Portals.org has placed a giant sculpture called NYC Portal in the Flatiron South Public Plaza in New York. It is a massive 3.5 ton circular structure that is a combination of technology and artwork, measuring approximately 11.5 by 11.5 feet.
The NYC Portal allows people from New York to interact with people from Dublin in real time via an unfiltered live broadcast 24/7. The organization installed an identical building facing O’Connell Street in Dublin and called it Portal Dublin. The connection between the two cities was made at 11 a.m. EST on Wednesday.
These portals are the brainchild of Lithuanian entrepreneur Benediktas Gylys, who came up with the idea in 2016. The video portals contribute to a growing network of sculptures that the organization has been setting up in different countries since 2021. The first two portals were placed in May 2021 connecting Vilnius, Lithuania to Lublin, Poland.
Description of the technological sculptures, the organization Author:
To meet humanity as it is, for the first time. Portals were born out of a feeling that we, humans, have more to share than what separates us; And from a feeling that we are all connected to each other on this planet of ours.
What powers the giant 8-by-8-foot screen is technology originally built by a British company called Video Window to enable always-on video communication with employees working in remote locations.
The same idea was used for the portals, with safeguards to ensure people don’t control it. Video Window CEO Daryl Hutchings told TechCrunch that the software is built in such a way that people cannot “zoom bomb” a portal.
Privacy and data security are among the main considerations in the cities they work with, according to Portal.org’s head of partnerships, Nicholas Klaus. It can worry the governments that there is a permanent relationship with another country.
However, Portal.org’s partnership with Video Window has made it easier to work with governments around security. Video Window has high-profile names including Netflix, Apple and SAP as clients, Klaus added.
While the statue offers an unobstructed view of another country, it may have its own set of problems. If ever connection issues are encountered, they will be fixed using the video window APIs.
Klaus told the publication that they have been able to “maintain a 24/7 live stream with virtually no interruptions” elsewhere over the past three years, making New York and Dublin safe enough to join the network.
picture through Portals.org