Opinion: A story about the ‘Portal’ pandemonium of two cities

People in both New York and Dublin, Ireland, wave and gesture to each other as they watch a livestream of each other as part of an art installation on the street in New York, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Image: Seth Wenig/ AP

The New York-Dublin “Portal” was closed almost as soon as it opened.

The Portal is a live circular video screen by Lithuanian creator Benediktas Gylys that allows people in two different cities to, in the words of exhibition organizers, “embrace the beauty of global interconnectedness.”

But “global interconnectedness” can be messy.

Portals were set up earlier this month near the Flatiron Building in Midtown Manhattan and O’Connell Street in Dublin. Those who crowded into view to smile, wave, take selfies and make heart signs or faces between the two cities were overwhelmingly gracious.

But New York and Dublin are no Mayberry.

CNN saw a man flashing two middle fingers in front of New York’s Portal. Social media sites show a few people on the Dublin side holding up swastikas and images of the destruction of the Twin Towers on September 11, which were especially gruesome. Ava Louise, who has an OnlyFans site, responded by lifting her shirt in front of New York’s Portal as “revenge,” she told the Daily Star.

People in both New York and Dublin, Ireland, wave and gesture to each other as they watch a livestream of each other as part of an art installation on the street in New York, Tuesday, May 14, 2024.

There are other portals in Lublin, Poland, and Vilnius, Lithuania. I don’t find any data there of similar demonstrative citizens. But New York and Dublin are celebrated world centers of wit.

New York has been home to Philip Roth, Lenny Bruce, the New York Dolls, James Baldwin, Charlotte Moorman, the Topless Cellist and many artists whose words and works have sometimes been despised and even banned.

And Dublin? Home of Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats and the Boomtown Rats. Dubliner Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels” features a giant putting out a fire by defecating on it. There’s a scene for The Portal!

James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’, about a day in Dublin, could initially not be published because of its frank portrayals of other life facts. Dubliner Sinead O’Connor notably shredded a photo of Pope John Paul II on live TV in America in 1992, stating. “Fight the real enemy.”

Perhaps the civic and business groups supporting the installation may seem a little naive to invite Dubliners and New Yorkers to “embrace the beauty of global interconnectedness” and not expect swear words, profanity and outright insults to be hurled at The Portal seep.

The technical team says they are working on what they call “additional solutions to limit such behavior on the livestream,” and that the installation will reopen this weekend.

The Portal does not contain audio. As someone on the New York Portal side might put it, “Fuggetaboutit!”

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