An art installation connecting people in New York City and Dublin through a livestream video feed was shut down on Tuesday, May 14, 2024. New York City's "Portal" is located in Manhattan's Flatiron District and Dublin's is near O'Connell Street. The art installation launched on May 8 and was designed by Lithuanian artist, Benediktas Gylys.
Though the portals were meant to be a "bridge" connecting people, some people used the 24/7 livestream as an opportunity to engage in "inappropriate behavior," such as flashing body parts and displaying offensive images.
"Instances of inappropriate behavior have come from a very small minority of Portal visitors and have been amplified on social media," a spokesperson for Flatiron NoMad Partnership said in a statement shared with the New York Post.
The "inappropriate behavior" has occurred in both cities. The Guardian reported that people on the Irish side showed images of swastikas and images of the September 11 attacks, which then appeared on the New York side.
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In New York, a woman reportedly flashed her breasts to the Irish side, as per the New York Post. Incidents like this occurred in spite of 24/7 on-site security and barriers on the New York side, CBS reported.
The Flatiron NoMad Partnership said via Instagram that the installation would likely be closed for a few days while New York and Dublin teams come up with new ways to prevent inappropriate behavior and disturbing images from appearing on the livestream.
The partnership also stated that although videos and images of inappropriate behavior have gone viral on social media, "the overwhelming majority of visitors to the Portal have behaved appropriately and experienced the sense of joy and connectedness that this work of public art invites people to have," reported CBS.
The Dublin City Council plans to "[implement] some technical solutions to address this," reported the BBC. But on May 15, the Dublin portal just displayed a message: "Portal is asleep — back up soon."
The BBC also reported that Gylys has encouraged people to "think of a 7-year-old child that is in New York that wants to experience and that wants to connect to Dublin and wave to people there" when interacting with the installation.
Gylys previously told NBC New York that he came up with the idea of connecting people in different countries in 2016, but his desire to do so grew during the COVID pandemic. He founded Portals.org, which also had portals in Vilnius, Lithuana, and Lublin, Poland, in May 2021, according to USA Today.
The portals in New York and Dublin are meant to run through fall 2024.
Gylys told NBC New York that he created the installations because he was tired of "constant separation, constant hatred." He said the installations might need to close from time to time to help maintain an "experience is lovely for everyone," according to the outlet.
