PORTFOLIO - APRIL 2018

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148

THE FLIP SIDE

SOTHEBY’S UNCOVERED

Dubai’s only vinyl store

Behind the scenes at the auction house

ELECTRIC CARS

COURMAYEUR REINVENTED

Why China has gone green

From ski resort to foodie hotspot

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APRIL ISSUE 148

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OUT WITH THE OLD P22

How contemporary design ate into the market for antique goods

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APRIL ISSUE 148

CONTENTS UPFRONT

14

THE PHONE WARS

Can Google’s new Android upgrade beat Apple?

LIVING

74

HOTEL

18

SYDNEY REBIRTH

Is the new Barangaroo development a white elephant?

28

VINYL FRONTIER

How one Dubai record shop keeps on spinning

36

BUSINESS TRAVEL

The new brand from the man behind Citizen M

An LA class that oozes Hollywood charm

79

INVESTMENT PIECE

The right precious stones can be a good investment

84

FRESH SLOPES

How Cormayeur reinvented itself into a foodie hub

88

EXHIBITION

One of the world’s best film festivals

90

COLUMN

Why procrastination can be a good thing

011

33,349 copies January - June 2017

APRIL ISSUE 148

CONTENTS FEATURES

40

THE NEW VIDEO STARS

How YouTube has changed the way we consume our media

50

ELECTRIC DREAMS

Why China has embraced the electric car

56

GEORGE SOROS

Who is the Hungarian billionaire that the right loves to hate?

62

THE VR REVOLUTION

How Virtual Reality will change the way we live

68

SOTHEBY’S UNCOVERED

Behind the scenes at the auction house

12

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UPFRONT

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APRIL / TECHNOLOGY

ISSUE 148

Android redux CJ Hannon examines if Android’s new OS will win over iPhone devotees and further gain market share

I

t’s 11 years since Apple launched its iPhone and revolutionised the mobile phone market. Google arrived 15 months later, attempting to crash Apple’s party with the G1. It looks strange now with its large frame, a trackball and a slide-out keyboard. Within three years, Android’s operating system would become the most popular in America and Steve Jobs would declare “thermonuclear war” against Android.

Google bought Android in 2005, hoping to start its own mobile device. Initially, the Android team worked on designing a phone that looked like a BlackBerry, but those plans were shelved when Apple released the iPhone. The head of Android, Andy Rubin, was in a car when the presentation started. He asked the driver to pull over to watch it online, according to Dogfight, a book about the rivalry between Apple and Google. “Holy cr**,”

One of Android’s key decisions was to make it an open platform, which gained it a huge market share In truth, Apple never really competed. Year by year it lost market share to Android, and the sheer number of cheap devices that ran Android meant it never really had a chance. In the first quarter of 2017, 86 per cent of smartphones sold worldwide ran on the Android operating system.

Yet despite Android’s dominance, it has always been seen as a poor relation when it comes to developers and creatives. Apple is cool, intuitive and reliable, Android is clunky, frustrating and crash-prone.

Rubin said in the car, according to the book. “I guess we’re not going to ship that phone.”

Android’s team went back to the drawing board, and one of the decisions they made was to make Android an open platform. That meant manufacturers could use Android for their own phones and by 2010, everyone from Motorola to Samsung to HTC had released phones running on Android. Only the Nexus and the Pixel phones were actually produced by Google.

Android’s strategy wasn’t new. Microsoft previously

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UPFRONT

Despite Steve Jobs’ declaration of ‘thermonuclear war’ against it, Android is the most popular operating system in the world

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overtook Apple by making its software available to any computer manufacturer that wanted it – and Jobs was worried that Google would do the same thing in the mobile space. Google did, but never won over the diehard Apple fans, developers and creatives it wanted. Which brings us to the Android P, which some industry watchers believe just might be successful.

A recent Bloomberg report suggested that the Android P (aka Android 9) will be the next major Android upgrade, set to be released later this year, probably in the Pixel 3 model. Android’s interface is based on Material Design, which was introduced in 2014. Material Design treats everything like flat sheets of paper, that navigation should be obvious and plentiful. Contrast this with Apple’s iOS design ethos, which treats the device as a window to another world, and that navigation should be almost invisible.

London-based freelance UX designer Stef Ivanov told Wired: “Material Design has extensive use of animations, overuse of colours, images, shapes and it can be distracting sometimes. Apple has been consistent from the very beginning with their UX, and longtime iPhone users like me are pretty well brainwashed in terms of what to expect and how actions should happen.”

Analysts expect the Android P to be the biggest overhaul in the Android operating system so far.

Mikael Widerström, a designer at Ustwo, a digital product studio, believes there is lots to change:

Android’s interface is based on Material Design, which treats everything like flat sheets of paper. Apple’s design ethos is the opposite ‘[I would like to see it] more streamlined, with more emphasis on animations, making them even tighter. Google should make it easier for app developers to create better animations, having clearer animation frameworks.

That is something that has been historically fairly easy to do on iOS but quite difficult to do on Android,” he told Wired.

In terms of market share, Android already dwarfs Apple.

In 2016, Android’s global market share was 86.2 per cent up from 69.3 per cent in 2012. In the same time period, iPhone’s market share fell from 16.6 per cent to 12.9 per cent. Of course, Android has a much higher level of device fragmentation given the number of models available that run on Android’s operating system. In terms of end user, it’s doubtful that making Android’s ecosystem easier for developers will convert

APRIL / TECHNOLOGY

ISSUE 148

APPLE SET TO ANNOUNCE UPGRADES IN JUNE Apple looks set to announce the next generation of iOS and MacOS at the Worldwide Developer’s Conference in June. Analysts believe the focus will be on the future of iOS 12, with the company improving the reliability and performance of the operating system rather than introducing new features.

Apple is also rumoured to be launching new universal apps that work across iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

Bloomberg also previously reported that Apple will bring its Animoji characters to the iPad, thanks to a new model of the tablet that has a Face ID camera.

“The phone is going to be a huge part of the smart home, it will be the central user interface”

them over from Apple. Widerström believes the changes should make things easier for the user. “The most important thing is ironing out the things you use most often, like unlocking your phone, finding and locating an app on your home screen, and so on. Trying to figure out those things and using machine learning to automate them,” he says.

His vision is of a lock screen that operates contextually, bringing to the surface relevant notifications and actions based on what you’re doing. “An example of that would be payments or travelling by bus, or ordering an Uber”, where the information or feature is simply

there when you need it. When the AI Google already uses to great effect in its Home smart speakers is allowed control over Android, what do we end up with? It’s “a blend of Google Now services on the home screen”, says Widerström.

Google has developed its Now and Assistant software for well over half a decade, but in Android they are still timid influences on the system.

One area that Google is ahead of Apple is AI. Could the company eventually change the way we use mobile phones completely?

Amazon’s Alexa is the market leader in terms of getting ‘AI’powered speakers into our homes.

But all smart speakers are doing

86.2%

Android’s global market share, up from 69.3% in 2012

the important work of normalising automation, highly predictive interfaces and gadgets that seem to know what we want in a more unnerving manner than an Amazon ‘suggested buys’ box. Apple has traditionally been seen as the best at device integration: look at how it segues your phone, laptop, tablet and watch. However, HomePod’s deliberately restrictive, privacy-led approach could backfire if analysts’ more optimistic smart-home forecasts prove correct.

“The phone is going to be a huge part of [the smart home], as the central UI, in a way. That’s the most convenient, most efficient UI you have to control all of these things. It’ll be very much the central hub of all your connected things. They will revolve around the phone, at least for the coming couple of years,” says Widerström.

Siri is so far behind Assistant, Google’s smart custodian, that much deeper integration in Google’s phone OS seems the best, and perhaps only, way Android could feasibly overtake iOS in the coming years. The question is whether Google has the nerve to let Assistant take over Android, and the ability to make it work.

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UPFRONT

District No. 1?

Lauren Razavi examines whether a $6 billion district in the heart of Sydney can live up to the hype

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hat can a city achieve with $6 billion to spend?

Thanks to an ambitious urban renewal project, Sydney is finding out. Australia’s most populous city is in the middle of building a whole new neighbourhood: Barangaroo, named after a figure from Australia’s Aboriginal heritage.

Set in the heart of the city, the Barangaroo development covers more than 54 acres of land on the western edge of Sydney’s Central Business District. The project is being delivered by the Barangaroo Delivery Authority, a publicprivate partnership led by the government of New South Wales.

Local authorities anticipate it will receive more than twice as many visitors – around 18 million each year – as the iconic Sydney Opera House. But will such bold claims live up to the hype?

Urban regeneration is a fastemerging trend worldwide. From Paris to Lagos to Seoul, and just

about everywhere else in between, city authorities are pursuing enormous revitalisation plans.

Derelict old industrial areas are being replaced with glitzy mixeduse neighbourhoods, perfect for the ever-growing influx of people moving from rural locations to urban centres. Sydney’s bold attempt, however, is more ambitious than most. The journey towards transforming its expansive former shipping district into the city’s hippest new destination has been under way for more than a decade already, and it won’t be complete until 2024.

Ideas for the Barangaroo development were first collected through a design competition, held back in 2005, that aimed to identify concepts and priorities for the area’s future.

The challenge captured the imaginations of architects, designers and urban planners from all over the world, and so began the buzz around Sydney’s aspirational intentions for

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ISSUE 148

Left: Sydney’s famous waterfront Below: The site of the Barangaroo development

rejuvenation. Since the project’s earliest days, the government of New South Wales has taken a collaborative approach to both planning and execution, with a strong emphasis on social, economic and environmental outcomes.

“As with any project of this scale and significance, the plans have evolved over time, always with the objective of achieving the best possible public outcome,” says Tim Archer, a spokesperson for the Barangaroo Development Authority. “The design has undergone significant refinement [since we first started] with key additions including the Barangaroo Reserve [which was not part of the original plans].”

a long list of top architecture and design prizes, including the prestigious American Architecture Prize and a string of Australian awards ranging from infrastructure and design to engineering and landscape.

Building on its early successes, the Barangaroo Development Authority has wasted no time in expanding its ambitions and taking advantage of opportunities.

As a result, plans for the project have been developing in interesting and positive ways. In 2015, for example, the New South Wales government announced it would build a new underground station for Barangaroo on Sydney’s metro line. This will significantly improve access

The development covers more than 54 acres of land on the western edge of Sydney’s Central Business District The Barangaroo Reserve Archer refers to is a new park and headland at the northern end of the development site. Since it opened in 2015, the area has already proven popular with locals and visitors alike as a spot for walking and picnics. More than 10,000 sandstone blocks were excavated directly from the site to create the headland – not an easy task by anybody’s measure. All the effort turned out to be worth it, though: Barangaroo Reserve has won

to Barangaroo by the time the project is complete. It also signals that public reception for the project has been good enough for further investment to be welcomed rather than questioned.

From the beginning, one of the Barangaroo Development Authority’s key priorities was to involve Sydney’s residents in their plans. An important aspect of the city achieving this goal has been the development project’s emphasis on unlocking public space – something that had

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UPFRONT

previously been lost to citizens in this area for more than a century.

“The overarching objective has been to open up the public’s access to this formerly inaccessible part of Sydney Harbour,” Archer explains. “New public domain is a key feature of the entire

community living in them” – has been one element of this.

In other respects, however, the approach has been decidedly less local and noticeably more corporate. Barangaroo’s three new commercial towers are now a prominent feature of Sydney’s

Residents argue that there is no public benefit, cultural or otherwise, to giving up space to casinos project and the government has committed to making more than 50 per cent [of the development] open, public space.”

Barangaroo set out to be a development by locals for locals in its branding. Working with Sydneybased construction, property and infrastructure heavyweight LendLease – a company that claims to “reimagine spaces in cities while maintaining the character, culture and diverse fabric of the

skyline and have become the home of leading global names in finance and law, such as PwC, HSBC, Westpac and KPMG. There are more than 16,000 people already working in Barangaroo’s commercial precinct and city authorities argue that the development will ultimately make a significant and repeated contribution to the local economy.

Generally speaking, the development has been well-

16,000

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Number of people already working in Barangaroo’s commercial precinct

received, with the Barangaroo Reserve attracting more than three million people since it opened three years ago.

Australians are particularly happy about the global recognition the development has received so far.

“There are no comparable sites in Australia, and very few sites around the world where such a large piece of waterfront property in the heart of the CBD have undergone such a significant transformation,” Archer says.

Like any urban regeneration project though, Barangaroo has been the subject of some notable controversy. While the majority of Barangaroo has been designed

APRIL

With six more years to go, the verdict has yet to be decided for Barangaroo with locals firmly in mind, the announcement that Australian billionaire James Packer would build a luxury mega-hotel and casino as part of the development has raised questions. His “sixstar” resort hotel is expected to open in 2021 and will include apartments, shops, bars and restaurants. Residents argue

there’s no public benefit – cultural or otherwise – to giving up space to casinos, and that involving one of Australia’s wealthiest businessmen undermines the community nature of the project.

Luxury hotels in Sydney cost upwards of $300 per night, so the plans are certainly a lucrative proposition for Packer. But are they as lucrative for the city?

The Barangaroo Development Authority is keen to highlight that the resort will create jobs and attract visitors, but many journalists and citizens remain unconvinced about the prospect.

While this is just one small part of the development – less than one

hectare on a site of more than 22 hectares – sometimes a seemingly small but symbolic decision is all it takes to lose public support and see a project begin to face spiralling criticism.

