Futuristic-looking round visual portals have appeared in Vilnius, Lithuania, and Lublin, Poland, allowing citizens to see each other in real time.

The two portals connect Vilnius’s Train Station with Lublin’s Central Square, about 600 km away.

Benediktas Gylys, initiator of PORTAL says:

“Humanity is facing many potentially deadly challenges; be it social polarisation, climate change or economic issues. However, if we look closely, it’s not a lack of brilliant scientists, activists, leaders, knowledge or technology causing these challenges. It’s tribalism, a lack of empathy and a narrow perception of the world, which is often limited to our national borders. That’s why we’ve decided to bring the PORTAL idea to life – it’s a bridge that unifies and an invitation to rise above prejudices and disagreements that belong to the past. It’s an invitation to rise above the us and them illusion.”

PORTAL is a collaboration of the Benediktas Gylys Foundation, the City of Vilnius, the City of Lublin and the Crossroads Centre for Intercultural Creative Initiatives.

More portals are planned between Vilnius, Lithuania and London, England and Reykjavik, Iceland.

See the official website.

My take: back in the early Nineties (before the Internet caught the public eye) I conceived of a similar network of interconnected public spaces, called Central Square. My vision was similar to Citytv‘s Speakers’ Corner but was to be located in large public outdoor spaces and used to broadcast citizen reports, rants or demonstrations. It would have included sound, which PORTAL seems to have overlooked. I think it was to have appeared on television sets on some of the high-numbered channels. Of course, once increased bandwidth could support Internet video, web cams took off instead. See EarthCam.com for a list.