“Fish and chips was in many ways the pioneer fast-food industry. It became an essential component of working-class diet and popular culture in parts of London, and over wide areas of industrial midland and northern England and southern Scotland, in the early decades of the twentieth century…I propose to argue that the fish and chip trade was not only important enough in itself to justify sustained historical analysis, but also that it provides a useful vantage point for examining important changes in British society more generally.”
— John Walken, 1998, Journal of Social History
In England I’m in a very international community. I’m meeting students attempting to learn English, they are from all over the world. Many have never heard of Jesus, some have heard the name and nothing more. It’s amazing, a kind smile and warm conversation is a perfect pretext… pic.twitter.com/jLiDAc8nlU
The term “lively arts” is attributed to American writer and poet James Thurber. It was popularized in the mid-20th century as a way to describe various forms of performing arts, such as theater, dance, music, and other creative expressions.
Curtain for the Lviv Theatre of Opera and Ballet
“What art is, in reality, is this missing link, not the links which exist.
It’s not what you see that is art; art is the gap”
— Marcel Duchamp
Today we refresh our understanding of the literature that guides the safety and sustainability goals of lively art events in educational settlements. Consortia have evolved quickly in recent years, leading and lagging changes in the content creation and delivery domain. With this evolution a professional discipline has emerged that requires training and certification in the electrotechnologies that contribute to “event safety”; among them:
ASHRAE International
Standard 62.1: This standard establishes minimum ventilation rates and indoor air quality requirements for commercial buildings, including theaters and auditoriums.
Standard 55: This standard specifies thermal comfort conditions for occupants in indoor environments, which can have an impact on air quality.
RP-16-17 Lighting for Theatrical Productions: This standard provides guidance on the design and implementation of lighting systems for theatrical productions. It includes information on the use of color, light direction, and light intensity to create different moods and effects.
RP-30-15 Recommended Practice for the Design of Theatres and Auditoriums: This standard provides guidance on the design of theaters and auditoriums, including lighting systems. It covers topics such as seating layout, stage design, and acoustics, as well as lighting design considerations.
DG-24-19 Design Guide for Color and Illumination: This guide provides information on the use of color in lighting design, including color temperature, color rendering, and color mixing. It is relevant to theater lighting design as well as other applications.
Dance and Athletic Floor Product Standards: ASTM F2118, EN 14904, DIN 18032-2
Incumbent standards-setting organizations such as ASHRAE, ASTM, ICC, IEEE, NFPA have also discovered, integrated and promulgated event safety and sustainability concepts into their catalog of best practice titles; many already incorporated by reference into public safety law. We explore relevant research on crowd management and spectator safety.
“ I think that the theater is the initial glamorizer of thought; where it can be told – without too much disguise but without too much directness either – the secrets, and thereby its antipathies and sympathies – the secrets and the knowledge of the human heart…
…I think that makes the art of the theater as important as the doctor or the psychologist or the Minister…
…I think it’s vitally important that the world knows itself and I think the theater is one of the most immediate means of expression towards that end…”
Set design model by Marcel Jambon for an 1895 Paris production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello
Demand for live events in college towns — what is now called”entertainment content” — is gathering pace; owed somewhat to an older demographic that prefers expanded social interaction to the online entertainment offerings that the younger demographic prefers*. We see an expansion of the market in the construction of architecturally astonishing buildings; though the circumstances of pandemic has changed everything.
Today our interest lies in the complex safety and sustainability characteristics of the physical infrastructure — with particular interest in the fire protection, environmental air and electrotechnologies required to make them safe and sustainable. This facility class is far more complicated technologically and operates at significantly higher risk than, say, classrooms or office space.
The Entertainment Services and Technology Association is one of the first names in trade associations that support the ‘business of show business’ through networking, safe practices, education, and representation. We follow the standards making activity of its technical committees and monitor public commenting opportunities. ESTA releases markups of its consensus products for public comment at a fairly brisk pace on its standards development landing page:
You may obtain an electronic copy at the link above, along with a comment form. Send your comments to Karl Ruling, (212) 244-1505, standards@esta.org with an optional copy to psa@ansi.org). We encourage our colleagues in school districts and in colleges and universities large and small; with responsibilities for the safety and sustainability of cultural resource properties, media centers, performance venues to participate in the ESTA technical standards development program.