With six more years to go until completion, the verdict has yet to be decided for Barangaroo and its place in history. Nevertheless, Barangaroo is already around 50 per cent complete and being enjoyed by many. If the city authorities can keep controversies to a minimum over the coming years, Barangaroo might just be Sydney’s smartest strategy yet to become a coveted global city.

ISSUE 148

SÃO PAULO MAYOR FEELS THE HEAT São Paulo’s controversial mayor, João Doria, continues to stir up trouble in Brazil’s largest city. He has annoyed street artists by covering up their work, and taking a heavyhanded approach to social issues. Doria used to present Brazil’s version of The Apprentice, and that’s not where the similarities with Donald Trump end. He’s a frequent user of Twitter, and he’s pro-business, seemingly determined to turn São Paulo into a ‘smart city’. His ratings have fallen however and many believe he will lose the October election. Doria is expected to leave before then, and go for the governor’s seat, but he may also run for president.

/ URBAN

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UPFRONT

Out with the old Since the turn of the 21st century, the antique market has plummeted. Tim McKeough investigates why

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hen Todd Merrill opened his self-named antiques store on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 2000, it was filled with pieces made before the Titanic: neoclassical French chairs that were contemporaries of Napoleon, an American sideboard from the time of James Madison’s administration, and a Japanese shrine that could have been owned by Queen Victoria (although it wasn’t).

Today, at Merrill’s new Lafayette Street location, not a single object predates the First World War. The white-walled space is dominated by contemporary creations: monstrous bronze LED chandeliers by Niamh Barry, an Irish designer; sinewy wood console tables by Marc Fish of East Sussex, England; and animalinspired stools by Erin Sullivan, a New Yorker. Sharing the room are blue-chip examples of 20th century modernism.

The name has changed, too.

Todd Merrill Antiques is now Todd Merrill Studio.

Custom-made pieces by living designer-artisans have “become 70 to 80 per cent of our business”, said Merrill. “It’s a big behavioural

change for the trade, for collectors and for dealers. We’re not buying things on the secondary market for resale. We’re presenting artists and representing them like an agent.”

He is not alone in turning away from antiques. Since the turn of the 21st century, the value of much 18th and 19th century furniture has plummeted. Shelter magazines, once look books for rooms bursting with lyre back chairs and giltwood credenzas, more often show pared-down interiors with just a few older pieces – or none at all.

Top-tier antiques dealers who once occupied prime Manhattan storefronts, such as Mallett, Florian Papp, Kentshire Galleries, Yale R Burge Antiques and Cove Landing, have either closed or scaled back.

Other antiques and vintage goods galleries, including Maison Gerard, Jason Jacques Gallery, Patrick Parrish, Bernd Goeckler, R & Co, Donzella, and DeLorenzo Gallery, have pushed into contemporary design, where newly made furniture with the appeal of sculpture can run to six figures.

Even New York’s prestigious Winter Antiques Show has changed its rules. Founded in 1955, the show once required that exhibited pieces be at least 100 years old.

In 2009, the organisers and dealer committee changed the cut-off date to 1969 to include mid-century objects. In 2016, they removed the date restriction entirely, paving the way for contemporary design.

“By expanding the datelines we were registering changes in the antiques world,” said Michael Diaz-Griffith, the fair’s associate executive director. “We’re just allowing it to happen instead of being so rule-bound that we create an artificial zone where those market shifts, and shifts in taste, can’t be seen.”

APRIL / ANTIQUES

ISSUE 148

to capitalise on the trend. It began a contemporary category in November 2016. One year later, contemporary design represented 15 per cent of the company’s furniture sales, and the offering had expanded to include about 30,000 products by more than 500 artisans and small manufacturers.

“It’s our fastest-growing category,” said Cristina Miller, the company’s chief commercial officer.

Indeed, a recent survey 1stdibs commissioned found that professional interior designers used about 65 per cent contemporary products in their projects last year, and only 35 per cent vintage.

Prices for average pieces are about 80 per cent off what they cost 15 or 20 years ago

One exhibitor to take advantage of that change is Jason Jacques Gallery, which was once known primarily as a dealer of late 19th and early 20th century European ceramics but is increasingly focused on contemporary design.

At the 2018 Winter Antiques Show in January, its presentation included a pair of black plywood benches sprouting moose antlers by fashion designer Rick Owens (about $5,500) and a new seven-foot-tall rococo-inspired porcelain wall piece resembling a medallion by Katsuyo Aoki and

Todd Merrill Studio in New York City changed its name from Todd Merrill Antiques

Shinichiro Kitaura ($250,000).

The medallion “was probably one of the most Instagrammed pieces in the entire fair”, said the gallery’s director Jason T Busch, noting that he expects contemporary design to become an even larger part of his business in the coming years. “We’re going to always have work from our historic programme, but I think it will be integrated within the contemporary.”

The online antiques marketplace 1stdibs (to whose magazine this reporter occasionally contributes) has also been looking

Compared with the heyday of antiques collecting, prices for average pieces are now “80 per cent off”, said Colin Stair, the owner of Stair Galleries auction house in Hudson, New York. “Your typical Georgian 18th century furniture, chests of drawers, tripod tables, Pembroke tables,” he noted, can all be had for a fraction of what they cost 15 to 20 years ago.

In 2002, Stair sold a set of eight George III-style carved mahogany chairs for $8,000; in 2016, he sold a similar set of eight chairs for $350.

In 2003, he dispatched a Regency breakfront bookcase for $9,500; in 2016, the sales price of an equivalent piece had plummeted to $1,300.

There are exceptions. Some designers and homeowners

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UPFRONT

“For many today, an English antique represents something tired and sad”

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still mix antiques with contemporary furniture to create eclectic interiors, and particularly stylish pieces can bring high prices. Dealers of Asian antiques, like Betsy Nathan, the owner of Chicago-based Pagoda Red, report strong sales to overseas buyers (“We’re shipping back to Asia now,” she said. “In a million years, I never would have imagined it.”) Some passionate collectors also are willing to pay for pure historical value.

Stair’s highlights from the past year include a George I cut-gesso and giltwood table that sold for $31,000 and a Louis XVI mahogany desk that sold for $13,000.

But antiques that move for more than $10,000 in his auction house are rare, he noted, and the market for mid-century modern furniture without a recognisable name attached – popular just a few years ago – is also flagging.

“It’s just as fickle,” he said.

“Unless it’s special, has a name brand or is sexy, it’ll die just as hard as a piece of brown Georgian furniture.”

Dealers, auctioneers and designers point to a number of reasons for the declining interest in antiques and rapid rise of contemporary design. More homes have open-concept, casual living spaces rather than formal dining rooms and studies, which reduces the need for stately mahogany dining tables, chairs and cabinets.

“In these big rooms, a contemporary piece becomes a

piece of sculpture,” said Christine Van Deusen, a New York designer who recently commissioned numerous custom creations from Maison Gerard, Cristina Grajales Gallery and Iliad for a client’s duplex penthouse on the Upper East Side. “Vintage and antiques are finite, but creativity is infinite, so I can do things that I could not do if I were only looking for things that were in existence.”

Mid-priced retailers like Restoration Hardware, West Elm and CB2 make it easy to buy tasteful furniture on the cheap, with little hunting required.

‘Sun and Moon’, a bronze and horse hair sculpture by the artist Erin Sullivan, hangs above John Procario’s ‘Freeform Luminaire II’ and next to Amy Cushing’s ‘Incandescent’ at the Todd Merrill Studio

And a new generation of homeowners may be rebelling against the preferences of their elders.

“The 40-something crowd isn’t looking to put a highboy in their house,” said Ethan Merrill, the third-generation president of Merrill’s auctioneers and appraisers near Burlington, Vermont (and Todd Merrill’s brother). “They relate more to pop culture, fashion-oriented materials and rock ‘n’ roll.”

For many people today, “an English antique represents something that is kind of sad and tired”, said Thad Hayes, a New

APRIL / ANTIQUES

York interior designer who has recently been emptying antiquesfilled homes and designing new rooms with contemporary pieces for wealthy clients both young and old.

Contemporary design, he said, “represents something that’s a lot more optimistic and positive”.

Big auction houses like Christie’s have adapted to the new market by being choosier about the pieces they accept for sale, and selling less.

“There’s no denying that there’s been, in the last 10 to 15 years, something of a sea change in taste and collecting habits,” said William Strafford, a senior international specialist in European furniture and decorative arts at Christie’s

in New York. “We are wanting to move away from too much volume and to give the pieces we do offer a very strong, stylistic identity, or the breathing space to be seen as collectors’ items.”

Although the overall market for antiques is shrinking, said Strafford, activity at the very top remains strong, as ultra-wealthy buyers acquire the finest museumgrade pieces, regardless of category, period or origin.

“With the explosion of international wealth, and the reach of the internet, we’re able to reach buyers with extraordinary spending capacity,” said Strafford.

“We can often sell quite traditional

The Jason Jacques Gallery booth at the 2018 Winter Antiques Show in Manhattan

ISSUE 148

decorative arts to these new emerging markets such as the Middle East and the Far East, most particularly China.”

To create a rarefied context for high-ticket objects, Christie’s has developed a new type of sale, which it calls the Exceptional Sale. “It’s a very small, really curated sale that tends to be about 30 or 40 lots, and it’s the best of the best of the decorative arts,” said Strafford.

Last April, one of Christie’s Exceptional Sales set the auction record for English walnut furniture when it sold an immaculate circa 1730 George II bureau cabinet for $967,500 (including the buyer’s premium) that previously belonged to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Such blockbuster sales seem to do little to prop up antiques that don’t come from the Met or weren’t owned by celebrity collectors.

Will other 18th and 19th century furniture pieces ever return to fashion? Many designers say that antiques will rise again but, after nearly two decades of decline, few are willing to predict when.

“The pendulum is going to swing just like it does in politics,” said Hayes. “It always does. But I don’t see it coming anytime soon.”

Jamie Drake, the New York interior designer, also views the current dismissal of antiques as a trend, “just as colour trends have moved from neutrals to vibrants, back to neutrals, back to vibrants”, he said.

In his own home, most of the furniture and art is contemporary and modern. “But I do still have some antiques”, he said.

A home without them, he added, “would be like a sentence without punctuation”.

RITZ IN PARIS SET FOR HISTORIC AUCTION The 120-year-old Ritz Paris is set to sell 10,000 items in a five-day auction this month. The furnishings were cleared out of the hotel during its 2016, $450 million upgrade. With everything from garden statues to barber’s chairs, there is something for everyone, and every price point. Opened in 1898 by a Swiss hotelier, César Ritz, the hotel has long been a byword for a certain type of opulent luxury. That is reflected in the furnishings for auction: there’s plenty of gold to go around, as well as a Louis XVI style dog bed, which is supposed to have belonged to the Windsors. That’s expected to sell for under $1,000.

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APRIL ISSUE 148

UPFRONT / SPEND

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UPFRONT

The Flip Side Ian Akerman visits a Dubai record shop with a difference

Shadi Megallaa

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his flat slab of wax will outlast everything else, says Shadi Megallaa, pointing towards Parliament’s Mothership Connection spinning on the turntable in front of us. “I guarantee you. Vinyl will outlast MP3s, will outlast every other format. Vinyl is resilient. It’s like the cockroach of music media.

Maybe a record will get scratched but it will still play. If you look at a CD the wrong way it will give you an error.”

It’s been almost a year since Megallaa first opened the doors to The Flip Side in Dubai’s Alserkal Avenue and we’re talking vinyl.

The physicality of it, the design, the sound, the liner notes, the limited editions, the personalised touches.

“I get all of that but for me it’s what I started on. It’s that simple,” he says. “I tried the whole digital thing, I really did, and it worked for a while. It had its benefits. My back definitely felt a lot better because I didn’t have to lug records around, but I felt that

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ISSUE 148

“You know, what you get at The Flip Side is not a typical record store experience. It’s an extension of me” having so much music was also limiting as a DJ. You really don’t need 6,000 or 10,000 tracks at your disposal. It’s so distracting.

Give me a bag with 30 records. It makes you work a lot more.

“I’m a very visual person, too, so I need that visual aid. A lot of times you’ll know you like the B2 track on the red record. You might not know who the artist is, but you know the song. You know what I mean? A laptop when you’re DJing is just so unnatural. The whole digital thing is very cold.”

A cavernous yet strangely intimate warehouse space, The Flip Side represents the realisation of a long-held dream. It took Megallaa – a DJ and producer as well as the store’s founder – three years to bring the store to reality and the journey so far has been as much about music culture as it has been about vinyl. From regular in-store events to live music and album launches, he’s embraced it all. He even has his own zine, aptly named No Budget.

“I kind of live in my own little world,” he admits, placing Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage on one of the two turntables sitting atop the store’s central DJ booth. It seems an appropriate choice. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad. But you know, what you get at The Flip

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Side is not a typical record store experience. It’s an extension of me.”

No one can accuse Megallaa of lacking ambition. Born in Cairo but raised in Abu Dhabi, he already owns his own label, Ark To Ashes, and recently produced limited pressings of his Gyps project with Abood Nasrawi. He is also collecting Emirati cassette tapes from the 1970s and ’80s with a view to one day putting together a compilation for an as-yet-unrealised Flip Side record label. He’s also in discussions with the Lebanese musician Rabih Abou-Khalil to release elements of his work.

