We Have No Need of Other Worlds
Graham Sack
Presented by Onassis ONX
Photo by Graham Sack
“The idea is fascinating…it illustrates the power of old, real things over virtual ones.” — CNET
A son keeps vigil at his father’s bedside, reading aloud from the old man’s journals—cosmic reflections inspired by voyages across oceans and through jungles. The words feel eerily prescient, as though they were written with foreknowledge of this very moment. Perhaps the lesion in his father’s brain isn’t a disease at all, but a wormhole: a tunnel through space and time connecting different selves, different worlds. We Have No Need of Other Worlds (We Need Mirrors) transforms that vigil into a live theater and immersive media experience exploring the relationship between family, memory, and technology. Part elegy, part biometric séance, the work uses interactive technology, video, and sound to link performers and audience members to a digital phantasm—a distortion in the fabric of the universe—asking whether memory itself might be a signal traveling through time, seeking someone to receive it.
Note: This performance includes strobing lights.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Graham Sack is an award-winning writer, director, actor, and academic whose work explores the intersection of storytelling and new technology. He is the founder of Chronotope Films and a recipient of the Sundance Institute Sloan Foundation Episodic Fellowship for The Harvard Computers, a television series based on the true story of America’s first female astronomers.
In virtual and immersive media, Graham was commissioned by Penguin Random House to adapt and direct George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo (winner of the Man Booker Prize) into a virtual-reality film distributed by The New York Times’ VR division. The project—the first-ever adaptation of a novel into VR—was a finalist for the Emmy Award for Innovation in Interactive Programming and was named one of Time Magazine’s “Top 5 Must-See Virtual-Reality Experiences of the Year.”
His other immersive works have been supported by Google, Samsung, and Felix & Paul Studios, and presented at Tribeca Film Festival, SXSW, New York Theater Workshop, Sotheby’s, Vancouver International Festival, and Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona. Most recently, he was commissioned by four-time Academy Award nominee Alexander Rodnyansky (Loveless, Leviathan, East/West, Stalingrad) to adapt Debriefing the President: The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein into a limited television series starring Joel Kinnaman.
Graham began his career as a child actor on Broadway, starring in Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers, and appeared in films such as Dunston Checks In and television series including Law & Order and New York Undercover. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America, Writers Guild of Canada, Screen Actors Guild, Actors’ Equity Association, Onassis ONX, and an alumnus of NEW INC, the New Museum’s art, design, and technology incubator.
ABOUT THE TECHNICAL COLLABORATION
We Have No Need of Other Worlds (We Need Mirrors) has been developed in close collaboration with LedPulse Technologies and LedPulse Collective Mind, and their modular, volumetric light organism, the DragonO Volumetric LED Display. Conceived as a living system, the DragonO transforms space, evolves over time, and responds to its environment. Composed of thousands of intelligent LEDNeurons arranged in a three-dimensional matrix, the DragonO behaves as a thinking structure: capable of hosting artistic intent, sensing contextual conditions, and expressing itself volumetrically. Rather than presenting content, it generates volumetric ecosystems where light, architecture, and spatial storytelling converge. The DragonO reflects the future LedPulse is building toward: environments that are not only seen, but sensed; not only programmed, but responsive. A medium for collective expression, experiential design, and future architecture.
Rather than following a rigid, rectilinear grid, the light points of the DragonO are distributed with an organic volumetric pitch. This subtle irregularity avoids the visual flatness and digital rigidity of conventional LED systems, allowing depth, softness, and spatial ambiguity to emerge. Light is not mapped onto a surface, it is embedded into space.
CREDITS
Created, Written, and Performed by:
Graham Sack
DragonO Hardware, Software, and Visual Concept by:
LedPulse Technologies and LedPulse Collective Mind
Production Designer:
Nic Benacerraf
Sound Artist:
Matt McCorkle
Creative Consultant:
Oliver Butler
Producer:
Lara Edwards
Creative Producer:
Victoria Gruenberg
Lighting Designer:
Reza Behjat
Technical Director:
Brad Davis
Technical Consultant:
Georgios Cherouvim
FUNDING + SUPPORT
Produced by Chronotope
Co-produced by Onassis ONX
VENUE NOTES, ACCESS & DIRECTIONS
By Subway: N/Q/R/W to Canal Street; J/Z to Canal Street; 6 to Canal Street.
Visitors can enter the building at 390 Broadway through the street-level entrance. A wheelchair-accessible ramp is available at the entrance for easy access. Once inside, an elevator services all floors, including the fourth floor where Onassis ONX is located. ADA-compliant restrooms with ramp access are available onsite. Service animals are welcome at Onassis ONX. Please notify an Onassis ONX employee and ensure that service animals are appropriately trained and remain under control at all times. For questions or to request additional accommodations, please contact contact@onx.studio, with subject line ADA Access, at least 72 hours before your visit.
SOCIALS
SCHEDULE + VENUE
Friday, January 9 @ 6 PM
Saturday, January 10 @ 5:30 PM
Saturday, January 10 @ 9:30 PM
Sunday, January 11 @ 2 PM
Sunday, January 11 @ 7 PM
Monday, January 12 @ 7 PM
Run time: 60 minutes
WAITLIST:
If the date you’d like to attend is sold out, visit this theater’s website to find out their waitlist policy. Most theaters offer limited tickets at the door on the day of show to be released closer to showtime. To guarantee entry, buy early!
Onassis ONX
390 Broadway, Floor 4
New York, NY 10013
SCHEDULE + VENUE
Friday, January 9 @ 6 PM
Saturday, January 10 @ 5:30 PM
Saturday, January 10 @ 9:30 PM
Sunday, January 11 @ 2 PM
Sunday, January 11 @ 7 PM
Monday, January 12 @ 7 PM
Run time: 60 minutes
WAITLIST:
If the date you’d like to attend is sold out, visit this theater’s website to find out their waitlist policy. Most theaters offer limited tickets at the door on the day of show to be released closer to showtime. To guarantee entry, buy early!
Onassis ONX
390 Broadway, Floor 4
New York, NY 10013
For Access and directions, click here