Glorya Kaufman School of Dance / University of Southern California
We keep the ESTA suite on the standing agenda of our Lively Arts colloquia; open to everyone. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting.
Since the electrotechnologies for the lively arts have evolved into complex, interoperable systems we also collaborate with the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee on technical specifics. That committee meets online four times per month in European and American time zones.
“We’re all actors: We all play different roles in different situations.”
Marlon Brando
Issue: [Various]
Category: Electrical, Infotech, Lively Arts,
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Christine Fischer, Mike Hiler, Nehad El-Sherif
“A Dance to the Music of Time” 1640 Nicolas Poussin
“The voice of the intellect is a soft one,
but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing.”
— Sigmund Freud
The education industry provides a large market for occupancy classes — athletic stadiums, student assembly spaces, performance theaters, large lecture halls– that depend upon effective audio systems*. To an unexpected degree the structural engineering, specification of materials and electrical system design and operation is informed by acoustical considerations. So does the integration of fire safety and mass notification systems into normal state enterprises so it is wise to follow and, ideally, participate in leading practice discovery and promulgation of audio standards.
The Audio Engineering Society — one of the first names in this space — has a due process platform that welcomes public participation. All of its standards open for public comment completed their revision cycle mid-November as can be seen on its standards development landing page below:
Note that AES permits access to those revision even after the comment deadline. You are encouraged to communicate directly with the Direct communication with the standards staff at Audio Engineering Society International Headquarters, 551 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1225, New York NY 10176, Tel: +1 212 661 8528
We keep the AES suite on the standing agenda of our periodic Lively Arts teleconference. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting.
This facility class is one of most complex occupancy classes in education facilities industry so we also collaborate with experts active in the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee. Much of the AES suite references, and borrows from, International Electrotechnical Commission system integration and interoperability standards. The IEEE E&H committee meets online again four times monthly in European and American time zones. The meeting dates are available on the IEEE E&H website
Issue: [19-23]
Category: Electrical, Academic, Athletics, Fire Safety, Public Safety, #WiseCampus
Contact: Mike Anthony, Jim Harvey
*Mass notification systems are governed by NFPA 72 and, while life safety wiring is separate from other wiring, the management of these systems involve coordination between workgroups with different business objectives and training.
100 years ago, the Supreme Court made it clear in Pierce v. Society of Sisters: raising children is the responsibility of parents, not the government.
100 years later, the Trump Administration remains committed to protecting parental rights. pic.twitter.com/yduXdLShty
— Secretary Linda McMahon (@EDSecMcMahon) June 1, 2025
“…O chestnut tree;, great rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bold? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?”
We sweep through the world’s three major time zones; updating our understanding of the literature at the technical foundation of education community safety and sustainability in those time zones 24 times per day. We generally eschew “over-coding” web pages to sustain speed, revision cadence and richness of content as peak priority. We do not provide a search facility because of copyrights of publishers and time sensitivity of almost everything we do.
Our daily colloquia are typically doing sessions; with non-USA titles receiving priority until 16:00 UTC and all other titles thereafter. We assume policy objectives are established (Safer-Simpler-Lower-Cost, Longer-Lasting). Because we necessarily get into the weeds, and because much of the content is time-sensitive and copyright protected, we usually schedule a separate time slot to hammer on technical specifics so that our response to consultations are meaningful and contribute to the goals of the standards developing organization and to the goals of stewards of education community real assets — typically the largest real asset owned by any US state and about 50 percent of its annual budget.
1. Leviathan. We track noteworthy legislative proposals in the United States 118th Congress. Not many deal specifically with education community real assets since the relevant legislation is already under administrative control of various Executive Branch Departments such as the Department of Education.
We do not advocate in legislative activity at any level. We respond to public consultations but there it ends.
