Paragens: Counterfeit Gas
A gas station borrows its identity from another gas station. The place remains the same. The fuel is cheaper, some say it’s fake.
Note: The scheme hurt the state by more than five million euros. The salesman used the liquid that resulted from washing the fuel tanks, adding it to the fuel. Then he would sell it at the market price as if it was genuine. About 30,000 gallons of adulterated fuel were seized. One of the gas stations is located at the entrance of Azambuja.
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Spiral
The miner’s trade is an ancient one. Throughout Central Europe groups of artisans, journeymen miners – Gewerkschaften, Knappschaften – are attested as early as the twelfth century, and the rules of their associations became generalised in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as many German miners moved into the eastern countries. All went well for these tiny mining teams as long as the minerals lay close to the surface and could easily be reached. But when mining had to plunge deeper into the earth serious problems arose: long galleries had to be dug and strengthened with props; winding-gear to bring men and loads out of the pits had to be built, and the ever-present water had to be drained. This was not so much a technical problem (new methods often arise spontaneously to meet a challenge from inside an industry) as a financial one. From now on, mining would require the installation and maintenance of equipment huge by the standards of the time. The changeover, at the end of the fifteenth century, opened the door to rich merchants. From their position of strength as owners of capital they were able to take over the mines and associated industrial enterprises from a distance.
Place: Rice field, Virtudes.
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Crystallised Flame
Do price changes travel in waves?
Place: Thermoelectric power plant, Carregado.
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Gemini
They found it all too tempting to explain the course of everything terrestrial - including individual or collective destinies and desires – by the stars. In 1551 Oronce Finé, a mathematician and dabbler in the occult, made the following diagnosis in the name of astrology: «If the Sun, Venus and the Moon are in conjunction in the sign of Gemini (the Twins), writers will earn little for that year and servants will rebel against their masters and lords. But there will be a great abundance of wheat on the land and roads will be unsafe because of the abundance of thieves.»
Place: Thermoelectric power plant, Carregado. The smoke at the background is produced by one of its chimneys.
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«Paragens» são deslocações realizadas de Lisboa até à zona logística do Carregado, onde são fotografados objectos, semi-objectos, hiper-objetos, ultra-objectos, quase-objetos escolhidos nos ateliers dos artistas.