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14th August 2024
01:05pm BST
Big new changes are coming to the Dublin to New York portal, as it surpasses 100 days since its arrival in the city.
The art installment which connects the two cities with a live video feed was the centre of a spate of controversial incidents upon its erection, leading Dublin City Council to step in with heightened security measures.
The changes to the installation are being made from September 2 and will see the Portal's location in New York moved from the Flatiron Plaza to a new unannounced location.
Another change includes a 'rotation' feature', which will connect all Portal locations around the world, rotating every three minutes between other destinations like Vilnius in Lithuania, and Lublin in Poland.
Speaking on the new changes, a spokesperson from Portal.org said: “Having the Portals rotate between many places on Earth has been the original concept of the project.
“Portals are meant as an invitation to meet fellow humans above borders and differences, and the goal is to create a global network of Portals that is constantly expanding.”
Some of the high profile incidents of the Portal since its initial installation included a woman being arrested in front of it, someone showing a picture of the 9/11 attack on their phone and a man mooning some unsuspecting New Yorkers.
A woman on the New York side also flashed the Portal, with the video subsequently going viral online.
The Portal was subsequently closed for a temporary period, with Dublin City Council announcing it would operate under new time restrictions
The Portal now runs daily from 11am to 9pm in Dublin (6am to 4pm in New York).
The council also said that the portals "are not meant to be touched or stepped upon" and that they have "taken steps to limit instances of people stepping on the Portal and holding phones up to the camera lens."
It was revealed that the Portals.org team (the organisers behind the installation) has "implemented a proximity-based solution", meaning that "if individuals step on the Portal and obstruct the camera, it will trigger a blurring of the livestream for everyone on both sides of the Atlantic.
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