NEOs

  • Dates
    2017 - Ongoing
  • Author
  • Topics Social Issues, Contemporary Issues, Documentary
  • Location Luxembourg, Luxembourg

By reconstructing the economical history of Luxembourg and reflecting on the process of dematerialization of wealth in this country, NEOs aims to be an visual journey in the Grand Duchy’s SpaceResources program: the exploitation of mining resources coming from asteroids and objects near the Earth.

For centuries, Luxembourg used to be a very poor country, despite hosting in subsoil part of world’s biggest iron reserve. The iron’s quality was poor, due to phosphorus content that prevented it from any use. Only in 1877, Sidney Thomas patented a method to separate iron from phosphorus. Luxembourg started developing an important metallurgic industry, becoming in few years biggest steel exporter country in the world. Iron’s mining and processing gave a consistent wealth to the country until iron crisis in 1970, when Luxembourg decided to review its economy giving way to a new cycle based almost entirely on financial services, becoming soon the world’s second richest country. At least until now. Fearing a new financial crisis, Luxembourg revealed in 2016 its third development cycle: the exploitation of mining resources coming from asteroids and objects near the Earth (NEOs), digging metals that are rare on our planet. Supported by the most advanced technology companies and the most powerful investment banks around the world, the SpaceResources program will use the present best technological progress to increase the financial assets of Luxembourg. First mission is foreseen in 2020.

Realized thanks to a residency at CNA - Centre National de l’Audiovisuel (Luxembourg), NEOs aims to question the idea of progress itself by reconstructing the economical and technological history of Grand Duchy and reflecting on the process of dematerialization of wealth in this country. Trough images that seem to hind at a futuristic and metaphysical world – but that come, actually, from the two first development cycles of Luxembourg, based respectively on iron’s exploitations and on financial services – NEOs aims to be a visual journey in the forthcoming “capitalist space” trough the visible remains of our era, an object too close to the Earth to be seen from the right distance.

© Ezio D'Agostino - Measurements and calculations on a wall of the Schifflange steel mill.
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Measurements and calculations on a wall of the Schifflange steel mill.

© Ezio D'Agostino - Image from the NEOs photography project
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Core drilling to verify the toxicity of the subsoil inside the Schifflange steel mill. For decades, the waste of steel production has been buried in a dump inside the industrial site. The steelwork, in activity since 1872, was closed in 2011 and is now in a dismantling phase in order to build a new residential neighbourhood.

© Ezio D'Agostino - Image from the NEOs photography project
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A window reflex in the new district of Esch-Belval in Esch sur Alzette. The district is located on a large part of the steelworks site which dominates the city. The Belval site suffered during the abandonment of steel production in Luxembourg and is subject of an extensive program of regeneration. The reconstruction project cost 450 million Euros.

© Ezio D'Agostino - Image from the NEOs photography project
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Steel bars in the ArcelorMittal steel mill in Esch-Belval. In 1909, the forest “Escher Bësch” is rased in order to build the steel mill of Esch-Belval. Considered at the time as one of the most modern plant in Europe, it covered some 100 hectares and had six blast furnaces capable of producing between 240 and 250 tons of iron each per day. For many decades the iron and steel industry has been the main source of employment and wealth in the country. The last blast furnace closes in Esch-Belval in 1997.

© Ezio D'Agostino - Detail of the map of the tunnels in the ancient Tillenberg mine.
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Detail of the map of the tunnels in the ancient Tillenberg mine.

© Ezio D'Agostino - Transparent box for the conservation of rare metals in the National Museum of Natural History in Luxembourg Ville.
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Transparent box for the conservation of rare metals in the National Museum of Natural History in Luxembourg Ville.

© Ezio D'Agostino - Image from the NEOs photography project
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Protective glove of a worker in the continuous casting of liquid steel in the Esch-Belval steel mill. Aluminized protection reflects infrared radiation so that maximum radiant heat is returned to the outside.

