FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What are Portals?

• Portals are gold shipping containers linked with immersive audio-visual.

• Portals have been placed in New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC, University of Maryland, Nashville, Tehran, Havana, Herat, El Progreso, Mexico City and many other cities so far.

• When you enter one, you come face-to-face with someone in another Portal.

• You converse live (with translators when needed), full-body, making eye contact as if in the same room. Many participants have described feeling as though they were “breathing the same air.”

How do Portals work?

• The core Portals experience is a 20-minute encounter with a stranger abroad where you are free to talk about whatever you want.

• We recommend as a conversation prompt: “What would make today a good day for you.” Think about that for yourself and ask your partner too. He/she may have received the same prompt.

• We may also hold Portals open-hours, which are like stumbling across a wormhole that opens to another world. You never know what you may find when you look through to the other side.

What is the goal of Portals?

• We want to connect people who would not otherwise likely speak in conversation. We rarely use the Internet to meet strangers far different from ourselves, and for no particular purpose other than encountering and coming to know another human being. Such encounters have value for innumerable reasons — they make us human; they are beautiful; we discover ourselves through them; we break down stereotypes of the other; we engage a fundamental curiosity; and endlessly more.

• Portals are designed for encounters between strangers. But they can also be used to create other kinds of powerful encounters. We are looking to facilitate stories of connection, reunion, or surprise between people in Portals cities. Portals can also be used for long-distance proposals, sharing big news with family abroad, or reconnecting with loved ones in the country you grew up in. If you have a possible special encounter to experience through a Portal, tell us about it.

• Portals is a global public art project, and artists and thinkers can use Portals to collaborate across borders. Musicians have jammed together - across the world and through the Portals. Great minds have talked problems through Portals. We are open to ideas for how they can be used to connect the world.

How is Portals distinct?

• Unlike a video-conference software on a computer, Portals offer full-body experiences in which you make eye contact and move around the space as if in the same room. Participants have remarked on the great impact of feeling as if you have just walked into the same room as someone across the world.

• Portals brings people together beyond the one-on-one conversations. It reaches out to artists and thinkers to collaborate with each other, and the other people in your own city who come to the Portal may be strangers to you as well as those across the world. It fosters a sense of global, creative, and connected communities.

Why is the container gold?

• Portals makes the mundane architecture of our daily lives — shipping containers, the Internet, encountering a stranger — special.

• The deep gold shade and soft sheen invokes the commercial and the sacred. It is semi-reflective. As you walk by it, you see yourself faintly.

What is the broader vision of Portals?

• We want to create an interconnected network of Portals in public spaces around the world. We envision one Portal for every one million people.

• We want them to be a permanent infrastructural reality of the new century.

• We want Portals to be new global community, where people can meet each other, talk, learn, debate, collaborate, and play.

ABOUT THE PORTALS NETWORK

How many Portals are there and where are they?

• In Fall 2016, there will be 12 open in these cities:

- New York, NY at the U.N.

-Austin, TX at St. Edward’s University

-Yangon, Myanmar at the American Center

-Kabul, Afghanistan at an arts and cultural preservation collective

-Greenwich, CT at a high school

- Herat, Afghanistan at a university

- Zarqa, Jordan in a Syrian refugee camp (with the U.N.)

- College Park, MD at U. Maryland

- Mexico City, Mexico in a public square

- El Progreso, Honduras at a youth empowerment organization.

- Kigali, Rwanda with an arts collective.

- Erbil, Iraq in a camp for displaced Iraqis.

• We have also had a Portal in Washington DC (outside Federal Triangle).

Where are you going next?

• We have lots of willing partners around the world, anxious to join. Many cannot afford the technology and installation costs of 10k, so we are currently crowdfunding to cover them.

- Mumbai, India

- Lahore, Pakistan

- Rural Saudi Arabia

- Detroit, MI, USA

- Wichita, KS, USA

- Khartoum, Sudan

- Beirut, Lebanon

How do you join the Portals network?

• Just email us at general@sharedstudios.com.

Programming

If I have a connection to another Portal city, can I talk to someone there?

• We are interested if you have a connection to another Portal city (perhaps you left your home country at a young age, or your family lives there. Perhaps your significant other lives in a Portal city.)

• Let us know if you have an idea for a special encounter through a Portal, like a reunion or sharing big news with family abroad.

I’m a musician/academic - can I collaborate with another through Portals?

• We are interested in connecting artists and various professionals for special collaborations through Portals. Contact us for more info.

I have a project which would be a perfect match for using a Portal to connect people. Can we collaborate?

• Tell us your idea - we are open to collaboration! E-mail us at general@sharedstudios.com

Funding

How do you fund Portals?

• So far, we are able to cover our costs through our partner institutions.

• Portals are free and open to the public for at least 20 hours per week. On off hours, we rent the Portal for special events to cover costs. We also rent the Portal as a whole to institutions.

How much does a Portal cost to build?

• It costs between $3200 to $20,000 depending on the tech you use and building costs in your location.

• The Portal technology (camera, computer, lights, microphone, speakers, projector) costs $2700 on the low end and $6700 on the high end.

• A completed Portal structure costs 1k on the low end, 15k on the high end.

• A Portal staffer costs $500 (for 15 hours/week) or $1500 (40 hours/week).

If I build my own Portal, how much does it cost to run?

• We can provide backend support, international staffing and translation, and high-speed Internet at partner locations. For all of this, we charge a $30 per hour network fee or $3,000 per month flat fee.

Can my institution rent a Portal? Can I host an event?

• Yes, Portals are available to be rented by private and public institutions, as well as for special events. We can provide fully-staffed and connected Portals for these rentals and events. Contact General@sharedstudios.com for more information

ABOUT SHARED STUDIOS

What is Shared_Studios?

• Shared_Studios is the arts, design and technology collective.

• The collective is focused on carving wormholes through the world and vitalizing public spaces. Portals is the flagship project of Shared_Studios. It is currently also working on Channels (large bi-directional video walls), Phonos (underground, interconnected audio-spheres), and numerous shared environments - from playgrounds to kitchens - where people in one location feel as though they are cooking, playing, and engaging with people far away.

• The studio creates these public interventions and also builds the backend network architecture to coordinate and synchronize them, so that a New York park can connect with Bulawayo one week and Havana the next.

• When people experience Portals, they often wonder at how life looks beyond the walls of other person’s Portal who they just met. Portals spark questions, and there are many more to ponder as Shared_Studios continues to create wormholes across the world, with curiosity and connection.