Through the looking glass
LIVE sits down with Portals’ head of partnerships Nicolas Klaus to discuss the technology powering this public art exhibit and the importance of preserving community
Words Katie Kasperson
'Bridge to a united planet’ reads the Portals slogan. First launched in Lithuania and Poland, but now with an expanding global presence, the Portals are the epitome of public artworks – windows that both connect and reflect us.
Powered by weatherproof LED panels along with low-latency video streaming software, these Portals operate 24/7, connecting people via camera, screen and the universality of human language. Almost ten years into the project, it has amassed a major media following and is actively seeking new cities interested in joining the cause. Based out of Berlin, Germany, Portals’ head of partnerships Nicolas Klaus handles these inquiries and ‘all things growth’.
“The concept of Portals was conceived by Benediktas Gylys,” Klaus begins, “who is also the founder of the whole project.” Gylys – a tech entrepreneur and best-selling author – had faced a bout of ‘spiritual emptiness’ despite his financial successes, leading him to take time off and travel the world. “He had what he describes as a mystic experience, feeling unity with the world and a sense of oneness that was fulfilling for him, so he was looking to manifest that experience of connection,” Klaus says. “That’s where the Portals concept was born.”
Coming to a city near you
In 2016, Gylys went from idea to action, forming a team of both architects and engineers to get Portals off the ground. “Ben funded the first two himself; his private foundation provided the finances initially,” shares Klaus.
Officially opening in May 2021, these still stand in Vilnius, Lithuania and Lublin, Poland – now permanent sites in both cities – “which is what the Portals are intended to be,” Klaus adds. “That kicked off a lot of publicity, much more than everyone expected. Many cities showed interest in receiving their own Portal and connecting with this initiative.”
Three years later, two new Portals came into being: in Dublin, Ireland and New York, USA. “That was also quite a viral event. Dublin’s City Council was tracking it and it received over 20 billion impressions on social media,” claims Klaus. Due to an expiring permit, the New York installation moved 100 miles south-west, setting up shop again in Philadelphia in October 2024.
“The year 2026 will see the 250-year anniversary of the United States, and the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philly, so the city is eager to have the Portal as a permanent landmark in order to celebrate that occasion,” Klaus details. A Portal in Piauí, Brazil has already been announced for 2025, with its sister somewhere in Asia.
Due to the amount of genuine international interest, Klaus doesn’t need to do any campaigning. “All the inquiries and partnerships we have are inbound,” he states, with requests coming from governments and city officials, as well as private individuals.
With no limit to the variations in local regulations, each installation is a ‘complex project’, which must follow ‘data protection laws’, ‘safety standards and wind load requirements’. Those who reach out are typically already somewhat aware of these details, but nonetheless ‘motivated’ in adding a Portal to their own community.
Always on
Before describing how they work, Klaus stresses that Portals are artworks first and foremost. “The concept is to provide a window between distant locations – so we’re not adding anything to the screen – and to have a 24/7 live stream. That’s it.”
Each screen is completely identical, made primarily of concrete, steel and glass. “They’re intentionally very heavy and large,” Klaus explains, to “counter the trend of all kinds of devices getting smaller and slimmer. It’s something of a different perspective, inviting people to not look at it as a screen but rather as a monument, seeing through a window to another place.”
The screens themselves are formed of weather-resilient, outdoor LED panels provided by a French company called Artixium, while the cameras come from Cisco. “For the software,” handled by Video Window, “the main requirements are that it needs to be encrypted, safe and hack-proof. Besides that, we are also looking for technology that is low latency; it needs to be robust and high quality,” Klaus argues, noting that the video streams are nearly instantaneous, with latencies in the milliseconds.
Rather than pairing two cities and calling it a day, the Portals act as a group, “where each location is connected to everyone else. The live stream rotates in three-minute intervals,” explains Klaus. “It’s not about a two-way partnership. We’re building this idea that you join the network as a city, or a region.”
Audio is notably lacking from the live streams, and this is intentional. “There are two reasons,” begins Klaus, the first being general noise. “Logistically, if you have a Portal at a street juncture or in the city, it would be very difficult to communicate with there being a crowd of people on both sides.” The second reason goes back to the project’s overarching mission – to simply be ‘a bridge between cultures worldwide’, according to Klaus. “The invitation is for people to meet above language barriers. Not everyone speaks English, but everyone shares the same universal language. If you just wave or smile – we know everyone can connect in that way.”
Mirror image
With a lofty project like this – and one that’s increasingly in the public eye – things can occasionally go wrong. The Portals team views these ‘errors’ not as errors at all but as par for the course. “Part of the appeal is that you never quite know what to expect,” suggests Klaus. “It’s live. It’s 24/7. It’s unfiltered.” Technical difficulties can happen.
At their heart, the Portals encourage interaction, and sometimes, “people get a little bit carried away,” Klaus laughs. “That’s something we don’t want to interfere with. They’re a window but also, in a way, a mirror: a reflection of society. Whatever happens in front of the screen is, from our perspective, part of the artwork, and we want to maintain that.”
But even this passive approach has its limits. “Practically speaking, our partners need to ensure that there’s safety and public decency,” says Klaus, who details the Portals’ latest efforts into mitigating antisocial behaviour. “The main issue was people getting too close. There’s a video of some guy in Dublin climbing on top of the structure and putting his face down into the camera. On the New York side, people were holding their phone screens directly in front of the camera. That’s not ideal,” Klaus remarks matter-of-factly. “People should respect the Portal and remain at a certain distance. We have retrospectively implemented a proximity sensor, so if you climb or step up on the Portal or get right in front of the camera, it triggers the live stream to blur.”
The Portals are – speaking from personal experience (I’ve visited both Lublin and Philadelphia, completely coincidentally) – relatively mellow overall. Klaus agrees: “99% of the time, you just have people waving and showing hand signs. The more interesting events are being published on social media and massively amplified. If you look at some of the news coverage about the Portals, you see a lot of these intense interactions – in all directions,” he says.
“If you see them on Instagram or some other platforms, you get this perception of the world as being at the extremes, whereas in reality, if you meet people face to face, it’s not as polarised as social media might make you believe.” The Portals ultimately provide us with a reality check.
All together now
If you’re looking to acquire a local Portal, you might have to get in line. Assembled in and then shipped from the German engineering site, each costs somewhere “in the six-figure domain – and that includes a lot of project management,” Klaus reveals. A city’s eligibility depends on electricity access, ease of installation and other local conditions too.
For those who want to get involved, Portals offers a fellowship programme which encourages co-creation and co-ownership. “We’re still exploring the right approach for it,” Klaus admits. “The current version of the programme is basically a certificate that you can purchase. It would support our team in building more Portals while granting access to certain events and decisions that we want to make collectively.” Klaus hints at an imminent announcement about a ‘next version’ as well.
Despite one small but mighty team running the organisation, “the Portals are supposed to be owned by everyone – by humanity,” claims Klaus. “That’s the longer-term vision; artwork that exists around the world, that people can be excited about and can use to share moments of connection.”
Read more about LED signage and digital displays in this article.
This feature was first published in the Jan/Feb 2025 issue of LIVE.