“My last purchase was John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, which I should’ve bought a long time ago,” he says. “It’s one of the

UPFRONT / THE BUSINESS

greatest jazz records ever made. I also had to buy it because the very first record sold in this store – to me – was John Coltrane’s Blue Train. I was testing the inventory and the system before we opened the doors and had to make sure everything was working OK.” We discuss labels. Blue Note, Schema, Tru Thoughts, Mo’Wax, Stones Throw, Daptone, even Junior Boy’s Own. In the heady swirl of a global vinyl revival it’s sometimes easy to forget that there were those who never stopped buying records.

“It’s funny you mention Junior Boy’s Own because when I learnt to mix the first record I mixed out of was Sunscreem’s Perfect Motion, the Junior Boy’s Own mix. And

their zine was incredible. I think that is their greatest contribution to music culture.”

Magazines are a big part of music. There are copies of Wax Poetics for sale at The Flip Side, as well as slipmats and other products associated with vinyl culture.

There are also listening booths for potential buyers, sofas, a coffee machine, and posters of iconic Arab stars plastered on the walls.

The records themselves are displayed in shelving units tucked neatly into the rear part of the store.

Jazz, blues, funk, soul, hip-hop, dub, ambient and all the various elements of dance. There are even sections for old Arabic titles and local labels, including Bedouin Records, run by Salem Rashid.

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APRIL ISSUE 148

UPFRONT / THE BUSINESS

“Selling records is tough man. It’s tough because by the time we get the records into the shop we’ve already spent a lot of money”

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Much has been made of the fact that The Flip Side is Dubai’s first independent vinyl record store, that it acts as a hub for artists, and that its musical outlook is eclectic, but it is also very much a work in progress.

There is an upper level that remains essentially unused and the store’s vinyl catalogue is not

yet online. “That is the most important thing,” he admits. “I’m in the process of doing it now.”

It is one of Megallaa’s challenges. Alserkal Avenue, although a hub for the arts, is another. It has limited footfall throughout the day and being a one-of-a-kind venue in a market unused to the concept

of record stores comes with its own issues, not least awareness, understanding and demand.

“We do so many in-stores, I just don’t know how to reach more people,” he admits. “We record so much. This week alone we have four in-stores and we do different series like Dub Ethics, which celebrates dub music, and Astral Travelling, which is more cosmic stuff. And then there’s The Shady Shadow Show, my own radio show, which I’ve been doing for a while. I’m just trying to reach more people.” In the UAE? “Globally.”

“There’s no other job I want to do,” he adds. “No other job. I mean, I realise that you have to make money in order to live on this planet and my first ambition was DJing because I thought, you know, I can do this. But there are a lot of things I’m not willing to do, like the whole promoting yourself and marketing yourself.

That’s just not my character. I always thought that my DJ skills would speak for themselves and I would get bookings based on merit, but that does not exist anymore, at least not in this part of the world. You could do it if you live in Europe and you’re part of a scene. Even a small scene, but a scene nonetheless.”

Megallaa has a love for music that is contagious. He was recording a Funkadelic tribute mix when I first entered the store and works with a level of emotional commitment that is rare. However, he also recognises that keeping The Flip Side alive is going to be a challenge.

“Selling records is tough man.

It’s tough because by the time we get the records into the shop we’ve already spent a lot of money. It took me so long to do this that if I’m going down, I’m going down with a fight. I will do everything in my power to keep this place going.

I can’t give this up.” flipsidedxb.com

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APRIL ISSUE 148

UPFRONT / CLASSIC READ

The Innovator’s Dilemma

By Clayton Christensen

tendencies about the way successful organisations work and about how their performance is evaluated.”

Look at the likes of Google, Apple and Microsoft; all were staffed by young, ambitious men and women with nothing to lose.

Many new entrants are founded by frustrated ex-employees of the market leaders. Initially, these start-ups don’t pose a threat, they operate in different markets, their small size allowing for a nimbleness the bigger companies

Innovators don’t have a huge customer base, allowing them to focus on the tech

O

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ne of the most important books released about this space in the 1990s, The Innovator’s Dilemma became an instant classic when it was published in 1997.

Its author, Harvard professor and businessman Clayton Christensen, realised that many market leaders and incumbents fail to seize the next wave of innovation in their industries. Before this book was published, a common misconception was that market leaders fail to develop disruptive technologies due to the inability of the organisation to adapt in terms of technology. So, a big company with a bloated management structure is unable to spot new trends, develop new ideas and bring these to market. It is the case that many big companies are the first to spot and develop new technologies, but they fail to value these properly

as they try to apply them to their existing customers. Often the new technologies are just too new for the more advanced value networks that the bigger companies operate.

Let’s look at one interesting excerpt from Christensen’s book: “Successful companies want their resources to be focused on activities that address customers’ needs, that promise higher profits, that are technologically feasible, and that help them play in substantial markets. Yet, to expect the processes that accomplish those things also to do something like nurturing disruptive technologies – to focus resources on proposals that customers reject, that offer lower profit, that underperform existing technologies and can only be sold in insignificant markets – is akin to flapping one’s arms with wings strapped to them in an attempt to fly. Such expectations involve fighting some fundamental

cannot manage. Eventually, the successful upstarts enter the more mature markets and compete with the big boys. Christensen argues that the smaller markets are the guinea pigs that help new technologies advance enough so they mature. He also points out that the innovators don’t have a big customer base or high expectations of yearly sales, allowing to focus on improving the technology.

By studying a number of industries, Christensen writes about his theory of disruptive innovation, and focuses on what bigger market leaders can do to protect themselves from incumbents. This includes: developing new technologies with the “right customer set”, not necessarily their existing customer base. Place the disruptive technology into an autonomous organisation, which can succeed and fail on its own terms. And, make sure that this autonomous organization can use the company resources when needed but creates its own values and processes.

Still considered a classic, Christensen’s book is a must-read for entrepreneurs and CEOs alike.

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UPFRONT / BUSINESS TRAVEL

APRIL UPFRONT / BUSINESS TRAVEL

ISSUE 148

Reimagining urban spaces Jesse Onslow Norton meets a business travel trailblazer

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n the east of Amsterdam, a new generation of thinkers is reimagining urban living.

Smart city engineers, internet of things hackers and blockchain evangelists have flocked to the area that has become known as the city’s “Knowledge Mile”.

Among the iconic canals, the hip cafes and the constant ebb and flow of Dutch cyclists something unexpected is happening. A bold reimagining of 21st century accommodation is beginning to steal the limelight from the buzz of the tech start-ups.

Hans Meyer is an award-winning hotelier who rose to international prominence when he founded CitizenM, an ultra-hip business hotel that now operates in France, the UK, the US, China and the Netherlands. The experience honed his expertise in stylish, luxury accommodation for the modern business traveller. It also taught him how to avoid the pitfalls that make more established competitors in the hotel sector feel outdated.

Five years ago, Meyer decided he wanted to start designing urban spaces for the future. He chose to focus his efforts on a fast-rising demographic: the “early adopters” of flexible, global and remote

work made possible by technology.

Meyer spent six months living as a digital nomad, hot desking in coworking spaces across destinations that have become synonymous with this new type of remote working: Buenos Aires, Washington, DC, and Bali.

“I wanted to know what it was like to run a company remotely, but when I tried it, I found it incredibly lonely,” Meyer says. “I tried staying in hotels and extended-stay hotels, but they were all the same.

A reception desk with vending machines and lighting that’s too bright – they were depressing.

“I actually found that hostels provided the best experience. I’d jump out of my bunk bed with the intention of just grabbing a coffee, but then after a couple of hours I’d still be there at a big table happily chatting to travellers I’d never met before.”

Gradually, the concept for his new hotel was starting to take shape. Meyer chose the name Zoku, a Japanese term which means “tribal clan” and became associated with the use of psychedelics by the country’s hippies and punks during the 1960s and ’70s. Meyer’s idea was to create a new category of

133

Number of microapartments at Zoku Amsterdam

hotel where public and private life was split between contemporary micro-apartment living and sociable coworking facilities. He wanted to appeal to people who feel that travelling and working internationally “really nurtures their personal development”.

When Meyer arrived back in Amsterdam, he teamed up with venture capital investor Marc Jongerius and they began the long process of concepting and developing Zoku. After working through five different prototypes, they finally opened their first hotel-meets-apartment complex in May 2015. Each of its 133 micro-apartments measures just 258 square feet, yet still contains a superking bed, dining table, sofa, TV, kitchenette and bathroom. There are 24/7 social spaces and shared amenities, including food and drink, coworking, table tennis, laundry and rooftop gardens. Arriving at the final design was no easy task.

“During prototyping, it took us around 700 test visits from people in the target audience to figure everything out. Each apartment actually works a bit like Lego or Tetris. The expensive components are the bathroom and the

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UPFRONT

“It took about 700 test visits from our target market to figure everything out”

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kitchen, everything else you can play around with,” says Meyer.

“The interior designer had to completely discard the traditional hotel floor plan: you walk into the room, left side bathroom, right side wardrobe, two steps further, left bed… We reversed the whole experience. We asked, ‘What do people want to do in a room?

What’s most important for them?’”

In total, it took two-anda-half-years from the initial concept to the final design of the micro-apartments. Next, Meyer installed cameras in the rooms and guests were asked to wear electroencephalography brain scanners that provided live feedback on two emotions: excitement and anxiety. Using this data, Meyer and Jongerius

Top and above: Zoku microapartments in Amsterdam; Hans Meyer

could monitor how intuitive the design was, whether the testers understood where everything belonged and whether they felt comfortable in the space.

“In 99.9 per cent of hotel rooms, the bed is the most dominant piece of furniture.

That’s why you don’t really invite people into your room – because you don’t want people to sit on

it,” says Meyer. “We made the kitchen table the centrepiece of the apartment instead, and hid the bed away in a loft space above the bathroom. We uploaded some small videos of the concept and got 4.2 million views in just a few days. That was encouraging.”

Despite the early hype about the unusual layout of the miniature apartments, Meyer is more proud

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of Zoku’s approach to communal spaces. During his travels, he’d been appalled by the way conventional hotels divide up public areas and create barriers between guests and staff. He decided that everyone would benefit from those divisions being eliminated.

“You normally find a big reception desk with a barrier and a restaurant with the chef hidden in the kitchen. We wanted to give our residents the feeling that they can go anywhere. There’s not a front, there’s not a back, everywhere is your playground,” says Meyer. “In our prototyping, we found that an informal atmosphere starts to pop up between residents and between residents and staff. A bit like if you stay at a friend’s house, everybody

moves around the kitchen in conversation. Because our guests stay for extended periods, you start to see relationships being built. It dispels feelings of homesickness or disconnectedness.”

This particular Zoku is in Amsterdam, but Meyer intends to launch one in “each of the world’s creative capitals” – from Paris to New York to Singapore. The company is set to launch its second Zoku location in early 2018. So far, however, initial plans for a global rollout haven’t gone smoothly.

In February, the proposed site for a second Zoku aparthotel in Manchester, UK, was denied planning permission. Local authorities claimed that the new construction didn’t make sufficient

“We wanted to give our residents the feeling that they can go anywhere.

There’s not a front, there’s not a back”

provisions for waste disposal and that the proposed building would be excessively tall for the surrounding neighbourhood.

Despite such setbacks, Meyer and his team are upbeat about the expansion of Zoku.

“Zoku was never intended to have just one site,” he says. “We have advanced our development pipeline into Copenhagen and Berlin. We’ve also signed a deal in Vienna, and there are one or two projects in Paris that will be developed. So we are on the way – from there our attention will turn to the US market.”

Meyer hopes that digital nomads and other freelancers will eventually be able to pay a global Zoku subscription fee that gives them micro-apartment accommodation anywhere in the world where the aparthotel brand operates. To fund this, they’re exploring alternative means of financing such as crowdfunding individual units.

“It’s certainly something that we will continue to look into for new sites,” Meyer says. “There are some legal aspects to it: Do backers get the ownership of the loft? Do they get the title, or just part of it? We’re very keen to include our community in the conversation so that however we choose to rollout will feel right with our audience.”

As digital technologies continue to open up new ways of working, the nature and pressures of business travel are changing.

Those who work remotely are able to be more productive than ever before, but they crave genuine local experiences that allow them to feel connected while they work internationally. At Zoku, years of data collection, experimentation and Dutch eccentricity has culminated in an accommodation experience that is more than the sum of its component parts.

Wherever Zoku ends up rolling out next, its international community of hip creatives will feel right at home.

ISSUE 148

DORCHESTER EYES DUBAI The Dorchester has earmarked Dubai for the latest phase of its global expansion, with its hotel currently being constructed on the banks of the Dubai Canal. The hotel will include a rooftop restaurant and an open-air swimming pool. While the Dorchester Collection will manage the hotel upon completion, the project is currently being carried out by Omniyat, the high-end development company that’s also behind Langham Place, Downtown Dubai – another partnership with one of London’s premier hotels.

/ BUSINESS TRAVEL

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THE NEW VIDEO STARS

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THE NEW VIDEO STARS

THE NEW VIDEO STARS David Whelan explores how a new generation of YouTube stars is changing how we consume media

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THE NEW VIDEO STARS

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orget the future. The present is online. This is an idiom we’ve become very used to over the past 20 years; gone are the days when a computer capable of simulating a game of Pong was roughly the same size as a r ural European cul-de-sac.

Television’s place at the centre of our shared experience has been dislodged by the computer.

We live in a time when names like PewDiePie, Zoella and Logan Paul dominate entertainment conversation – people, it wouldn’t be unfair to say, that most readers of this article would be unfamiliar with. They are vloggers, or YouTube stars, the poster kids of the Internet Generation, who decided to bring television to themselves by recording and uploading their homemade videos onto the internet.