We track federal legislative action because it provides a stroboscopic view of the moment — the “national conversation”– in communities that are simultaneously a business and a culture. Even though more than 90 percent of such proposals are at the mercy of the party leadership the process does enlighten the strengths and weakness of a governance system run entirely through the counties on the periphery of Washington D.C. It is impossible to solve technical problems in facilities without sensitivity to the zietgeist that has accelerated in education communities everywhere.
Michigan can 100% water and feed itself. Agriculture is its second-largest industry.
FERC Open Meetings | (Note that these ~60 minute sessions meet Sunshine Act requirements. Our interest lies one or two levels deeper into the technicals underlying the administrivia)
Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei City, Taiwan
First Draft Proposals contain most of our proposals — and most new (original) content. We will keep the transcripts linked below but will migrate them to a new page starting 2025:
N.B. We are in the process of migrating electric power system research to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers bibliographic format.
Recap of the May meetings of the Industrial & Commercial Power Systems Conference in Las Vegas. The conference ended the day before the beginning of the 3-day Memorial Day weekend in the United States so we’re pressed for time; given all that happened.
We can use our last meeting’s agenda to refresh the status of the issues.
We typically break down our discussion into the topics listed below:
Codes & Standards:
While IAS/I&CPS has directed votes on the NEC; Mike is the only I&CPS member who is actually submitting proposals and responses to codes and standards developers to the more dominant SDO’s — International Code Council, ASHRAE International, UL, ASTM International, IEC & ISO. Mike maintains his offer to train the next generation of “code writers and vote getters”
Performance-based building premises feeder design has been proposed for the better part of ten NEC revision cycles. The objective of these proposals is to reduce material, labor and energy waste owed to the branch and feeder sizing rules that are prescriptive in Articles 210-235. Our work in service and lighting branch circuit design has been largely successful. A great deal of building interior power chain involves feeders — the network upstream from branch circuit panels but down stream from building service panel.
Our history of advocating for developing this approach, inspired by the NFPA 101 Guide to Alternative Approaches to Life Safety, and recounted in recent proposals for installing performance-based electrical feeder design into the International Building Code, appears in the link below:
Access to this draft paper for presentation at any conference that will receive it — NFPA, ICC or IEEE (or even ASHRAE) will be available for review at the link below:
NFPA 110 Definitions of Public Utility v. Merchant Utility
NFPA 72 “Definition of Dormitory Suite” and related proposals
Buildings:
Renovation economics, Smart contracts in electrical construction. UMich leadership in aluminum wiring statements in the NEC should be used to reduce wiring costs.
This paper details primary considerations in estimating the life cycle of a campus medium voltage distribution grid. Some colleges and universities are selling their entire power grid to private companies. Mike has been following these transactions but cannot do it alone.
Variable Architecture Multi-Island Microgrids
District energy:
Generator stator winding failures and implications upon insurance premiums. David Shipp and Sergio Panetta. Mike suggests more coverage of retro-fit and lapsed life cycle technicals for insurance companies setting premiums.
Reliability:
Bob Arno’s leadership in updating the Gold Book.
Mike will expand the sample set in Table 10-35, page 293 from the <75 data points in the 1975 survey to >1000 data points. Bob will set up meeting with Peyton at US Army Corps of Engineers.
Reliability of merchant utility distribution systems remains pretty much a local matter. The 2023 Edition of the NESC shows modest improvement in the vocabulary of reliability concepts. For the 2028 Edition Mike submitted several proposals to at least reference IEEE titles in the distribution reliability domain. It seems odd (at least to Mike) that the NESC committees do not even reference IEEE technical literature such as Bob’s Gold Book which has been active for decades. Mike will continue to propose changes in other standards catalogs — such as ASTM, ASHRAE and ICC — which may be more responsive to best practice assertions. Ultimately, improvements will require state public utility commission regulations — and we support increases in tariffs so that utilities can afford these improvements.
Mike needs help from IEEE Piscataway on standard WordPress theme limitations for the data collection platform.
Mike will update the campus power outage database.
Healthcare:
Giuseppe Parise’s recent work in Italian power grid to its hospitals, given its elevated earthquake risk. Mike’s review of Giuseppe’s paper:
Mike and David Shipp will prepare a position paper for the Harvard Healthcare Management Journal on reliability advantages of impedance grounding for the larger systems.
