portal between two cities - Spiritual Forum - Ashtar Command - Spiritual Community2024-03-28T13:30:44Zhttps://www.ashtarcommandcrew.net/forum/topics/feed/tag/portal+between+two+citiesThis Magical Portal Connects People Across Two Cities (New Technologies Beginning to Appear)https://www.ashtarcommandcrew.net/forum/topics/this-magical-portal-connects-people-across-two-cities-new-technol2021-06-20T02:50:52.000Z2021-06-20T02:50:52.000Zamparo alvarezhttps://www.ashtarcommandcrew.net/members/amparoalvarez<div><div class="wrap"> </div><div class="site-inner"><div class="content-sidebar-wrap"><h1 class="entry-title">This Magical Portal Connects People Across Two Cities</h1><p class="entry-meta"><span style="font-size:14pt;">June 19, 2021 by <span class="entry-author"><a class="entry-author-link" href="https://goldenageofgaia.com/author/kathleen-mary-willis/"><span class="entry-author-name">Kathleen Mary Willis</span></a></span></span></p><div class="entry-content"><div class="pf-content"><div id="attachment_322471" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><span style="font-size:14pt;"><a href="https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Screen-Shot-2021-06-17-at-4.04.25-PM-500x280.png" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Screen-Shot-2021-06-17-at-4.04.25-PM-500x280.png?profile=RESIZE_584x" alt="Screen-Shot-2021-06-17-at-4.04.25-PM-500x280.png?profile=RESIZE_584x" width="500" /></a></span><p id="caption-attachment-322471" class="wp-caption-text"><span style="font-size:14pt;">All photos courtesy of the Benediktas Gylys Foundation</span></p></div><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">The past 18 months have been isolating. Many of us haven’t seen friends or family. We haven’t traveled. And now, even as much of the United States is opening back up, visiting certain foreign countries is still not an option.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">But what if you could visit somewhere without flying? What if you could meet someone face-to-face, without ever leaving your home town?</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">That’s the idea behind <a href="https://portalcities.org/">Portal</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">It’s a sci-fi inspired sculpture developed by the Benediktas Gylys Foundation, a social innovation group, and Gediminas Technical University.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">As you approach the concrete and steel ring, you can see that it is actually a window to another place.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">The first Portals are set up connecting the Lithuanian capital Vilnius and the Polish city Lublin.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">As people look through the portal in Lublin, people in Vilnius are looking right back.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><a href="https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Screen-Shot-2021-06-17-at-4.14.59-PM-500x276.png" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Screen-Shot-2021-06-17-at-4.14.59-PM-500x276.png?profile=RESIZE_584x" alt="Screen-Shot-2021-06-17-at-4.14.59-PM-500x276.png?profile=RESIZE_584x" width="500" /></a></span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">“Usually people just smile and wave, sometimes they start competitions about what couple could make a more complex shape of a heart with their hands; dancing competitions happen as well,” writes Benediktas Gylys, who created and primarily funded Portal.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">“Even the most serious-looking people who look like they have never waved to anyone in their entire lives start smiling and waving with immense joy!”</span></p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><a href="https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Screen-Shot-2021-06-17-at-4.15.08-PM-500x279.png" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Screen-Shot-2021-06-17-at-4.15.08-PM-500x279.png?profile=RESIZE_584x" alt="Screen-Shot-2021-06-17-at-4.15.08-PM-500x279.png?profile=RESIZE_584x" width="500" /></a></span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">The project was inspired by Gylys’s own world travels.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">He says that in the face of climate change and social injustices worldwide, people fall back on an us-versus-them mentality.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">But while experiencing so many cultures around the world, he was reminded that humanity is really all one species.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">“If we rose only 30 miles to the sky, all these borders and pointing fingers saying, ‘this is our friend,’ ‘they produce good coffee,’ or ‘this is the enemy’ would make zero sense,” writes Gylys.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">“It’s just a tiny spaceship called Earth and it does not have enough capacity for billions of them, but it sure does have enough capacity for billions of us.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">We can no longer afford to live on a spaceship in which 99% of it belongs to them.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">A shift in our perception is a must if we want to continue our trip.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><a href="https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Screen-Shot-2021-06-17-at-4.15.20-PM-500x356.png" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Screen-Shot-2021-06-17-at-4.15.20-PM-500x356.png?profile=RESIZE_584x" width="500" alt="Screen-Shot-2021-06-17-at-4.15.20-PM-500x356.png?profile=RESIZE_584x" /></a></span><br /> <span style="font-size:14pt;">What’s particularly striking about Portal is that, technologically speaking, it doesn’t appear to be all that difficult to build.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">Fundamentally, it’s not much more than a big screen with a camera for teleconferencing.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">But it’s the design that turns this basic technology into a fresh experience.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">The monolithic concrete doorway evokes the dreams of sci-fi stories like Stargate and The Wheel of Time, while its screen and camera are able to capture and depict people in their full, 1-to-1 scale.</span></p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">Yes, you can more easily FaceTime from your pocket, but what’s missing in that experience is that people are miniaturized to live on your screen.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">With Portal, they are presented just as they are, and as part of their greater environment.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">Because of that scale, and the grounding in the real world, Portal’s screen appears to be an architectural bridge connecting two cities.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">(You could call it all a beautiful illusion, but in fact, presenting people in their full size is less of an illusion than shrinking them on our smartphones and laptops!)</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">But Portal’s success is about more than even physical presentation.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">Gylys points out that it is one of the few digital places where you can actually meet new people.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">Zoom meetings are preplanned, while the friends you follow on Facebook are either real life acquaintances, or suggested by an algorithm.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">“Portal invites you to meet people who, according to [social media] algorithms, are too incompatible with your persona,” says Gylys.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">It’s easy to be skeptical of Portal’s message.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">The promise of “seeing both sides” can feel pretty played out in today’s dangerous political climate of false equivalency.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">My only advice would be, tune out the idea of partisanship and voting for a moment.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">Imagine a Portal in your own home town, connecting you to a new city across the globe each day.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">The world would feel a lot bigger, and smaller, because of it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">Gylys is planning to build more Portals in the future, including one in Reykjavik, Iceland, and one in London.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14pt;">And he is inviting anyone who would like to see a Portal in their own city to <a href="https://portalcities.org/">reach out</a>.</span></p></div></div></div></div></div>