They hit the crest of the wave. Back in 2005, YouTube began with a humble pop. The first video was of cofounder Jawed Karim narrating a trip he had taken to San Diego Zoo’s elephant enclosure; by the end of the month, it had 58,000 unique visitors. A year later, it was at 20 million. Now: 1.3 billion. Five billion videos are watched daily. With this huge boom in traffic came revenue – product placement, advertisements, special events drew in huge chunks of cash. In 2016, US revenues from digital advertising exceeded revenues from TV for the first time – $72.5 billion compared to $71.3 billion from TV. This is being driven by the youth – a demographic between 16 and 24 that now watches more content online than on the television. It is important to stress the benefits of algorithm here; unlike with television advertising a nd produ ct placem ent, with internet ads it is undeniable that a consumer has seen an ad for a reason. The algorithm benefits mostly through native advertising, where the product and the content are merged. If someone watches the videos of a YouTube creator they enjoy and sees they are wearing the latest Nike sneaker, they are more likely to purchase Nike and less likely to find this intrusive.

It’s a new form of advertising – it feels personal, bespoke and creative.

Nowadays its possible for anyone with a laptop to upload content and become famous

Games YouTuber PewDiePie

Nowadays, it is possible for anyone with a laptop to record and upload content onto the service – and become rich and famous. The phrase ‘YouTube Millionaire’ is now common parlance, with good reason. In 2017, for example, Dan Middleton earned $16.5 million from his YouTube channel, DanTDM. On top of that, he performed a sell out tour, including the Sydney Opera House, and boasts over 17 million followers. His draw? Streams of himself playing the endlessly popular video game, Minecraft. This may seem like a world away from the quotidian experience, but it’s real, it’s affluent and it shows no sign of abating. Vloggers now have a certified place at the table – they are popular, influential and opinionated. It’s a brand new form of communication, one that places the creator at the centre of the experience. Or, at least, this is how it’s supposed to work theoretically. The issue with such a user generated world is one of oversight – and this, occasionally, causes major issues.

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THE NEW VIDEO STARS

“I think video is the future and in a few years everyone will be expected to work competently in it”

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Logan Paul recently broke out of his vlogging fame bubble into the mainstream for all the wrong reasons. At the beginning of the year, Paul uploaded a video onto YouTube from Japan’s Aokigahara forest of a person having committed suicide. Morally, this was extremely questionable: Paul was lambasted publicly everywhere from Twitter to Good Morning America. Financially, too, this lapse of judgement proved costly – YouTube suspended ad revenue on his account for a month, reportedly losing him $ 1 million dollars. Or did it? Paul’s account is still active, and he’s still expected to earn over $11 million dollars this year, despite performing what, in any other industry, would be a career ending blunder.

People were calling for adjustments to YouTube’s policies – a stricter enforcement of rules, an establishing of barriers and the swift expulsion of anyone, such as Paul, who committed foolish or hurtful acts in the name of ‘clicks’.

Controversial vlogger Logan Paul, who remains incredibly popular

“In the end it’s going to be the job of the YouTube creator community to cement the rules for what is and isn’t OK on the platform,” says Niamh Guckian of Motion Academy. “So the area of social responsibility must ultimately be engendered and cultivated by them, in order to make the platform flourish and be the best it can be. And they need to stick to the founding rules – be yourself and be useful. I find it quite curious how rivalry and spats are a common thread in much of the most popular content. Logan Paul started out making videos fighting with his brother. Reply videos have been going for years. And recently, two YouTube sensations, KSI and Joe Weller, staged an offline real boxing match to settle their online feuding. It does seem that competitively snarky behaviour is acceptable and even expected from the big YouTube stars. Which is kind of a shame, and unfortunately this caveman stuff is probably already set in stone.”

Guckian’s Motion Academy works with businesses to develop video strategies and production workflows that “deliver on their marketing objectives”. In her words, “If they’re building a presence on YouTube, we guide them with that. We advise on creating episodic content, mentoring in-house talent in front of camera and engaging with customers who are on the platform looking for useful and relevant content.” It’s a new form of consultation, specifically designed to help individuals and businesses make the most out of the new internet wild west – which is the future, and the present. According to Guckian: “In terms of business, I think video is the future, full-stop, and in a few years’ time everyone will be expected to be able to work competently in the medium. Whether that’s for internal communications, or applying online for a job, or working in customer service – vlogging in its most basic form, a person speaking into a camera delivering useful information, will be an essential skill in the workplace.”

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THE NEW VIDEO STARS

“One of the difficulties for creators on YouTube is that the algorithm appears to reward provocative content”

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In terms of creators like Paul, who run the gauntlet between popularity and infamy, there is a growing desire to curb the antics. Being associated with a man with a reach of multiple million people may be great for a brand, but difficult when these stars perform hateful acts. For example, YouTube celebrity PewDiePie was recently dropped by Disney after a series of racial slurs. “One of the difficulties for creators on YouTube, who value authenticity above pretty much everything, is that the algorithm appears to reward provocative content ahead of a lot of other material,” says Guckian. “Which means that creators who don’t engage in that kind of thing can get left behind, while others may be tempted to exploit this by creating less genuine but more outrageous content in order to increase views. There are so many important influencers working really hard on their channels every hour of every day – it’s not easy to build a successful channel now and it’s only going to get harder. So YouTube needs to work hard too, to refine the algorithm in order to advance decent content, especially in the wake of the Logan Paul saga.” Jon Aitken, consultant and YouTuber, adds that there is an empowerment for the creator, which is a brand new phenomena. “It’s just a question of whether the creators want to make money off those particular sponsors (there are always others) or stay true to their fanbase’s wants,” he says. “YouTubers are used to having millions of people following their every move – it’s more about how the rest of the world is coping with them, than the other way round.”

The future of the platfor m it tur ns out is, ironically, human. Traditionally, YouTube moderated the user content through a squad of ‘bots’ (programmed AI that would scan for offensive material), but this method has proved open to abuse. “In an ironic move for an incredibly powerful digital machine,” explains Guckian, “YouTube is now hiring thousands of

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki at the YouTube Keynote session hosted by vloggers Rhett & Link

humans to moderate this kind of stuff, because the bots aren’t working. An analysis of Logan Paul content after the infamous Japanese forest video showed multiple and regular references to weapons, drugs and profanity, but none of this material raised flags before.”

“Honestly, I think it just boils down to professionalism and being a decent human being,” adds Aitken. “If anything, all we’re seeing is YouTube – an unregulated space for so many years – start to become somewhere where people’s bad decisions are taken seriously rather than brushed away for the sake of being a silly online video. If someone put what Logan uploaded on YouTube on TV instead, there’d be uproar, and rightly so.”

There is an argument to be made here that Paul and those like him were poorly equipped pioneers. They had the skills and the content to attract money and audience, but none of

THE NEW VIDEO STARS

YouTube stars Tyler Oakley, Zoe Sugg and Alfie Deyes

the media know-how to moderate themselves.

While it seems obvious to most people not to upload horrific content or to say offensive things in an environment designed for shareability and permanence, it may be simply that these creators are naïve to good media practice – which is absolutely part of their charm. “The enabling of anyone to broadcast to anyone, anywhere, is the cornerstone of the platform,” adds Guckian. “It would be a shame to see elaborate content moderation creeping in. I think that would only serve to further warp content and perspectives. YouTube is definitely the best place now to develop content, particularly comedy and entertainment. So it’s important to keep things as open and fluid as possible, that’s what built the YouTube universe. And live-

“YouTube is definitely the best place to develop new comedy and entertainment”

streaming is radically changing the landscape again, so it’s a very exciting time for content.”

Live streaming – such as SnapChat or Twitch – is the next frontier. These services allow creators to talk directly to their audience, live, bringing us full circle back to the very first TV shows.

“Vlogging is cyclical,” adds Aitken. “People get big on the platform, do incredible things, make money, expand into other avenues, and then lose popularity or interest. Like in traditional media, the people at ‘the top’ are always changing and I think this will be the case for a long time. But the platform changes too – if something new comes along to rival it soon then I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone jumps ship. As long as people can get validation in some way – and are able to show this off – then they’ll go wherever.” What this says about the future is interesting – the creator focus model provides far greater flexibility of medium than ever before, and with businesses

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THE NEW VIDEO STARS

Left: YouTube entertainer Jenna Marbles Below: French-speaking YouTube star Norman

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becoming more involved, it is fair to accept that a new shift is just around the corner.

“YouTube is just another way for people to be discovered and a space to make entertaining content,” says Aitken. “Netflix hasn’t ended TV and I don’t think YouTube will end anything either. It’s changing things, though, and that’s the exciting part.”

With the focus on huge creators like Paul and PewDiePie, it’s easy to forget that there are millions of other people out there, producing work of equal value and quality (if not more). One thing this new awareness of their pull and reach may provide is a refocusing on what we value – a movement away from the bigger faces and towards videos that have a wider social capital.

There are millions of people creating content online that varies wildly both in tone and quality

Vlogging, for individuals and business alike, is no longer an individual medium – but a space to educate and share.

“There are always so many incredible things being done with the platform,” says Aitken. “The fascinating people being discovered on YouTube makes me sad that we focus on people like Logan Paul. Check out Creators for Change – a bunch of people using their platforms for good (and feel inspired by humanity again). I’ve been making YouTube videos for several years – some comedic or parody, some about more serious about mental health or sexuality. Through doing this I now work with school kids and young people (often vulnerable) to make their first ever videos, helping them gain confidence and believe in the stories they have to tell. I’ve also spent a long time championing the content of smaller YouTubers, those who don’t get the same scale of promotion or sharing by YouTube the platform, or because not many people have discovered them yet.”

It is unfair, therefore, to view vlogging in a vacuum. Wide social and political change is occur r ing throughout the world – and YouTuber s will be at the ver y front. New technology, such as 360º cameras and VR, may alter the landscape once again. But, the facts are clear: it’s only becoming more prevalent and, hopefully, more respectful. Though no one is quite sure about that.

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Gregor McClenaghan looks at China’s efforts to lead the world in electric vehicles

China is ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to electric vehicles, with more than 800,000 sold last year alone

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n the past few years the electric car has gone from science fiction dream to practical reality.

Most international auto manufacturers now sell hybrid vehicles, and either already offer, or are working towards, fully electric models.

In China, the growth of New Energy Vehicles (NEVs), which include pure battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), is streets ahead of the rest of the world. Last year 804,000 were sold in China, accounting for 2.4 per cent of vehicle sales, far in excess of any other region. In the second-biggest NEV market, the EU, sales reached 307,000 last year, comprising 1.7 per cent of the market, according to figures from EVvolumes.com, which compiles sales statistics for electric vehicles worldwide; it predicts that 2018 will see 1.1 million NEV cars sold in China, making up 3.6 per cent of the country’s car market. Current government targets call for two million NEVs to be sold in China every year by 2020, and five million by 2025.

The Chinese government has helped kickstart the industr y, both with generous subsidies to manufacturers and by making it easier for consumers to acquire a licence plate for an NEV than for a traditional car.

The environmental advantages of the new technology are not driving this state-sponsored effort, however. China produces more than 70 per cent of its electricity from coal-fired power stations; according to figures from global management consultancy McKinsey & Company, the CO2 reduction from building and running an electric car compared to an internal combustion model is just 29 per cent in China, compared to CO2 reductions of 44 per cent in Germany and 89 per cent in France, both of which use cleaner methods to generate power.

Industry analysts say the Chinese government’s support for the technology is less about trying to improve China’s notoriously poor air pollution, and more about raw geopolitical competition.

“There is a saying in China: ‘You should overtake on a curve.’ The Chinese auto industry is behind the rest of the world with internal combustion vehicles, but not so much with NEVs, so they see an opportunity to overtake the rest of the world in that area; in the longer term, when you combine NEVs with autonomous driving technology, there is even more opportunity to lead,” says Lei Xing, chief editor of the China Automotive Review.

Established domestic manufacturers like BYD Auto, Lifan Group, SAIC Motor and Great Wall Motors are being joined by more than 100 new start-ups, many of which currently operate in a legal grey area without the licences the government requires auto manufacturers to hold.

Foreign manufacturers, who can only build cars in China as the minority shareholder in a joint venture (JV) with a local firm, are trailing behind, although most have now either already entered or announced plans to enter the NEV market; foreign car makers were previously limited to involvement in just two JV companies each, but the government is now allowing them to form a third JV company, as long as it only builds NEVs. Tesla, perhaps the best-known EV manufacturer in the West, has long had plans to open production facilities in China, but talks have reportedly stalled, and imported cars are subject to punishing 25 per cent tariffs.

“Chinese companies are already leading the world in many ways when it comes to NEVs; there’s a huge overseas market for electric buses, which BYD already sells to Europe and parts of the US, especially California,” says Xing.

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“Combating pollution is a factor, but you are really just changing from localised to centralised pollution”

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“Europe has relied on diesel for a long time and the European manufacturers are some way behind the Chinese companies when it comes to NEVs; the opportunity is that as cities and companies try to electrify their fleets, the Chinese manufacturers already have vehicles ready to meet that demand.”

