Philly’s Portal is like social media come to life

For once, the biggest tourist attraction in Philadelphia’s Love Park isn’t the iconic artwork that gives the plaza its name. While a couple of tourists trickle through to take pictures with the love sculpture, the main attraction this week is the Portal, which was encircled by a crowd of about 50 onlookers when it made its debut Tuesday.

The Portal, which stands almost 12 feet tall and weighs 3.5 tons, is an always-on live video feed housed in a futuristic, industrial-style circle, connecting two cities from around the world. A project of Lithuanian entrepreneur Benediktas Gylys, the Portal made international headlines this summer when someone at New York City’s Portal flashed the city of Dublin, Ireland. The Portal was shut down temporarily and then was relocated by September.

When the Portals project announced that its newest installation would come to Philadelphia, locals had concerns. This is a city that has to grease the light poles when its sports teams are in the playoffs so that people don’t climb them; a city that created Gritty, a chaotic orange trash monster as the official mascot of the NHL team Philadelphia Flyers, and the Phillie Phanatic, the most sued mascot in sports; a city where someone will post a Craigslist missed connection to make sure you know they gave you the finger for driving a Cybertruck. If midtown Manhattan was too salacious for the Portal, what will the people of Philadelphia — who infamously once threw snowballs at Santa Claus — have up their sleeves?

Before the Portal even activated, the screen cracked, but it wasn’t vandalism. It was an installation error — a false start. And yet, when it finally opened, the environment around the Portal on its first day was eerily wholesome. Maybe too wholesome. I was at the Portal when a nearby high school let out for the day, and even those teenagers didn’t create a ruckus (though some of them insist on using Love Park to practice their bike tricks — which are dangerous — but maybe we can pin this on Tony Hawk since there’s a Love Park course in the “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater” games). Standing around the installation for about 30 minutes, only one person crossed the line when he gave the finger to a guy in Dublin.

The Portal itself is like the internet come to life. You can instantly connect with people across the world, as well as strangers in your own city, but that means it also mirrors some of the worst parts of our lives online. A few bad apples can ruin the experience for everyone, but unlike the internet, people are more effective at moderating themselves in person. The guy who stuck his middle finger up at the Portal was booed by the crowd and left. When people violate social norms online, it’s a lot easier to lurk undetected, wreaking havoc in the shadows.

Gylys, the entrepreneur who created the Portals, started the project after realizing that his success in the Lithuanian startup sphere still left him feeling unfulfilled in his life.

“After developing several online ventures I had success symbols to show and a painful lack of meaning to hide,” Gylys wrote. “Finally surrendering and sincerely admitting that I do not know anything about reality led me to a mystical experience where I felt oneness with all life on Earth for two weeks.”

Dubious “mystical experience” aside, Gylys’s goal is straightforward: he wants to help people connect with one another, helping us to realize that we aren’t as different as we seem.

Gylys’s background working on consumer apps in Lithuania comes in handy because it’s a technological feat in itself that the Portal can even operate. The underlying software was devised by Video Window, which uses the same always-on video feeds for its main product, which is much less glamorous: it connects remote workers so they feel like they’re in the office (or, maybe, they just feel surveilled).

Not only is Video Window responsible for making sure the video streams run without tech issues, but the company also has to make sure that the Portals don’t get hacked. On-site at the Portal, everything ran smoothly – the video feed switched every few minutes, showing scenes from Ireland, Poland, and Lithuania without any technical strain.

At about 3 PM in Philadelphia, these European Portals showed us people walking home from a long day at work or a weeknight night out. In Dublin, some passersby would stop – beer bottles in hand – and dance for the camera. One older man pretended to do a strip tease, but thankfully kept things PG and only took off his jacket. Meanwhile, in Lithuania, where it was snowing at 10 PM, no one wanted to stop and say hi. When the Portal switched from Ireland to Lithuania, everyone groaned, since we briefly lost our source of entertainment. (I’m sure the people of Vilnius are more friendly when they aren’t trudging home in the cold.)

You can see through the Portal, but you can’t hear, so we communicate through gestures. The novelty must have worn off already abroad – these Portals have existed for a few years, though the addition of a new city to the mix likely made it more fun. One man in Poland timidly showed us some dance moves, and our horde of enthusiastic Philadelphians, experiencing the Portal for the first time, would mimic it back. For that guy, it must be like looking in a mirror, except the mirror is fifty people who are weirdly excited that you stopped to wave.

There’s a fundamental tension between Gylys’s goal and what it actually accomplishes. Gylys wants this to bring us together, but the Portal doesn’t necessarily forge new friendships. As I waved to strangers in Ireland, Lithuania, and Poland, I was reminded of how we aren’t all that different, just as Gylys intended. But I also thought about how little we know about these people – what if the Polish dancer has horrific political views? What if the guy who made me laugh with his PG striptease actually runs an illegal underground gambling ring?

Philadelphia doesn’t have any obvious conflict with these three countries, but what would happen if the U.S. and Ireland suddenly ended up in some sort of heated international dispute? Would we all be as excited to wave hello across the Atlantic Ocean, or would the Portal end up facilitating expressions of international rivalry and discord? Some people at the Portal joked that all hell would break loose if we had a view of Dallas, Texas, home to the Cowboys, our biggest football rivals. (The next day, someone showed up with a sign that says “Dallas Sucks.”)

A day later, the Portal still seems to be doing okay. Philly Elmo – a guy in an Elmo costume who shows up at random city events with a drum line – stopped by in the evening, introducing confused Lithuanians to his antics. One man in Dublin wore a Philadelphia Eagles shirt, prompting the crowd on the other side of the Portal to cheer.

Just as the Portal reflects another city, it also reflects ourselves. While a couple of people are intent on using this technology to be rude, most visitors are happy to delight in a brief moment of connection with a total stranger on the other side of the pond. Maybe humans aren’t so bad after all – unless they’re Cowboys fans.