Since May 8th there has been a live video connection between a street in New York, in the United States, and one in Dublin, in Ireland, via a large installation created by the company Portal.org, composed of a circular screen of a couple of meters in diameter and a webcam. Less than a week later, however, there have already been several cases in which the “portal” has been used to transmit obscene or offensive gestures, especially from Dublin to New York: among these photos of the Twin Towers in flames, swastikas and some butts.
The “portal” is actually used mainly by people who wave to each other (there is no audio connection), take photos or in some cases dance. Some people have used it to meet up with friends or relatives who live in the other city, others have tried to exchange telephone numbers and Instagram addresses to communicate better. Will remain until autumn and in the coming months it should also broadcast cultural events and connect to other similar installations in the rest of the world.
It is certainly a small minority of people who use the “portal” to make offensive gestures, but they are capable of ruining the experience of everyone else: a widespread comment was “this is why we can’t have beautiful things”. In many cases those who make offensive gestures are people under the influence of alcohol or other narcotic substances: in Dublin the installation is located near an area with many pubs and also known for widespread crime and the trade of illegal drugs. In one case the Dublin police had to take a woman away in her forties who was “rubbing” on the portal, apparently drunk according to the person who filmed it and posted the episode online.
Another apparently unintelligent man bent down and lowered his trousers showing one’s butt to New York observers. A person he brought his phone closer to the camera, first showing the writing “RIP Popsmoke” (an American rapper killed in 2020), then a photo of the Twin Towers in flames. In another case a person repeatedly showed photos of swastikas. There was also some exchange of middle fingers and other offensive gestures.
The first of these installations was created in 2021 between Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, and Lublin, Poland, by a Lithuanian artist, Benediktas Gylys. The idea was to encourage connections between people even beyond borders, in a period in which restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic were still in force in many places. In that case there appear to have been fewer offensive exchanges, although a user on Reddit he said that when he was in Lublin three people on the other side had responded to his greeting with a middle finger.
A similar installation had also been created in Italy: it connected Bergamo and Brescia, Italian capitals of culture in 2023. It was called THEGATE2023 and had been created by another company. Unlike the other “portals” it also had an audio connection and was not active 24 hours a day, but only from 10am to 11pm. In 2008, again in New York, one was created which it connected with London.
– Read also: The story behind the illegal tunnel under the synagogue in New York