Energy security also factors in to the government’s support for NEVs. “Twenty years ago China exported oil and gas, but China is now the world’s largest oil importer and will soon be the world’s largest importer of gas, so from a strategic point of view it doesn’t want to be doing this, as it is vulnerable to fluctuations in supply and foreign exchange rates. However, it does have a lot of coal itself, so it makes sense if it can power cars by just producing electricity in-country,” says Mark Andrews, a Shanghai-based auto industry expert and journalist who has test driven many of China’s NEVs. “Air pollution is perhaps a factor; the government certainly claims it is, but really with NEVs what you’re doing is changing from localised pollution to centralised pollution. There is some reduction in CO2 emissions, but burning more coal increases emissions of sulphur dioxide and other pollutants.”

Plug-in hybrids are becoming more popular with private consumers in cities, largely because the government has made it easier to get licence plates for them; private license plates for internal combustion cars are expensive, and in some cities are only issued through a lottery system. Various cities have introduced additional measures to cut traffic and pollution, for example by only allowing cars with specific licence numbers on the road on certain days; these measures mostly do not apply to NEVs.

Eectric cars lined up at Kandi Electric Vehicles in Changxing County

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Sales of pure battery electric vehicles, however, are largely driven by the growth in the last few years of ride-sharing platforms, where users find a car using a smartphone app, pay by the minute while they drive, and then leave it for the next person. These services are widely used in cities, including by people who have their own car but appreciate the convenience of being able to use one on an ad hoc basis. Many of the pure electric BEVs rolling off the production lines go to these ride-sharing platforms, several of which are owned by the car manufacturers themselves, like state-owned SAIC Motor’s EVCard, which operates in 32 cities and has more than 3,000 pick-up points in Shanghai alone; and Chongqing-based Pand Auto, owned by the private-sector manufacturer Lifan Group.

“It’s very difficult to find out where the true purchasing power comes from; I’ve always contended that plug-in hybrids are mostly being bought by private consumers and the battery electric vehicles are being bought by fleet users like the car sharing schemes, and people in the industry tell me that’s probably

right, but nobody is able to produce figures for who is really buying these cars,” says Andrews.

“What’s interesting is that a lot of car sharing schemes are funded by the car makers; they’re essentially selling cars to themselves, and getting the government subsidies. Most private consumers don’t go down the route of buying a pure electric vehicle because they are worried about the range issue.”

Traditionally, Chinese motorists have tended to do most of their driving within cities, and although that has started to change in recent years, the countr y’s high-speed rail network make trains a faster and more efficient option for many people travelling between cities.

However, individual freedom is an essential part of what makes private car ownership attractive, and not having the option to make longer journeys is a major factor stopping consumers from buying BEVs, both in China and the rest of the world.

Current BEVs vary in range from around 100 to 400 kilometres (60 to 250 miles), but Chinese models have tended to be at the low end of that scale, often using technology that is a few years behind that

“A lot of China’s carsharing schemes are funded by the car makers as they get government subsidies”

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of the leading international firms. That could be about to change, however; recent changes to government subsidies are shifting the focus away from the sheer number of cars that are built, to focus more on their quality and technology.

“One major change that was recently announced is that any NEV with a range of less than 150km will no longer qualify for subsidies,” says Xing.

“Most of the BEVs being released in China nowadays have about 100km range, but the mainstream players like BYD, BAIC, Chery and so on are all coming out with more and more models with ranges of 400km or more, so the auto makers are already moving in that direction. One reason for that is to meet the new technology thresholds for subsidies, but another is to drive away consumers’ range anxiety.”

As well as technological improvements, Chinese brands are also working on improving the basic quality of their cars and making them more attractive.

“There are quality and branding issues; particularly in Shanghai people want to drive a car with a well-known brand name and you don’t tend to see that many Chinese cars, although there are more in the provinces, especially away from the provincial

capitals,” says Andrews, who has test-driven dozens of Chinese NEVs in recent years.

“Over the last few years new manufacturers have been popping up almost by the week, most with no experience of building cars, and a lot of the cars are really of pretty bad quality. The big firms are improving; in a lot of the cars produced

by SAIC are of quite good standard. The BYD cars are now quite good as well, but I drove some BYDs around 2010 and they were absolutely terrible at that time. I drove the BYD E6, which was their first purely electric car, and it was terrible quality wise: how panels were put together, the quality of plastics inside, things felt like they were about to fall apart. I had a chance to examine some BYD cars recently though and the build quality was much better. Generally the joint venture cars have been more reliable, but some of the big Chinese producers have been doing a lot better recently.”

Another key area for improvement is to make sure the infrastructure is in place to support more electric cars on the road.

PEVs take around 10 to 12 hours to recharge (although many have a “fast charge” option, which takes around six hours, but reduces the

“A lot of new electric cars are of pretty bad quality, with no brand value whatsoever”

Above left: Traffic police officers take part in a training exercise in Jinan Above: An electric taxi charging station in Taiyuan

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“It’s important that there are more charging stations built, and they are conveniently located”

battery life). Even in China’s major cities, NEV users report that they often need five, and even as many as 10, separate apps on their smartphones to locate charging stations, which are operated by an array of third party suppliers, as well as by the government and the auto makers themselves.

“In China the problem isn’t necessarily whether the infrastructure for charging NEVs is in place, it’s the actual operational status of the charging stations, and their compatibility with different car brands,” says Xing.

“There are a lot of charging stations that are set up for the sake of setting them up, to meet a target, but not necessarily in the right place, or they are not maintained and quickly become zombie charging stations that don’t actually work.

It’s still important to build more charging stations, but making sure they are conveniently located and easily operated is the bigger point.”

Those issues mean some of the western manufacturers operating in China are taking a cautious approach to pure battery electric vehicles, moving ahead with plans to enter the BEV market while keeping their focus on hybrids in the short to medium term. Ford, which recently signed a new JV deal with Zotye to produce BEVs, will start manufacturing the Mondeo Energi PHEV in China this year, and plans to release at least 15 NEVs in the country by 2025.

“By then, 100 per cent of the nameplates manufactured through our Changan Ford JV, and 70 per cent of all Ford nameplates in China, will include electrified options,” says Trevor Worthington, president of product development for Ford Motor Company Asia Pacific, adding that Ford expects more NEVs to be on sale than petrol powered cars within 15 years.

“As the world’s largest NEV market, more batteries will be made in China than anywhere else, providing great opportunities for economies of scale and innovation. As battery technology improves, costs lower and charging times reduce, they will become a more competitive and attractive choice for consumers.”

Many international brands and Chinese firms are also looking at how to combine NEV technology with the imminent arrival of autonomous cars.

China banned the testing of autonomous vehicles on public roads in 2016, but recent announcements suggest that could soon be relaxed.

“Ford has announced its intention to have a highvolume, fully autonomous vehicle in commercial operation in 2021 in a ride-hailing or ride-sharing service, and that will be a hybrid,” Worthington says.

“Picking a hybrid over a BEV makes sense, as hybrids are subject to less downtime than cars that need to charge, allowing them to stay on the road longer. We believe the hybrid has a much better cost-of-ownership model for a commercial autonomous vehicle, when the most important thing is uptime and profitability.”

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OUT IN THE OPEN Gary Evans analyses the speculator who made billions profiting from human irrationality, then gave most of it away trying to make the world a more rational place. A hero to the left, a villain to the right: who is George Soros?

OUT IN THE OPEN

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ere I to write the script for the movie of George Soros’ life, the opening s c e n e wo u l d g o l i k e this: Hungar y, 1944.

Troops on the streets of Budapest. A boy, 13, enters a building marked: The Jewish Council. A Nazi hands the young Soros a list of names and a slip of paper for each person listed. The slip reads: “Report to the rabbi seminary at 9am tomorrow morning. Bring a blanket and food for twenty-four hours.”

Soros takes the list and the slips to his father, Tivadar Soros. Tivadar looks disturbed. He says to his son: “You deliver the slips of paper and tell the people that if they report they will be deported.”

Tidavar, a lawyer, a solider in the First World War, knows the slips don’t mean deportation. They mean the gas chamber.

Soros delivers a slip to an elderly man and repeats what his father said. The man takes the slip, thinks, then says: “Tell your father that I am a law-abiding citizen, that I have always been a lawabiding citizen, and I am not going to start breaking the law now.” The elderly man closes the door.

Flash forward to the London School of Economics, 1947. Soros, 17 now, sits in a lecture hall. The Austrian philosopher Karl Popper speaks.

Soros works as a waiter in a nightclub. Soros works as a porter in a train station. Soros attends another Popper lecture and looks mesmerised.

New York, 1956. Soros walks on Wall Street.

The seasons change around him. His 1950s suit becomes a 1960s suit. His hairs grows a little shaggier, goes a little greyer. It’s 1969 now. Soros gets out of a car and strides purposefully into a building. The sign says: Soros Fund Management.

An arrow on a line graph shows profits rising throughout the 1970s and the 1980s until in 1981 the arrow the reaches $400 million.

Every good movie needs an “inciting incident” – the point, early on, at which the protagonist comes up against a problem. He makes a lifechanging decision and the story spins off in another direction. Here’s mine. Soros sits alone in his office, 33rd-floor views of New York through the window behind him. He speaks in voiceover: “I was a successful manager of an international

investment fund and I was making more money than I had use for. I began to think about what I should do with it.” Soros gets up and walks to the door, which frames people in suits busy with work.

He reaches for the handle. “I was a confirmed egoist but I considered the pursuit of self-interest as too narrow a base for my rather inflated self.

If truth be known, I carried some rather potent messianic fantasies with me from childhood which I felt I had to control, otherwise they might get me into trouble.” In his hand Soros holds the 1981 end-of-year report. It shows he made a 22 per cent loss for the year, how investors panicked and left, and that $400 million of assets now stands at $200 million. “But when I had made my way in the world I wanted to indulge my fantasies to the extent that I could afford.” Soros smiles at the losses. He closes the door.

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The Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, who shaped George Soros’ worldview

Soros goes on to become the most successful hedge fund manager of all time, but that’s not what my movie would be about. In late 1980 and early 1981, Soros said he went through a midlife crisis.

After making a loss for the first time, he increasingly shifted his focus towards philanthropy.

Hungary was first: “To build a country from which I wouldn’t want to emigrate.” He already funded scholarships for black South Africans and Eastern European dissidents. But this was something else.

In parts of the Eastern Bloc in the 1980s you had to register a typewriter with the police.

Photocopiers were locked behind steel-covered doors and guarded. Information was statecontrolled. Soros and his new foundation flooded these places with photocopiers. People could print banned books and underground publications.

“Soros is the largest single donor in human history for the defence of human rights and democracy”

“I started by trying to create small cracks in the monolithic structure that goes under the name of communism, in the belief that in a rigid structure even a small crack can have a devastating effect,” he wrote in Opening the Soviet System.

His charitable work grew into the Open Society Foundations. Today it runs projects in more than 100 countries. The name is a nod to Karl Popper’s book Open Society and Its Enemies. Over his lifetime, Soros has donated $32 billion to his foundation, which is the third largest in the world. “I began my work directed at opening up closed societies,” Soros wrote in Underwriting Democracy.

But there’s not much of a movie in a man with loads of money going around giving it away, no matter how subversive his methods. Any screenwriter will tell you that a good script needs conflict.

“If George Soros has become an arch-villain, it is by his own doing,” Matthew Vadum says.

Vadum is senior vice president of Capital Research Centre. The conservative non-profit, set up in 1984, looks at “how foundations, charities, and other non-profits spend money and get involved in politics and advocacy”.

Vadum says: “Soros used to do good things, as when he used his resources to help undermine the Soviet Union, but after the USSR fell,

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something changed. Soros came to hate his adopted country, the United States, calling it ‘the main obstacle to a stable and just world order’.”

Vadum feels threatened not just by Soros’ “dangerously twisted worldview”, but also by the fact that he has the billions to act on it: “From an American conservative point of view, he is on the wrong side of almost every issue.”

Channel 4 recently investigated theories put forward by national governments or mainstream media outlets about Soros. The British public-service TV channel disproved, among others, the following stories: that he plans to “Muslimise” Europe by opening its borders, that he singlehandedly caused the 1997 financial crisis in Southeast Asia, and that he was SS officer in Nazi Germany. Google Soros’ name and you’ll find far worse theories.

I asked Vadum why he thinks there are so many conspiracy theories about Soros. “It is human nature,” he says. “Soros does bad things, which are exhaustively documented. People who do bad things in the real world often become the subject of conspiracy theories. For example, he hurt people by breaking the Bank of England.”

Flashback to spring 1992. Soros borrows sterling, around 6.5 billion of it, and converts it into a mixture of Deutschmarks and French francs. Sterling had joined European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) but is unable to keep the pound above its agreed lower limit. John Major’s Conservative government withdraws from the ERM. When the pound is devalued Soros pays back what he borrowed. By selling sterling he didn’t own he profits by £1 billion.

“It’s an odd sidelight on the state of politics, that a man who made his money in currency speculation should be regarded as a saviour of progressive causes,” Mike Harris says. Harris is executive director of 89up, which runs campaigns to “make the world a more open, pluralistic, and democratic place” and receives funding from the Open Foundations.

“Soros is the largest single donor in human history for the defence and strengthening of democracy and human rights, so it is no surprise that he is [the alt-right’s] bogeyman.

“Much of the criticism of Soros comes from places like Russia, like Hungary or Azerbaijan, where the governments of those countries choose to demonise Soros to distract their citizens from the fact their economies are failing and their political systems are totally dysfunctional. The altright in the US and Europe now openly echo the language of, say, the Russian government in their criticisms of Soros.”

What’s behind it? For Harris, the answer is clear: “It’s anti-Semitism.” The Channel 4 report backed this up: it found that many of the stories it investigated included an explicit or implicit reference to Soros being Jewish.

