device which has position location feedback and lightweighted and small sized. In this work, we only focused on position feedback, but we will work on relation with the constraints feedback as we are in future work. Thanks for your attention.


Firefighters find Guy Fieri and CA Wildfires call backup when they see what he's up to. He had never seen a wildfire spread so quickly before. He needed to get back to camp to rest. But then, he saw a new billow of white smoke and realized it was coming from their own campsite. There was a scent of charcoal and lighter fluid in the air, and he knew he had to call for backup. Multiple Wildfires were raging across the state of California, wiping out entire towns and forcing people to run away from what they once called home. These fires had been identified as the most destructive in California history. Little did officers and firefighters know that someone unexpected would appear on the scene. The heroes who worked every day to stop the flames had a tough job ahead. They worked 24-hour shifts, and then, some could relax and get some needed rest in camps that were secured not far away from the massive fires. One day, a figure caught their eye. He was striding through the site with determination and disappeared into the trees. Heroic firefighters, police officers and volunteers worked tirelessly to contain the fire, and then, suddenly, there was another bout of smoke coming right from the trees inside their campsite.  How had it gotten past the firebreaks? Dangerous storms of hot embers rained down, and 72,500 homes were still in the path of the blaze. Firefighters steward Chavez couldn't risk having the campsite raised, it was the only place where the brave men battling the fire could rest between shifts. Chavez immediately began to track the smoke from the new fire within the campsite, and then he smelled something that made the hair on his arms rise. As Chavez approached the white smoke in the campsite, he smelled the familiar acrid scent of charcoal and lighter fluid. And something else, underneath the smoke. And it terrified him. Nothing puts. Fear into a firefighters heart like arson. Was someone lighting new fires on purpose? Why did he smell fuel for a fire when they were also desperately trying to put fires out? The wildfires had already burned 20,000 acres, and Chavez was starting to wonder if the real reason for the fires was arson. He knew all too well that even though the intent was not always criminal, humans were nevertheless. The most common cause of wildfires in the United States. And now, there was evidence that someone was lighting fires in the firefighters campsite. Chavez was hungry for justice as he tore in the direction of the new smoke. Chavez reached the clearing, and there were throngs of evacuees gathered there, around the billowing smoke. They were tired and covered in soot, some had their most precious belongings clutched to their chests, and some were clutching their pets and children. All stood in disbelief, shell shocked. He edged his way past them. Then, a woman in tatters gripped his shoulder. It's Guy Fieri, she whispered in excitement. Chavez was confused. He knew that Guy Fieri's restaurant in town had been closed, and that he had fled the wildfires too. And now he knew why. But as he drew closer and pushed past the people, into the blinding white smoke, he could smell the sizzling flesh. Chavez was bowled over. Guy Fieri was indeed the cause of the new fire, and he stood in the camp, tending his barbecue. The scent of smoked pork belly filled the air. It turned out that Guy Fieri had. Heard about the incredible resilience these heroes displayed day after day, and while he couldn't fight fires, because he didn't have the training or skills, he still had one talent that he knew he could put to good use. As officers approached them, they were in awe of this man's kind heart. Instead of running away from the fire, he ran towards it to help those in need. The camp where the officials had set up was also a temporary home for evacuees in the area. And Guy Fieri knew just how to put smiles on their faces. Butte County sheriffs couldn't express their gratitude enough. All of the men and women who were serving to protect and save Californians from these treacherous fires were more than happy when they noticed what this incredible chef was doing and took to. Twitter to share a picture as post a caption, Guy Fieri made a surprise visit to serve dinner to everyone at the law enforcement staging area at Butte College. Thank you so much Guy for filling our bellies and lifting our spirits. The home-cooked meals Guy had prepared for them all included pulled pork and other savory dishes. This act of kindness helped lift so many spirits after such long, disheartening days. With this act, he showed everyone what a fantastic person he is also becoming a true hero.  