Philadelphia getting its own Portal relocated from New York to connect across the world

The group behind the viral “Portal” art installation in New York City’s Flatiron Plaza has relocated the livestreaming sculpture/social experiment to Philadelphia, Portals.org confirmed on Saturday.

Users on social media noticed the mysterious portal, while not yet connected to the others across the world, was placed in Philadelphia’s Love Park recently. Photographer HughE Dillon captured the lit-up portal Friday night and posted pictures and video on his Instagram account @PhillyChitChat.

Portals.org says the portal will turn on next week and connect to multiple others around the world via a 24/7 livestream. According to the organization’s website, there are established portals in Vilnius, Lithuania; Lublin, Poland; Dublin, Ireland and one coming soon in the state of Piaui, Brazil.

More information on Philly’s portal will be revealed in a news conference Tuesday morning.

The portal in New York was connected to an identical one in Dublin. Since its unveiling on May 8, the New York portal attracted thousands of visitors as New Yorkers grew enamored with fostering real-time connections with Dubliners through a livestream.

But bad behavior, including people flashing the screen or holding up disturbing images, then led to the portal getting shut down. After a few days, the portal reopened with additional security measures on both the New York and Dublin sides.

Benediktas Gylys founded Portals.org after “I felt a deep need to counter polarising ideas and to communicate that the only way for us to continue our journey on this beautiful spaceship called Earth is together,” he said, according to his website. “I did not want to enter the ring and fight but to offer something with love and light.”

Words on the back of the portal state it’s a “bridge to a united planet.”