“Soros does bad things, which are exhaustively documented” Harris says: “When people say ‘globalist’ they are actually alluding to the oldest conspiracy theory, that Jews control the money supply. It’s now also tied into Islamophobia.” Harris points to a claim by the Hungarian minister of agriculture who

OUT IN THE OPEN

said Soros wants to change Hungarians traditional diet so they eat insects. “This is a racist reference to migration, and Hungary is an EU member state.”

Harris says this is why comparable conservative figures, like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers, don’t suffer “hate campaigns”.

For Harris, what really separates Soros is where his money came from. There is a strange poetic justice to it: “It highlights what is really unique about Mr Soros. This isn’t the direction of his political efforts: there are other philanthropist billionaires. But most of them inherited their money. Mr Soros made his by the careful study and exploitation of human irrationality. Then he decided to spend the fruits of his labour on making the world a slightly less irrational place.”

Soros is 87 now and show no signs of slowing down. He made few mistakes as a speculator.

He makes even fewer in philanthropy. He is categorically part of the one per cent. But living through Nazi-occupation made him sympathise with the outsider, the underdog, the oppressed. As the left-wing newspaper The Guardian put it, he’s the best of the one per cent. Maybe that will only become clear after he’s gone, when we look back over the story of his life, at his peers.

So, Soros is our anti-hero, but we still need a villain. For past couple of year, Soros has regularly squared up against another New York billionaire, Donald Trump. The screenwriting guru John Truby says in good movies the hero and the villain are in many ways the same. The villain wants to stop the hero getting what he wants because the villain is usually competing with the hero for the same thing.

Take Star Wars as an example: “Luke’s opponent is the ruthless Darth Vader, and each is competing over who will control the universe. Vader represents the evil forces of the tyrannical Empire. Luke represents the forces of good, comprised of the Jedi Knights and the democratic Republic.”

So were I to write the script for the movie of George Soros’ life, the final scene would go like this: Davos, 2018. Seven US Air Force helicopters fly in formation over the Swiss Alps. Ride of the Valkyries plays, like in Apocalypse Now. President Trump steps out of Marine One – upon which is emblazoned the Stars and Stripes and the ‘United States of America’ in foot-high letters – and strides forwards with purpose.

George Soros steps up to the lectern in front of a small audience at a dinner talk at the World Economic Forum. “It has become something of an annual Davos tradition for me to give an overview of the current state of the world. I was planning half an hour for my remarks and half an hour for questions, but my speech has turned out to be

“Soros made his money by the careful study and exploitation of human irrationality”

Both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are examples of the rise of populism and the political strongman

closer to an hour. I attribute this to the severity of the problems confronting us.”

A massive stage. A massive screen. A full brass band plays. Trump walks on stage and gives a speech about his “historic investments” in the military “to make the world safer from rogue regimes, terrorism and revisionist powers”.

Cut to Soros, who says that Trump’s leadership has put the US on course for a nuclear war with North Korea. “The threat of nuclear war is so horrendous that we are inclined to ignore it. But it is real.”

Trump boast about the low-tax, low-regulation economy he is creating. For every rule he makes, he cuts 22 “burdensome” regulations. “Regulation is stealth taxation,” he says. “In America, those days are over.”

Soros warns we’re heading towards a “web of totalitarian control” worse than Orwell could’ve imagined, that social media companies deceive users and pose a genuine threat to proper thinking. “Davos is a good place to announce that their days are numbered,” he says. “Regulation and taxation will be their undoing.”

Trump gesticulates, shouts, pouts. Trump says before entering politics he never had understood how “nasty, how mean, how vicious and how fake the media can be”. The audience boos and hisses.

Soros talks quietly, staccato almost, his Hungarian accent still there. He steps off stage to quiet applause, but not before saying: “It takes a real effort to assert and defend what John Stuart Mill called ‘the freedom of mind’. There is a possibility that once lost, people who grow up in the digital age will have difficulty in regaining it. This may have far-reaching political consequences.”

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WILL VR CHANGE THE WORLD? David G Taylor explores what the future holds for the fledgling technology

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magine a world where you can tour a building that’s yet to be built, try new clothes and products without leaving home or learn how to tend to casualties in a warzone without getting so much as a scratch? All of these experiences have now become a reality, or rather, a virtual reality, but what does the future really hold for this fledgling technology?

For a time virtual reality (VR) was headline news, causing much excitement in the gaming industry and speculation about its world-changing applications. In 2016 Forbes.com announced that the virtual world would “dramatically transform the way we learn, live, communicate and connect with others around the world”. Yet, cut to 2018 and that excitement seems notably more muted.

In a recent report, The Future of VR, Michael Inouye, principal analyst at ABI Research, a market-foresight advisory firm, said: “VR made a splash at CES in 2015… but it has seemingly lost some of its lustre by 2018.” Meanwhile, in January, the technology news website TechRadar. com declared: “It’s clearer than ever that, these days, virtual reality is treated like a novelty.”

For any technophobes, CES (formerly The International Consumer Electronics Show) is a global consumer technology showcase that takes place annually in the US.

“A lot of the potential for VR is already there, and just needs the right conditions” You’d be forgiven for wondering if VR technology would amount to more than an entertainment novelty. Might VR yet change the world or is it the new 3D? I asked David Rose, editor-in-chief of the Virtual Reality Society.

“Absolutely not,” he says. “I understand the conflation, however. 3D was a huge deal and went through several generations of technological advancement. VR is very different and absolutely has the potential to change the world, not just of entertainment, but in plenty of other areas.” Rose cites productivity, data interaction, journalism, management, remote operations for dangerous work, therapy for physical and mental health conditions, and even VR programmes designed to help people quit smoking. “A lot of the potential for VR is already there, and just needs the right conditions of price, accessibility and that killer application to strike gold.” he says.

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“VR will change the world, and in some cases already is changing the world, but exactly what will take it from niche to ubiquitous I’m not sure as of yet. It’s more similar to something like the personal computer, in that you have a technology that people knew was going to cause a huge impact, but it took some time for technology to catch up to that ambition.”

“This is not to say that VR is failing like 3D TV, which also hit a CES peak and then fell,” Inouye says. “But rather it’s simply no longer the hot topic.” Undoubtedly VR has yet to go mainstream.

However, scratch the surface and it soon becomes apparent that beyond gaming and entertainment, VR technology is slowly insinuating itself into the worlds of business and commerce.

“It’s only recently that the technology has reached a point where it is both available to a wider audience and is starting to live up to its potential.

This is why VR is still exciting,” says Inouye. “The consumer space is taking longer to develop because content is still lacking and the technology needs to reach a point where it becomes appealing to a wider audience. The commercial and enterprise space, however, is more accepting of VR’s early technological quirks, so long as it provides a more immersive training experiences, saves costs (e.g. travel expenses) or improves efficiencies (e.g. collaborative work environments).”

Inouye touched on one of the areas VR is already making a major impact, namely personnel training. Parcel delivery company UPS started using VR to train delivery drivers last autumn, while military and space agencies such as Nasa were among its earliest adopters, utilising it to

“The consumer space is taking longer to develop because content is still lacking”

provide realistic experiences, ranging from flight and vehicle simulation to training medics in battlefield environments.

Lately, however, VR has begun to catch on in more unexpected places. In January this year, the tiny police force of Gwent in South Wales became the first in the United Kingdom to adopt virtual reality for training its officers. The technology has proven invaluable in allowing Gwent Police to practise skills such as decision-making under pressure. Using avatars in immersive 280-degree VR settings, they’ve been able to simulate scenarios ranging from domestic abuse call-outs and arrests to house searches.

“VR makes training more effective and impactful, and depending on the circumstances could also reduce costs,” Inouye says. He cites savings on travel

WILL VR CHANGE THE WORLD?

In fact, the CTA anticipates a record year of sales for VR/AR headsets and eyewear. It projects 4.9 million units will be shifted in the US this year, fetching revenues of $1.2 billion, which is more than a 25 per cent increase from 2017. For anyone unsure of the difference between VR and AR, the former is a completely immersive computersimulated world, while the latter merely allows users to digitally superimpose virtual objects onto the real world filmed by their smartphone camera or other device. AR is “one of those huge things that we’ll look back at and marvel on the start of it”, according to Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive. There’s also MR (mixed reality), a hybrid that combines the best elements of AR and VR, but let’s not complicate matters too much.

“VR makes training more effective, and depending on the circumstances could also reduce costs”

expenses for trainers, and operational time on virtual machines versus actual construction equipment.

“STRIVR and Walmart, for example, are using VR to help new hires and other employees experience and assess both day-to-day and unique situations.”

For example, he says, “observing a grocery aisle and identifying problems” or to “gain perspective on what it’s like to work on Black Friday”.

Not everyone agrees that consumer VR has lost any of its lustre. At the recent CES 2018 in Las Vegas, the augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality marketplaces spanned “a record-breaking 45,000 net square feet of exhibit space”, says Blake Rouhani, director of industry communications at the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which has staged the CES conference for more than 50 years.

Visitors to CES in Las Vegas interacting with the new generation of VR technology

When I ask Rouhani to pick some of the most exciting innovations showcased at CES this year, he cites “Black Box VR, creator of a virtual reality gym”, and the “VR biometrics content platform StoryUp”, which responds to users’ brainwaves.

He also mentions “several announcements of untethered VR advanced capabilities”, and tells me about “HaptX, maker of haptic gloves for training and entertainment”. Haptic gloves use air pressure pockets in such a way that wearers feel like they’re actually interacting with physical objects.

For someone who remembers how groundbreaking the Atari game console was in the late 1970s, it’s mind-boggling stuff. And what of the business world, I ask? “We are looking at a future where your physical world can interact with your digital workplace and environment,” says Rouhani.

“The value will extend beyond gaming and entertainment to healthcare, education and beyond.

Imagine treating patients suffering from PTSD or pain management with VR, or training doctors for difficult surgeries, the ability to visit a far-off locale for travel or education – the options are limitless.”

Medicine and healthcare are arenas where exciting developments are already underway.

The Virtual Reality Society recently reported on a study by Professor Daniel Freeman advocating VR therapy for people suffering from debilitating paranoia – helping them to cope with

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triggering situations by re-learning how to react, and a paper published in the journal Environment and Behavior (SAGE Publishing) even described VR reducing the pain of dental treatment.

For the disabled especially, the impact of VR could be transfor mational – providing access to basic skills tuition, practical help via voice-activated technology and effortless social interactions in virtual environments. Various promising developments are already on the horizon. Researchers at the University of Haifa have invented a system designed to teach autistic children road safety using VR scenarios. American company Omega Ophthalmics, meanwhile, has begun clinical trials of the Gemini Refractive Capsule, a device that implants directly into the eye. What started life as a lens replacement system for people with cataracts has now opened the door to a future AR display in-eye.

The recently unveiled Samsung Galaxy S9 is a new smartphone offering a glimpse into the

“Imagine treating patients suffering from PTSD with VR, or training doctors for difficult surgeries”

future of retail. The S9’s intelligence platform, Bixby Vision, offers real-time object detection and recognition and has a make-up mode that enables users to ‘virtually’ try on cosmetics before buying them online. The S9 can also translate foreignlanguage text live, which is useful for menus or price tags when travelling abroad, or estimate the calorie content of your meal via the camera.

“Though VR is only in its infancy in the sphere of online shopping, it is set to change how we buy things,” says news website TechGenYZ.com.

“Makeup simulation and clothing simulation will be the future of try-on,” it adds, resulting in fewer purchases being returned.

“E-commerce is relatively nascent, with China leading the way, but it’s a bit early to get a firm grasp of this aspect of the market’s potential.

But it is promising,” Inouye says. “Even Walmart appears to be investing here.” Walmart recently acquired Spatialand, a VR platform and content studio with a mission statement to “develop and explore new products and uses of VR through immersive retail environments”.

E-commerce “is currently one of the most important aspects of the internet to emerge”, according to NetworkSolutions.com, one of a growing band of companies helping businesses setup online. It defines E-commerce as “any business or commercial transaction that involves the transfer of information across the Internet” – an umbrella term applying to a range of different businesses, from consumer-based retail websites such as Amazon and auction sites like eBay, to goods or services traded on the net between corporations.

Asked for his pick of VR’s most exciting applications, alongside “training” and “destination VR” (tourism), Inouye says, “I would say 3D visualisation.” The technology’s potential in design, modelling and construction is only starting to be felt. “For some scenarios, the deeper level of immersion offered by VR is beneficial,” Inouye

WILL VR CHANGE THE WORLD?

Opposite page: VR being used in a retirement home in France Left: the US military uses VR to train its pilots and drone operators

“It’s likely the question in 30 years will be: which parts of business did VR not change in the last three decades” says. “For example, working with assets developed with CAD software [computer-aided design].

Those instances where multiple users (including remote) are included in the experience.”

VR can enhance the collaborative experience and bring together people working in different locations. “Design teams and engineering, for example, could discuss a project together, dissecting the virtual object, and even making adjustments on the fly,” Inouye says.

Launched last autumn by IrisVR, Prospect is multi-user VR experiences aimed at the

architecture, engineering and construction industries. It allows users to host an VR meeting with up to 12 colleagues from anywhere in the world, collaborating via an immersive walkthrough, a bit like Second Life, to make design decisions easier and faster.