This wasn't the first time this fantastic man had come to the rescue. Back in 2017, when other life-threatening fires emerged in Santa Rosa, California, he also saw that evacuees got their bellies full. He set up a tent with another chef and began to feed thousands of people. I'm not promoting anything. I'm just here cooking. This is feeding people. People need help, and I'm here to help. That's it. Fieri and other local chefs also worked with Operation Barbecue Relief, a non-profit organization that strives to provide compassion and offer hope and friendship to those whose lives have been affected by disasters across the United States. The members of this group helped feed thousands of victims of Hurricanes Irma and Harvey earlier that year and were conducting their first ever California relief effort. Not enough can be said about the happiness that they brought a lot of people. Fieri's efforts to appease the community was more than fruitful. He had lifted everyone's spirits in 2017, and now, in 2018, he did it once more. Officers and crew gathered around and enjoyed each other's company by sharing food, laughter, and pictures. Still, there was still a lot of work to be done. Sadly, even after days of constant dedication to contain the wildfires, they were still spreading. By November 21, 2018, the fire was 80% contained. But again, the 20% left burning was treacherous. Firefighters and police officers had been working around the clock for more than two weeks, and it was not looking like they wouldn't get back to their families for the holidays. Luckily, the mayor of Flavortown, Guy Fieri himself, had a fantastic idea once more. He couldn't fathom the thought that so many people were going to be away from their home on Thanksgiving, so he came up with a brilliant idea, bring Thanksgiving to them. Food television personalities Guy Fieri and Jose Andres did just that. On November 22, he arrived once again to camp fire and set up his world's central kitchen tent. Alongside several other chefs, these two celebrities dedicated their Thursday to cooking thousands of Thanksgiving dinners for victims of the deadly fire in Northern California. They estimated that 150,000 would be served, and once people heard about their incredible efforts, volunteers couldn't help but pitch in. More than 800 volunteers joined Guy Fieri and Andres at their Thanksgiving feast. The least we can be doing today, on Thanksgiving, is all coming together to show the people what they deserve, love and support, one plate of food at a time, Andres said in a Thursday morning Twitter video. Fieri later tweeted a picture thanking the dedicated hard-working firefighters and officers who have battled the fires for several weeks. Between preparing meals and bringing the heat into the kitchen, Fieri took the time to pose for photos with officials from the Butte County Sheriff's Office, the Sacramento Police Department and Auburn Police Department. The Auburn Police Department posted a picture on their Twitter account, Guy is cooking pulled pork dinner for everyone this evening. He had also thanked everyone that is helping out for their hard work. Thank you, Guy, for your time, support and great food. Hashtag Butte County. Guy Fieri posted updates when he could to keep everyone informed. He posted a photo of the fires to his personal Instagram page writing, In today's tumultuous world, it's amazing to see our firefighters, military, law enforcement and first responders come together to rescue our communities devastated by fire.  What an incredible act. Everyone in the camp was so pleasantly. Shocked when they noticed what was going on, they still couldn't believe that Guy Fieri had surprised the hard-working firefighters and law enforcement officials by delivering and cooking such an enormous meal. Fieri started his day on Thursday at 5am, and he took to Twitter to show the whole world his preparations, we are off and cooking at 5am. Going for 7,000 pounds of turkey on six smokers. Little did he know, these incredibly heroic men and women were soon going to show the chef how amazing they really are. As word got out that Fieri was going to cook and serve Thanksgiving dinner to everyone who needed it, people started piling up at the door and not to eat, but to help. Even officials made their ways into the camp and shocked everyone when instead of grabbing a plate, they grabbed aprons. Major General Beavers joined in to feed the soldiers working on the grounds, but he was not the only one. Firefighters, officers, and military men and women got to work when they knew what was going on. Fieri couldn't hold back his emotion, he could have never have expected them to do such a thing. We got Cal Fire that I thought was coming to enjoy the food. No, they're in there serving for Thanksgiving, the celebrity chef said. More and more crew were coming to the camp and Fieri thought that this was because they wanted to eat dinner, but he was so very wrong. They were there to help. Thousands of people were part of the camp's Thanksgiving dinner, and it would not have been possible if it wasn't for Guy Fieri. Still, most of the people who joined were complete strangers, but they had one thing in common. Tragedy and resilience. Everyone talked about what they were thankful for despite the great tragedy. I'm alive, Virginia Partain, a teacher at Paradise High, said. My students all made it out. They're all alive, and I believe in hope. Little by little, the fire had become contained, but sadly a lot of people were still unaccounted for. The devastating flames had forced more than 27,000 people into shelters. But for a couple of hours. On the day of Thanksgiving, Guy Fieri gave them all something that we can only be thankful about. He gave them all hope and strength to protect and serve, to fight, and to never give up.