A "Portal" Between Ireland And New York Has Been Shut Down After People Started Acting Inappropriately
The inappropriate behavior included a woman flashing her breasts, a man baring his butt and a person displaying pictures of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York.
Irish authorities have temporarily shut down an interactive art installation that involves a “portal” linking Dublin, Ireland, with New York in the US due to inappropriate behavior.
The art installation was created by Lithuanian artist and entrepreneur Benediktas Gylys and consists of a 24-hour livestream between New York City and Ireland’s capital Dublin through a circular screen, making it seem like a portal.
It was unveiled on Wednesday, May 8, and allowed “real-time interaction between Dubliners, New Yorkers and visitors” within the two locations.
The project, which first bridged Lithuania's city of Vilnius and Poland’s Lublin in 2021, aims to “open a window between far away places and cultures that allows people to interact freely with one another.”
Vilnius Gediminas Technical University’s Creativity and Innovation Centre (LinkMenu fabrikas), which built the portals, said they chose the shape of a circle to symbolize the wheel of time and because it was a well-known and recognized sci-fi symbol.
However, just a few days after, on Monday May 13, the Dublin city council reported that the installation would be temporarily shut down after “a very small minority of people engaged in inappropriate behavior”.
These included a woman flashing her breasts, a man baring his butt and a person displaying pictures of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York.
"While we cannot control all of these actions, we are implementing some technical solutions to address this and these will go live in the next 24 hours,” the Dublin city council said in a statement, according to the Irish Independent.
Authorities said they will work with the organization, Portals.org, to find solutions to bring the installation back.
“We encourage people to be respectful and from our position as observers, we see that the absolute majority of experiences is on the bright side,” the organization said in a statement following the incidents.
Indeed, many of the interactions have been heartwarming and wholesome.
Loved ones and families interacted with each other despite being in different cities, some people met their moms on Mother’s Day, and others had an Irish dance battle.
Someone in New York even left a cardboard cutout of Irish singer Hozier at the portal, and people loved it.
The portal between Dublin and New York city was expected to run until autumn 2024.
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