“If you are a healthcare architect, for example, you can now invite the physician or nurse into a collaborative and intuitive environment of the proposed design,” IrisVR CEO Shane Scranton told VR 360.com ahead of the launch. “ Then you can engage in a dialogue about space to evaluate the impact of decisions prior to construction, regardless of their physical location.”

I asked David Rose of the Virtual Reality Society, how he envisaged VR revolutionising the business world? Besides general training and education, Rose says that VR can offer specific advantages to certain industries. “There have been experiments in using virtual reality to control tele-operated robots,” he says by way of example. “This allows dangerous factory and industrial work to be done safely – and even at the worker’s own home.” In terms of the standard office environment, he says, “there are revolutions on nearly every level”.

There are virtual desktops that remove the need for work to be done with multiple monitors.

The options for conferencing are huge and pretty much already implementable. These sorts of environment will also let you choose an environment to work in, be it an office, a beach or in space. The options for conferencing are huge and pretty much already implementable, with a huge number of virtual conferencing apps allowing a mix of virtual avatars, video and audio to interact for closer communication than standard teleconferencing or conference calls. That’s stuff already in development or already available. So I could see that becoming a major part of businesses in the next five years, once the teething issues with the technology are resolved.”

And in the next 30 years and beyond? “The possibilities are enormous,” says Rose. “Remote working would essentially be open for nearly every job, the internet would be something you could travel around in, touch, taste, feel and smell. It’s likely the question in 30 years will be: which parts of business did VR not change in the last three decades?”

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Jesse Onslow Norton explores one of the world’s most prestigious auction houses

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n March, one of the world’s greatest impressionist portraits went up for auction in London. Painted in the same year as the Guernica, Picasso’s Femme au beret et a la robe quadrillee depicts the artist’s close friend Marie-Therese Walter, who is often described as his “golden muse”. As the hammer came down on the final bid, the $69 million sale was confirmed as the highest auction price for any painting ever sold in Europe.

The record-breaking sale was more good news in what is already shaping up to be a stellar year for Sotheby’s, the prestigious and historic art dealership that hosted the auction. As one of the world’s largest and most respected brokers of fine and decorative art, the company has had to work hard to establish its global reputation.

Sotheby’s can trace its lineage back to 1744 when it was founded by a London-based bookseller named Samuel Baker. Baker had been tasked with dispersing several hundred rare books that had been in the possession of a wealthy baron.

The sale was such a success that Baker found himself approached by a number of literature collectors who wished to dispose of their libraries, which led him to partner with a theatrical local auctioneer named George Leigh.

To g e t h e r B a k e r a n d L e i g h wo u l d b e responsible for turning auction houses into a continental sensation. They attracted both buyers and sellers from around Europe, and were responsible for valuing and transacting some of the most remarkable collections of the time.

Upon Napoleon’s death, for example, the library of books the great general took into exile was entrusted to Baker and Leigh to be sold at auction.

It wasn’t until much later that Sotheby’s pivoted from primarily dealing with book collections towards dabbling in fine art. In 1913, it sold a portrait by the Dutch painter Frans Hals and never looked back. The affiliation between Sotheby’s and the world of fine art was cemented rapidly, and continues to endure to this day.

“I think when people hear the word Sotheby’s there’s an immediate positive association. We really are one of the platinum British brands, up there with Rolls-Royce and Bentley. We are the oldest company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, for example, and we’re actually older than the United States of America,” says Edward Gibbs, Sotheby’s chairman of the Middle East and India. “But we know we can’t rest on our laurels.

It’s vital that we continue to honour the pioneering spirit that founded our company in the first place.”

2017 was a year of anniversaries for Sotheby’s.

The dealership celebrated 100 years at its New

Edward Gibbs, Sotheby’s Chairman of the Middle East and India

“We are the oldest company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, older than the United States”

Bond Street location in London, 50 years in Paris, 40 years in Geneva and 10 years in Moscow.

But rather than looking back on its successes, Sotheby’s took the opportunity to continue broadening its horizons. It opened new offices and selling centres in Dubai and Mumbai, along with new exhibition spaces in Los Angeles and San Francisco. This impressive global expansion shows the dealership’s drive to continue modernising.

But to Gibbs it’s simpler than that – it’s about responding to demand.

“There has been a sea change in the art world.

If you look at the art world in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, it was really a cosy club. It wasn’t until the ’80s that things started to really change,” says Gibbs.

“Japanese buyers entered the market and had a transformative effect on global sales, particularly the impressionist market. The ’90s and ’00s saw a tsunami of liquidity in the market from other emerging marketplaces, principally across Asia, but also Russia, and even South America.”

Today, the fine art trade is a truly global market, which is no longer dependent on any single market or geography. But there is one region where the allure of fine art is driving demand faster than anywhere else.

Over the last five years, there has been a 76 per cent increase in the number of Middle Eastern participants in Sotheby’s sales. In the UAE, the figures are even more impressive; participation has increased 157 per cent, with a 39 per cent increase in the last 12 months alone. The increased engagement has seen the total value spent at auction houses

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triple since 2012, and is being fuelled by institutions as much as it is by wealthy collectors.

The Gulf is enjoying a wealth of ambitious new museum and art gallery openings. The Museum of Islamic Art in Doha opened in 2008 and now houses one of the world’s most complete collections of Islamic artefacts. But it’s not just Islamic art that Middle Eastern collectors are bidding on. Last year, the Louvre Abu Dhabi opened on Saadiyat Island containing European masterpieces such as the most expensive painting ever sold at auction: the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci.

Recent years have been challenging for auction houses, with slowing global growth affecting the confidence of sellers. In 2016, estimates for sales at the top three auction houses, Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips, were down almost 50 per cent on the previous year, which had grossed $1.2 billion.

Art advisors pointed to Brexit and the election of President Trump in the United States as causes for uncertainty, and the number of masterpieces arriving at sales rooms began to dwindle.

In a bid to tempt more masterworks onto the auction block, dealerships across the board began to collapse the fees that they charge sellers. This increased pressure on the margins for brokers, and intensified competition for the prestigious works that are able to attract wealthy buyers and institutions to the showrooms.

Sotheby’s response to the changing market was to attempt to squeeze more money out of purchasers. It introduced a 12.5 per cent charge on purchases over $3 million, marginally higher than the 12 per cent rate offered by its competitors, Christie’s and Phillips. It also looked to once more diversify its offering by moving into jewellry and luxury watches. Ultimately, however, it was demand

Above: A 1,000-year-old bowl being sold for $37.7 million at Sotheby’s last year, and a selection of the art Sotheby’s has auctioned

for its core offering, fine art masterworks, that pulled Sotheby’s through the downturn.

Sotheby’s auction house sale of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s untitled 1982 Neo-Expressionist painting of a skull made headlines around the world when it fetched $110.5 million. Another key event of last year was when an unusually quiet salesroom in New York erupted into a wild bidding war over Marc Chagall’s impressionist depiction of his first wife, Bella Rosenfeld. The canvas ended up moving for $28.4 million and was sold to a bidder phoning in from Moscow.

As times have changed, so have the faces of the collectors who buy and sell great works at the auction houses. Global geopolitics and economic trends have shifted the fortunes and access to wealth of different types of art aficionado over the

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years. But when markets are as volatile as they are now, there is one concern that remains consistent.

“No two collectors are alike, no two buyers are alike. A true collector is probably driven more by emotion, by passion than by financial concerns and investment. But having said that, anyone who is investing in art also has to consider it’s long-term prospects,” says Gibbs. “What we have seen is that there’s increasing evidence of capital flying into the tangible assets that are represented by the things that Sotheby’s sell. For instance, we’re seeing increased investment in the luxury sector, in jewellery, and in the contemporary and impressionist market.”

Competition from outside the world of traditional auction houses has begun to cause industry disruption in recent years. A string of luxury hotels across the world are beginning to take advantage of their captive audiences and

Auction houses are facing increasing disruption from highend hotels and the web

pursue the additional revenue streams of selling artworks and collectibles in exchange for a cut.

For example, Hotel Cafe Royal, a prestigious and storied five-star hotel on London’s Regent Street, has become an art lover’s haven in recent years, featuring monthly exhibitions from established and upcoming artists, with a constant stream of paintings and photographs on sale.

As premium hotels begin offering high-end rarities as an additional service for their clients, it’s difficult to know what the future might hold for traditional auction house brands if they aren’t able to innovate and compete. That’s why Sotheby’s, along with its closest competitors, are turning their attention to the digital realm and all its possibilities.

Over the past five years, auctioneers have been forced from their traditional roles and turned into digital information managers alongside. What was once simply a high-end industry is now becoming an increasingly high-tech industry. The move towards online auctions is one significant aspect, but like many businesses, auction houses are finding that there’s a lot to gain from paying attention to collecting and integrating data – whether it’s the latest market trends or customer information like past auction records or purchases made by relatives.

Digital technologies have also made taking part in auctions simpler and more seamless. The internet has enabled auction houses to much more rapidly fulfill the know-your-customer checks mandated by financial regulators, and it’s also become much easier to register as an auction house client. As a result, more than half of new auction house clients now register online – and Sotheby’s has taken notice and fed this into its digital strategy.

Four years ago, Sotheby’s partnered with online giant eBay to live-stream auctions from its

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Sotheby’s partnered with eBay to livestream auctions from its New York office

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New York salesroom. The move attracted a much younger audience who would have traditionally been uninterested in auctions. The move was such a success that Sotheby’s began trialling the placing of live bids through the eBay platform in 2016. The experiment gave Sotheby’s access to an additional 150 million users, most of whom are more familiar with purchasing items online than at the discretion of an auctioneer’s hammer.

“It’s a game changer in the art market. There will always be a place for the drama and theatre of the live auction, but increasingly our business is shifting into the digital world and that is an exciting development,” says Gibbs. “Not all aspects of technology are positive, but we can see that the online portal and platform is a key gateway for new clients and collectors to find out about our business. They’re using it to engage in new ways and we’re able to keep closer communication with our experts than ever before.”

Sotheby’s online-only sales are now dominated by clients who are engaging with the brand for the first time. It’s sometimes difficult for prestigious

brands with plenty of heritage to engage with the digital world, but Sotheby’s seems to be achieving it with grace. A new generation of first-time buyers and bidders are finding the lustre of the auction house through Sotheby’s social media and extensive online marketing campaigns.

Sotheby’s celebrated its 274th birthday in March this year. In the near three centuries since, it has seen nations formed and torn apart by world wars. It has seen cultural tastes swing wildly from generation to generation and new technologies change the way commerce is conducted. But despite the constant upheaval, the auctioneer’s hammer has endured as an eternal symbol of prestige and status wherever the allure of fine art is felt by wealthy investors and discerning collectors.

From top left: A mirror mosaic by Monir Farmanfarmaian; an oil painting by Sohrab Sepehri; a diamond-set and enamelled necklace from India; an oil painting

by Bahman Mohassess, dubbed the Persian Picasso

B e l g i a n

o u t d o o r

l u x u r y

PLEASE VISIT OUR WEBSITE TO DISCOVER OUR COLLECTION AND TO FIND YOUR ROYAL BOTANIA SPECIALIST WWW.ROYALBOTANIA.COM

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Hollywood charm An LA hotel with a history as glamorous as the neighbourhood it sits in

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THE BEVERLY WILSHIRE

WHERE TO STAY

Los Angeles

PRICE From $695 per night

fourseasons.com/ beverlywilshire

 LAX

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n icon as much as a hotel, the Beverly Wilshire has been seared onto the Hollywood psyche since it opened in 1928. Everyone from Warren Beatty to John Lennon to Elvis Presley has spent extended periods of time here, and the hotel oozes charm. It has also starred in its fair share of productions from Pretty Woman to Entourage. Now run by the Four Seasons, the property has all the five-star amenities you would expect, from private pool cabanas to a Michelinstar restaurant and a stunning spa.

Located in the heart of LA’s shopping district, Rodeo Drive, it’s also in the perfect location for those looking to give their credit cards a workout. Style, history and oodles of class – what more could you want?

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FROM THE CONCIERGE

SEE

The Griffith Observatory is one of LA’s most interesting sights.

With telescopes, planetary exhibitions and some of the best views of the city, it’s perfect for a lazy afternoon.

Admission is free.

EAT

Dialogue is one of the city’s hottest new restaurants, in a rather unusual location: inside a food court in the Third Street Promenade.

Upscale American cuisine at its best, worth a trip if you can get a table.

DO

Hike Runyon Canyon. Long a favourite of the city’s health conscious, Runyon Canyon is filled with hikers, runners, weightlifters and yogis, who head for the plateau at the top, which offers views across the city.

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ISSUE 148

Gemstones The right gems can make for a very smart investment

1

Know where you are going to sell. You need people who can sell your gems at retail prices, so they can at least pay wholesale prices, maximising your profit.

2

Consider whether you can add value before you buy a gem, re-polishing or re-cutting.

W

3

If you are going to buy at antique shops, flea markets and auctions, then you need to have done your research, understand the market and what gems are the most coveted.

hile diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, there are lots of gemstones out there that are better suited for investors.

The first thing to remember is that the single biggest factor in how much profit you make is entirely dependent on how much you paid for it in the first place. That means buying wholesale, not retail. The best prices come from primary retailers that mine and cut the stones. Another way to add value is to buy a rough gem and get it cut – although again the buying price will have to be low enough to justify such an investment.

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What to pack ...for spring weather in Osaka and beyond

Average temp

16°c

Budapest Belgrade Barcelona Athens

ALSO WEAR IN...

