The Portal
LOVE Park
Philadelphia
Jan. 27, 2025
“Sláinte!” “Top of the morning!” “Want some Guinness?”
Passerby in Philadelphia’s LOVE Park lodged those greetings at 3 p.m. Monday in Philadelphia’s LOVE Park to a collection of strangers five hours ahead in Dublin, Ireland. The means of communication: A 24/7 video live stream dubbed “The Portal.”
The Dubliners couldn't hear us. We couldn't hear them. That wasn't the point.
We were all the subjects of an interactive art installation of public webcams launched in Philly last fall. The idea, popularized by Lithuanian entrepreneur Benediktas Gylys, is to foster global connection. Every three minutes, Philly’s live stream switches to one of three locations: The Monument of Light in Dublin, Ireland; Litewski Square in Lublin, Poland; a crosswalk in Vilnius, Lithuania. On occasion, video of Earth’s orbit jumps onto the screen.
People on either side of the portal – a metal circle surrounding a screen – can’t hear one another. Everyone communicates through ghost-like gestures transposed onto a blurry camera. Still, virtually everyone who passes by the camera attempts to talk to the other side.
A woman named Carol Ann, for instance, wrapped her fist around an imaginary glass as she mouthed “Sláinte! Sláinte,” the common toast of whiskey country, to a clueless crew of smiling men in Dublin.
“My ethnic background is Irish and Lithuanian,” she told me. “I have this tease that I might be waving to a great, great relative.”
Most who passed by on Monday afternoon were on their way somewhere else. They stopped by the portal either to shout stereotypes at the represented nations or to promote Philly’s Football Team.
“Fly Eagles! Fly Eagles! On the road to victory, killing me, killing me!” one woman cried out while others manically flapped their arms to get the point across.
“Who knows how to say “Eagles” in Polish?” one person inquired.
“I bet they saw some crazy behavior over in Ireland last night,” one woman said. Though traffic was low on Monday afternoon, Center City was packed the previous Sunday night as Philly drunkenly celebrated our shot at a Super Bowl win secured that same day.
Though we’re dubbed the City of Brotherly Love, there was serious doubt from the public that such a kumbaya project could survive East Coast degeneracy. A New York City portal was disbanded last year after a series of shenanigans, such as an OnlyFans model flashing the camera to raise funds for President Trump’s campaign. (She has already traveled to Philly to perform the stunt a second time.)
But for the most part, a sense of goodwill has prevailed and kept the installation alive. WHYY documented some of the most chaotic scenes that have taken place in LOVE Park since the Portal’s appearance.
Carol Ann proved an informal guardian of the Portal during my visit. As people wandered past the exhibit, questioning what country was currently on display, the observant onlooker offered information: “Lithuania,” she told a geographically confused audience (myself included), “is to the east of Ireland, surrounded by Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania.” So, it was probably around two hours later in Lithuania than in Ireland.
Peering into the hazy Portal.
Indeed, while 7 p.m. off-work cheer passed across the Irish webcam through emphatic waves, iPhone photography, and hands folded into heart shape, Lithuania at 9 p.m.was barren. “Ain’t nobody in Lithuania to talk to us right now,” another Philly onlooker said.
That sense of silence, however spy-like, was what spoke to me the most as a viewer. Watching a mother and child hold hands while crossing the street from Litewski Square to the far-off bus stop washed me in calm.
Then the frame moved and a new image jumped into focus. A Polish guy gave us the middle finger. Another Pole sat down on a bench in front of the video and began to vape. “Ugh, I wish I had my vape so we could smoke together!” a girl standing next to me lamented. “All I want is to make people across the world copy me. I just wish I could see my own reflection in addition to theirs’.”
Carol Ann was the only person who stuck around for more than five minutes on Monday for international people watching.
She’d been on a walk to CVS when she realized the weather was, for seemingly the first time in weeks, above freezing. “Where should I walk next?” Carol Ann mused. She wondered if that place, The Portal, was still intact — the last time she walked by, she had witnessed a mass match of rock, paper, scissors.
“I was hoping it was still here. And it’s still here.”
What does the Portal mean to a repeat customer?
“We have this idea of all these different governments, this overarching country-ness of the whole world,” she said. “But then you see it’s just people like us. Here and there. We’re just people.”
Few words were said Monday afternoon. But there was lots to be felt: intrigue, despair, indifference, excitement. All of these emotions were projections unraveling in real time before our eyes.
Applause erupted when one parent held their newborn baby to the screen. Amid everything, life goes on. It was bizarre to interface with that reality while staring into a fuzzy monitor fenced in by rope stanchions as though it were an eye into the Truman Show.
I had learned a new way to say “hello,” or “cheers,” at least, during my brief time at The Portal.
After thirty minutes or so, it was time to execute an Irish Goodbye.