© Ezio D'Agostino - Image from the NEOs photography project
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Software for detection of human presence inside the cargoes that enter the Freeport. Opened in 2014, the Freeport is a high security storage area of 11,000 square meters where gold, works of art, wines and vintage cars are stored. Located on a land used in the past as a place of deposit of residues resulting from excavation through the country, the Freeport offers to its clients services similar to the offshore financial centers: security, confidentiality and tax benefits. The goods stored inside the Freeport benefit from a VAT exemption, they are not affected by import taxes and may be haggled without the transaction being taxable. As Freeport is installed in the perimeter of Luxembourg airport, the goods are considered “in transit” and exempt from customs duties.

© Ezio D'Agostino - Image from the NEOs photography project
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A radar inside the headquarter of the SES (Société Européenne de Satellites). Created in 1985, SES is now the world’s second largest operator of services by satellites and the first to have launched a satellite with a reusable rocket of SpaceX, the only one in the world capable of landing after flight. SpaceX is one of the private companies that develop supporting technologies for mining asteroids.

© Ezio D'Agostino - Image from the NEOs photography project
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Water tank in one of LuxConnect’s data centers, a public limited company created in 2006 and owned by the Luxemburg state. LuxConnect is specialized in storage and security of data in the financial and e-business sectors. Located in the center of the “Golden Ring” - the fiber network that links London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris - Luxembourg is currently host the highest concentration of data centers in the world. In the European ranking, Luxembourg is considered the country that guarantees the most security for the confidentiality, protection and storage of sensitive data and electronic transactions. The reservoir contains 70,000 liters of cold water to ensure air conditioning in the computer rooms in case of power failure.

© Ezio D'Agostino - Image from the NEOs photography project
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Heartbeat sensor in the entrance hall for goods at Freeport. The building is considered one of the most secure places in Europe: barbed wire, reinforced concrete walls one meter thick, 300 cameras, biometetric readers, heat and motion detectors, steel armored doors of 10 tons, armed surveillance 24h / 24h. In the design of Freeport, architects were inspired by prisons. All entries and exits of the building have sealed compartments: you can not open the second door in front of you without the previous one being closed. The four floors are built exactly the same, without any visual landmark: if an outside visitor could infiltrate, he couldn’t be able to find back the exit.

© Ezio D'Agostino - Image from the NEOs photography project
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A lamp in an office of the PricewaterhouseCoopers headquarter, in Luxembourg Ville. PwC is the main audit involved in the LuxLeaks financial scandal, which revealed the content of several hundred very advantageous tax agreements concluded with the Luxembourg tax authorities by audit on behalf of many international customers. The revelations are based on confidential informations about Luxembourg’s tax rulings set up by the audit PricewaterhouseCoopers from 2002 to 2010 to the benefits of its clients. After the LuxLeaks scandal, the audit of Luxembourg did not lose in activity of tax optimization; on the contrary, they have seen new customers interested in these tax avoidance practices.

© Ezio D'Agostino - Image from the NEOs photography project
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An ice block floating in an ancient cooling basin for steel bars in front of the new headquarters of Deep Space Industries, in the Esch-Belval district. DSI is one of the main company working to develop technologies for asteroid mining. Water is the most abundant chemical compound in the Solar System and is fundamental to business operations in space: decomposed into its main elements - oxygen and hydrogen - it can be use to produce propellant for rockets. According to DSI, water “is the first resource we will harvest, and the first product we will sell”.

© Ezio D'Agostino - Image from the NEOs photography project
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The central tower in the facade of the Deutsch Bank’s building in the Kirchberg district, in Luxembourg Ville. The Deutsch Bank is one of the multinational companies involved in the LuxLeaks financial scandal. No multinational company is sued by a court for tax evasion because of the supposedly legal nature of the tax avoidance schemes.

© Ezio D'Agostino - Image from the NEOs photography project
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Scaffolding in the district of Kirchberg, in Luxembourg Ville. Banks around the world have their headquarters in this district which is the heart of the international financial center in the country.

© Ezio D'Agostino - Image from the NEOs photography project
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A box for classification and cataloging of rare metals and stones at National Museum of Natural History, in Luxembourg Ville.

© Ezio D'Agostino - Image from the NEOs photography project
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Residues from the combustion of calcium carbide. Calcium carbide has been used for a long time for lighting the iron mines in Luxembourg. It decomposes on contact with water, producing acetylene gas, which is flammable and explosive.

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