17°C 18°C 18°C 19°C

OSAKA

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Chance of rain: 20%

WHAT TO SEE

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DÕTONBORI The main nightlife and entertainment hub, Dõtonbori is also a tourist attraction thanks to the acres of neon, weird and wonderful passers-by, and the glut of nightlife and restaurants on offer. The best thing here is to take a stroll and soak it all in: the canal is a good

point of reference and an easy way to make sure you don’t get lost.

Be sure to try one of the numerous hole-in-the-wall ramen joints, which serve delicious and relatively cheap noodles. There's also lots of bars (particularly whisky bars) lining the streets – just watch out for the welllubicrated salarymen.

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ACCESSORIES

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Bottega Veneta leather continental zip wallet $872 neimanmarcus.com

Jacques Marie Mage apache square-frame sunglasses $863 mrporter.com

Gucci GG black leather belt $447 harveynichols.com

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3

2

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5

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1. Gucci floral-embroidered wool overcoat $7,575, matchesfashion.com 2. Fear of God holy water black skinny jeans $1,001, harveynichols.com 3. Philipp Plein noise tiger-embroidered cotton T-shirt $875, mrporter.com 4. Gucci space animals camp-collar printed silk-twill shirt $1,008, mrporter.com 5. Berluti run track torino camoscio low-top trainers $1,189, matchesfashion.com 6. Tom Ford taylor patent leather penny loafer black $1,496, neimanmarcus.com

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What to pack ...for spring weather in Birmingham and beyond

Average temp

13°c

Amsterdam Berlin Kiev Glasgow

ALSO WEAR IN...

14°C 13°C 14°C 12°C

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BIRMINGHAM

Chance of rain: 60%

WHAT TO SEE

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ASTON HALL Built in 1635, Aston Hall is one of the finest Jacobean-style houses in the country. Now run as a community museum, it has a series of beautifully restored period rooms, as well as displays from the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. There are also signs of a more troubled

past: there is a hole in one of the staircases, where a cannonball went through a window in 1643. These days, things are more peaceful and it’s the perfect place to spend a lazy afternoon with the whole family. And, if it’s a fine day, you can explore the lavish grounds, which are always immaculately kept.

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1. Burberry wainscott reversible cotton and wool trench coat $2,446, matchesfashion.com 2. Giambattista Valli floral-print silk chiffon dress $2,355, harveynichols.com 3. Max Mara striped wool and cashmereblend coat $2,014, net-a-porter.com 4. Tom Ford pointed-toe 105mm leather pump $700, neimanmarcus.com

ACCESSORIES 2

Globe-Trotter 33inchh ed w suitcase $2,250 harveynichols.com 1

3

Gucci GG Marmont quilted-leather wallet $360 matchesfashion.com

4

83 Jaeger-LeCoultre 34mm rose gold diamond watch $38,626 net-a-porter.com

LIVING / FOOD

The high life James Brennan visits the Italian Alpine town that has reinvented itself as a foodie hub

CORMAYEUR, ITALY

H

igh above the Valle d’Aosta in the shadow of Mont Blanc, Nicola Del Negro stands with an ice axe in one hand, a bottle of Italian sparkling wine in the other. With a single deft strike he cleanly cracks the top off the bottle, careful not to spill a single drop in the snow.

As if this swashbuckling act of Alpine sabrage wasn’t dramatic enough, we’re at an altitude of 2,173 metres at the Pavillon du Mont Frety station of Skyway, the state-of-the-art cable car linking the town of Courmayeur with the breath-taking 360º observation deck at Punta Helbronner. As settings for raising a glass of bubbly go, it’s pretty hard to top. The glass of Cuvée Des Guides 2014, which the locals like to call “Mont Blanc Champagne”, goes down like a slalom champion.

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Paolo Griffa

But it’s extra special because it was bottled right here on the Skyway by Del Negro himself at the Cave Mont Blanc experimental high-altitude winery.

That there is also a sizeable (and decent) restaurant and bistro up here serves as a reminder of how seriously the people of Courmayeur take their food and drink. And with a number of high-profile food events, including the annual Chef-In-Comune charity dinner, a Taste festival and a gourmet mountain experience with Heston Blumenthal, they’re keener now than ever to share their wares with the world.

A long-time favourite destination of skiers, trekkers and mountain climbers, Courmayeur is linked with Chamonix in France via the Mont Blanc Tunnel.

It’s a charming Italian Alpine town with boutique-strewn cobbled lanes and chocolate box dwellings. But thanks to its geographical quirks, its unique local produce, and some very dedicated and talented people, Courmayeur is beginning to capture the hearts and stomachs of a clientele that know their haute cuisine.

Take the wine, for example. It is made with the Prie Blanc grape, an indigenous variety that can only be found in the Valle D’Aosta, and whose acidity lends itself perfectly to the creation of fine bubbles. The reason it still survives owes much to its extreme Alpine home, as most of Europe’s vines were killed off by the great phylloxera scourge of the late 19th century.

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Cave Mont Blanc is a cooperative of more than 80 members who cultivate the grapes around the villages of Morgex and La Salle in stonewalled enclosures on the steep mountainside. The vines are trained low to soak up residual heat from the ground, and with pergolas of around one metre high, handpicking the grapes is backbreaking work. No wonder they call it heroic wine.

Like the wine, the small-batch artisanal quality of much of this region’s produce makes it highly prized.

In Morgex, agriculturalist and food producer Diego Bovard makes traditional ‘pan ner’ black bread at home in a woodfired oven with his own La Branche brand of locally grown rye and wheat flour. But he also harvests a rare crop that isn’t readily associated with the Alps: saffron. “I pick the plants one by one, by hand, and dry them in the sun or by the fire,” he says. “For one gram of saffron I have to pick over 200 flowers. And for 200 flowers it takes around 50 minutes to an hour. The price is around €25-30 for one gram.”

It’s worth it. Alpine saffron brings subtle flavour and rich colour to risotto and fish dishes, as well as crème brulee and ice cream, not to mention a traditional tea infusion, which Bovard claims to have all kinds of stimulating properties. “It helps you focus on the job,” he says with a smile, before leading the way to the kitchen for a traditional Valle D’Aosta feast.

“New food events are emerging and visitors are engaged and interested… gastronomy can be a driving element for Courmayeur” On a sturdy kitchen table, Bovard’s wife presents a dizzying spread of rustic home-cooked food. Raw and cured meats sit beside a ‘vegetable’ option with beetroot, potatoes – and lardo.

“For me, it’s vegetarian!” jokes Bovard.

There’s local Fontina cheese, which has been made in the Valle D’Aosta since the 12th century, and light Toma cheese made with partially skimmed cow’s milk. But the highlight is a traditional cabbage ‘soup’ – called zuppa di cavolo

valdostana – made with layers of thick bread, Fontina cheese and Alpine butter, which soaks up almost all of the stock to create gloriously stodgy comfort food to keep the mountain cold at bay.

Diego Bovard and his family are passionate about keeping their local gastronomic traditions alive, and their hope is to one day open their home to small groups of tourists to share their food secrets. Until then, visitors can trawl the restaurants, cafes and delicatessens of

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Courmayeur for flavours and ingredients that are hard to find elsewhere.

If it’s not a fashion boutique on the pedestrianised Via Roma, it’s a shop selling food, olive oil or wine. There are panetterias stuffed with pastries and pretzels, salumi counters offering local salami and mocetta, and gelaterias selling ice cream and frozen yoghurt.

At la Bottega Tartufo you can explore a world of Italian truffles, or you can stop

by Goio Vini-Liquori for a bottle of the local herbal liqueur known as génépi, an Italian cousin of absinthe.

The Caffè Della Posta is a landmark spot to enjoy a bombardino, an extravagantly soothing drink comprising

brandy, Vov egg liqueur and a dollop of whipped cream the size of the Matterhorn. Originally a grocery store, the cosy cafe dates back to 1911, though its vast fireplace is a 16th century affair crammed with brass pots and pans and adorned proudly with coats of arms.

According to legend it has thawed the bones of such Alpine adventurers as King Farouk of Egypt and Errol Flynn.

Yet while culinary heritage is everywhere in Courmayeur, there’s a promising young chef in town who’s pushing tradition to its very limits.

Paolo Griffa has worked with the likes of Davide Scabin at Combal.Zero in Torino, he was the S.Pellegrino Young

Chef finalist for Italy in 2015, and in 2017 he competed as part of the Australian team in the Bocuse d’Or 2017 final. He recently made the move to Courmayeur to head up the Michelinstarred Petit Royal restaurant at the fivestar Grand Hotel Royal E Golf, citing the “possibility of expressing myself without compromises”.

Griffa’s approach to cooking is modern and experimental, allowing the ingredients themselves to dictate the form of each dish. Among his favourite produce from the Valle D’Aosta he lists the deer with its firm meat and delicate game flavour, the trout from the nearby town of Cogne, and the raspberry vinegar by local producer Douce Vallée – not to mention Diego Bovard’s saffron.

“The local ingredients each add a peculiar flavour to the dishes, such as the mountain potatoes in all their variety – whether they are yellow or red, mealy or waxy,” says Griffa.

In Italy, Griffa is widely regarded as a rising star, and for him to rock up in the Alps is big news. Likewise, he seems delighted to be here.

“Courmayeur is evolving as a culinary destination, new food events are emerging and the visitors are engaged and interested,” he says. “Together with winter sports, gastronomy can be a driving element for Courmayeur.”

Whether you’re skiing, eating, drinking, or all three in the Valle-d’Aosta, things are certainly on the up.

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San Francisco Film Festival Big names and cutting-edge films dominate America’s longest running film festival 88

T

he longest running film festival in the Americas, this is the 61st edition of the event. Expect to see big-name premieres, international films, documentaries and musical performances. With filmmakers arriving from around the

world and hundreds of films being screened, this is an event not to be missed. Highlights include Ex Machina director Alex Garland in conversation with Wired, the Jean-Michel Basquiat documentary, Boom for Real and the Garry Winograd documentary, All Things

Are Photographable. With a focus on films made in the Bay Area and special focus on science and technology, this year’s event promises to be one of the most fascinating yet. Make sure to buy your tickets early.

April 4 to 17, sffilm.org

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Clockwise from left: San Francisco has long been a filmmaking hub; Richard Gere in conversation at last year’s event; the festival promises to be a must-see for film fans from around the world

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LIVING / COLUMN

Soon

By Andrew Santella

T

here are so many ways to rationalise procrastination: it may be a defiant shot across the bow of an overbearing authority or a critique of the prevailing global-capitalist ethic. For writers like De Quincey and Oscar Wilde, procrastination was an element of personal style. Writers may be the world’s most persistent procrastinators, which is strange because they work in a trade in which the deadline is supposed to be sacrosanct. Author Douglas Adams said: “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by.” When he died in 2001, he was 12 years past the deadline for his last book.

Writers are unmatched at excusing their own sluggishness. Does anyone talk about “accountant’s block”? Does your auto mechanic claim to need a soulful, seaside stroll before getting down to work?

Even pacing the floor, that cliché of the creative act, is a kind of postponement. I used to think that when I paced I was summoning big thoughts, getting my mental gears going by putting the physical in motion. But maybe all that ping-ponging back and forth was just a simulacrum of my psychic vacillation, my irresolution: Should I sit here or sit there? Write this or write that? Should I even be a writer at all? Maybe there is a way for me to make a living that doesn’t require staring at blank paper and blinking cursors.

William Gass spent 30 years on his novel The Tunnel. Rilke had to work around the First World War and his own severe depressions to complete the Duino Elegies over the course of a decade. I’m not trying to directly compare myself to their likes. Rilke’s topics were ontological torment and existential suffering.

I have struggled with seven hundred words on cardigan sweaters for GQ. But Rilke knew that some work is done indirectly. “I have often asked myself whether those days on which we are forced to be indolent are not just the ones

we pass in profoundest activity?” he wrote in a letter, presumably in lieu of doing actual work.

“Whether all our doing, when it comes later, is not only the last reverberation of a great movement which takes place in us on those days of inaction.”

This is exactly the kind of magical thinking every procrastinator must master. Inaction isn’t really inaction, but an unseen stirring that leads only later to some useful result. Yes, I suppose I could spend the day in dutiful work, doing what I’m supposed to be doing. But if I instead clean out the pencil drawer – who knows what wonders may result? Can I really afford to spend my day doing mere work?

Some procrastinators blame their habit on perfectionism or fear of failure. The idea is that they can’t do anything until they know they’ll do it just right. Many of us are stalled by the knowledge of our own insufficiency. Mr Casaubon, the pedant classicist in George Eliot’s Middlemarch, can’t bring himself to cease his laborious preliminary research and launch into the actual writing of his masterwork. Given his working title, ‘Key to All Mythologies’, readers can only be grateful for his hesitation.

Casaubon is a ridiculous character, which may be another way of saying he stands in for many of us. His habitual avoidance – at once selfprotective and self-frustrating – is something most procrastinators would understand. His creator must have understood, too. Eliot has been held up as a heroine of the dilatory artist. She didn’t start writing fiction until her mid-thirties, and had to be nudged ahead by friends, even then. But in the literature of indecision, no one has dithered as profoundly as Hamlet, the student prince and ancestor to today’s procrastinating undergraduates. If the old honour code of familial revenge had been good enough for Hamlet, his response to his father’s death would have been automatic. But Hamlet was a new kind of existential hero.

Some blame their habit of not starting work on perfectionism or fear of failure

90 From Soon by Andrew Santella © 2018. Reprinted courtesy of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

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