Often provocative, always creative: meet graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister
| The British woodcrafters bringing a new dimension to an age-old skill
| Sample Paul Pairet’s Michelin-starred culinary delights in Shanghai
| See how Iris van Herpen is redefining fashion technology
| Time-travel to the futuristic city of Seoul
TRAVEL Children are
TRAVEL Children are sitting on the floor, gazing intently at a robot. Despite having something like an iPad for a face, the machine resembles a preacher performing for a rapt audience. We are inside the Robo Park in Bucheon, to the west of Seoul and, while there are other robots vying for attention, the kids are unanimously focussed on this particular model. Their young minds are repeatedly blown as the robot goes through a classic magician’s ruse: making balls disappear and reappear in metal tubes. The kids gasp at this vanishing act but, from their low vantage point, they can’t see that the balls are actually coming in and out of the table it is positioned behind. “It’s deceiving you!” I want to cry out. “There’s no magic here!” But even in a society as advanced as Seoul’s, I realise that shattering children’s dreams is probably not cool. If the robot seems remarkable to them now, by the time they are teenagers, it will seem much less so. While tech is everywhere in most large cities these days, few places have encouraged it to permeate every level of society quite as much as the South Korean capital has. Around the city, ground-breaking tech already ranges from the practical to the fantastical, from the profound to the ridiculous. There’s some combination of all of this on show inside the new LoL Park in the centre of Seoul. Built by Riot Games and opened in January 2019, it is a dedicated arena for players and fans of League of Legends, a computer-based team game first released in 2009. So popular has it become in South Korea that elite players have become celebrities, commanding team contracts worth millions of dollars. The best have amassed seven-figure fortunes in prize money. LoL Park is a culmination of skill and fandom, a place where the two factions can overlap. The main arena is a 500-seat, neon dreamscape in which five-men teams sweat it out on a virtual battlefield below colossal HD screens showing what’s happening in the game. The setting is impressively professional: the crowds have chants for their champions; there are instant replays; as well as domestic commentators inside the arena, two North American announcers break down the action for foreigners watching online. The global audience can be as large as 127 million. It is, in almost every measurable way, a real sport. Talking to OnFleek, the outstanding player in the victorious Sandbox team, immediately after the match it seems as if he has been in a real battle. The tall 21-year-old, real name Kim Jang-gyeom, keeps having to wipe away sweat from his brow as he talks. “I turned professional just six months ago,” says OnFleek. “I started with it about five years ago, but didn’t take it too seriously at first. Now, I practise about eight hours a day. During the season I don’t play anything else. And when I’m playing, I’m completely focused.” That sort of singular mentality is the kind of thing that’s common with top level sport stars and, while OnFleek has a sizeable following already, it’s nothing compared to the polished stars of Korea’s KPop scene. 62 THEJAGUAR
Robots are just a fact of life for Seoul’s young generation. Gaming arenas such as LoL Park (below) host spectacular events that rival other major sporting audience numbers “ IN SEOUL, TECHNOLOGY RANGES FROM THE PRACTICAL TO THE FANTASTICAL, THE PROFOUND TO THE RIDICULOUS”
JAGUAR MAGAZINE celebrates creativity in all its forms, with exclusive features that inspire sensory excitement, from seductive design to cutting-edge technology.
The latest issue features a range of inspiring people: from Luke Jennings, creator of Villanelle, one of the most interesting television characters in recent times, to Marcus Du Sautoy, who ponders whether artificial intelligence is on the brink of becoming creative. Out on the road, we visit the US to explore the foodie heaven of Portland in a Jaguar I-PACE, take a Jaguar XE to the south of France to get a photographer’s viewpoint of the charming town of Arles, and much more.
David Gandy and his XK120 charm London’s creative quarter
| How charity In Place Of War channels creativity in conflict zones
| Interior designer Joyce Wang shares the latest trends in luxury
| Panasonic Jaguar Racing’s most successful year in Formula E
| Meet Jaguar’s new design director Julian Thomson
Often provocative, always creative: meet graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister
| The British woodcrafters bringing a new dimension to an age-old skill
| Sample Paul Pairet’s Michelin-starred culinary delights in Shanghai
| See how Iris van Herpen is redefining fashion technology
| Time-travel to the futuristic city of Seoul
Discover a different side to Eva Green
| Will your next taxi be a self-driven Jaguar I-PACE?
| What it takes to break a lap record at the Nürburgring Nordschleife
| The petrolheads racing in Jaguar’s new all-electric race series
| Up close with the latest special edition of the XE and XF: the 300 SPORT
| A charged-up drive of the New All-Electric Jaguar I-PACE in Portugal’s Algarve
| The inside line on the creation of the revolutionary I-PACE
| Reinventing a classic: meet the E-type Concept Zero
| Fifty years of the iconic XJ saloon
| Exclusive interview with tennis star Johanna Konta
| Can supercomputers revolutionise art?
The latest issue of The Jaguar magazine introduces our new ‘cub’, the E-PACE compact practical sports car, which is already turning heads on the street. As we commit to electrifying every new Jaguar by 2020, we explore how pushing boundaries on the track helps develop our sports cars, from writing motorsport history at Le Mans, to taking on the Nürburgring with the extreme XE SV Project 8 and being at the very cutting edge with the FIA Formula E Championship.
In this issue, we introduce a fresh new addition to the Jaguar family with the launch of the E-PACE. F1 racer Romain Grosjean reveals his passion for Jaguar while the Panasonic Jaguar Racing Team gives an insight into their preparations. Plus, we get to grips with the fast-paced sport of drone racing and spend a unique day with the XF Sportbrake.
In this issue we return to top level motorsport but not in a conventional way, and by doing so accelerate the development of our electric powertrains. In tandem, we introduce our Jaguar I-PACE Concept vehicle - a revolutionary new model available to reserve now for delivery in 2018.