A livestream portal linking New York and Dublin reopened Sunday after it was briefly shut down last week amid reports of people flashing body parts, doing drugs on camera and trolling viewers on the other side.
The visual art exhibit dubbed “The Portal” features a pair of installations that each have a giant screen and a video camera, with one placed next to the Flatiron Building in New York and one on O’Connell Street, the Irish capital’s main thoroughfare. Each side of the portal broadcasts a livestream from its counterpart in the other city, enabling visitors on both sides to interact with each other in real time — as if the two cities were participating in a giant video call.
The display has attracted tens of thousands of visitors since it opened earlier this month. But its popularity has also prompted some mayhem.
On Tuesday, the Dublin City Council announced it would be closing the portal due to “inappropriate behavior by a small minority of people” after videos circulated online of a woman baring her breasts to the portal, a man mooning the camera and someone at the Dublin portal holding up a photo of 9/11. Others appeared to show themselves taking drugs or pretending to.
In a statement announcing the portal’s reopening Sunday, the installation’s organizers in both cities said they have implemented a “proximity-based solution” by taking action to prevent people from stepping on the portals and holding phones up to the cameras.
Aside from having added fencing and spacing decals in front of the New York portal, stepping onto the installation and obstructing the camera will now trigger a blurring of the livestream on both sides, according to the organizers.