The Internet of Bodies
Forensics:
Giuseppe’s session was noteworthy for illuminating the similarity and differences between the Italian and US legal system in handling electrotechnology issues.
Mike will restock the committee’s library of lawsuits transactions.
Ports:
Giuseppe updates on the energy and security issues of international ports. Mike limits his time in this committee even though the State of Michigan has the most fresh water international ports in the world.
A PROPOSED GUIDE FOR THE ENERGY PLAN AND ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE OF A PORT
Other:
Proposals to the 2028 National Electrical Safety Code: Accepted Best Practice, exterior switchgear guarding, scope expansion into ICC and ASHRAE catalog,
Apparently both the Dot Standards and the Color Books will continue parallel development. Only the Gold Book is being updated; led by Bob Arno. Mike admitted confusion but reminded everyone that any references to IEEE best practice literature in the NFPA catalog, was installed Mike himself (who would like some backup help)
Mike assured Christel Hunter (General Cable) that his proposals for reducing the 180 VA per-outlet requirements, and the performance-base design allowance for building interior feeders do not violate the results of the Neher-McGrath calculation used for conductor sizing. All insulation and conducting material thermal limits are unaffected.
Other informal discussions centered on the rising cost of copper wiring and the implications for the global electrotechnical transformation involving the build out of quantum computing and autonomous vehicles. Few expressed optimism that government ambitions for the same could be met in any practical way.
Are students avoiding use of Chat GPT for energy conservation reasons? Mike will be breaking out this topic for a dedicated standards inquiry session:
“Panoramic View of the Greek Amphitheatre at Syracuse” 18th Century Abraham Louis Rodolphe Ducros
From from time to time — particularly in the months of fairer weather, when many events are hosted outdoors — we break form from the grind of responding to c0nsultations to simply enjoy these spaces See our CALENDAR for our periodic Lively c0lloquia when we drill down into technical specifics.
서울대학교
University of Melbourne (Architect rendering of project in process)
Furman University
High Point University
George Fox University Oregon
Globe Theater / Southern Utah University
Point Loma Nazarene University
Augusta University / Georgia
Singapore Management University
Swarthmore College
Silliman University Amphitheater / The Phillippines
University of Colorado
South Dakota State University
University of Mary Washington / Virginia
California State University San Marcos
Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
Clemson University
University of Virginia
College of Idaho Centennial Amphitheater
Texas Woman’s University
Swarthmore College
Pomona College
Oakland University Meadowbrook Theater / Rochester, Michigan
Partial listing. We have until July 15th to comment on committee action
Our proposal G153-25: Page 754
Michigan Modular G195-25: Page 859
“Clinical Need” definition for enhanced security: Page 765
“Electric Vehicle Charger” definition by the National Parking Association/Parking Consultant’s Council: Page 457
“EV Charging Space” definition: Page 458
“EV Supply Equipment” definition: Page 460
ADM20-25 Authority of building official in natural disasters and high hazard regions, p141
ASM3-25 Electrical equipment re-use, p195
G2-25. New definition for Animal Housing Facilities, p438
S57-25. Quite a bit of back and forth on wind and PV “farms, p1053, et. al (“Wind and solar farms are different from animal and produce farms” — Mike Anthony)
G143-25 Lighting Section 1204L remote rooms, windowless rooms, University of Texas Austin student accommodation costs, p. 737-
PM31-25 Housekeeping and sanitation in owned property as law, p1794
PM50-25, Sleeping units to be private, p.1829
RB146-25. Energy storage systems installed in garages, requirements for physical protection, p. 2195
RB144-25, Load capacity ratings and compliance with NFPA 855, p. 2186
RB143-25, Working roof walking access around solar panels, p. 2180
SP1-25 New definition of base flood elevation for purpose of correlating requirements for electrical safety, et. al, p. 2578
New update alert! The 2022 update to the Trademark Assignment Dataset is now available online. Find 1.29 million trademark assignments, involving 2.28 million unique trademark properties issued by the USPTO between March 1952 and January 2023: https://t.co/njrDAbSpwBpic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T
