Under The Radar: We Have No Need of Other Worlds (We Need Mirrors) by Graham Sack

Courtesy of 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.

Performance Dates / Times: 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

Exhibition Hours: *Supplemental self-guided installation of We Have No Need of Other Worlds (We Need Mirrors) performance visuals using DragonO light technology, accessible before and after performances.

Friday, January 9 @ 1 PM - 5 PM
Saturday, January 10 @ 1 PM – 4:30 PM
Sunday, January 11 @ 3 PM – 6 PM
Monday, January 12 @ 1 PM – 6 PM

Venue Information: Located at Onassis ONX, 390 Broadway, Floor 4, New York, NY

Note: This performance includes strobing lights.

ABOUT THE ARTIST: 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 INSTALLATION: 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.

As part of TECHNE, the creators of We Have No Need of Other Worlds (We Need Mirrors) will present a curated sequence of performance related visuals showcasing the DragonO, innovative light technology developed by LedPulse Technologies. This supplemental installation will be available as a self-guided experience before and after scheduled performances of We Have No Need of Other Worlds (We Need Mirrors).

CREDITS:

Created, Written, and Performed by: Graham Sack

DragonO Hardware, Software, and Visual Concept by: LedPulse Technologies and LedPulse Collective Mind (ledpulse.com)

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
DragonO hardware, software, and visual concept by LedPulse Technologies and LedPulse Collective Mind

Presented in partnership with Under the Radar Festival Mark Russell, Founding Director Meropi Peponides & Kaneza Schaal, Co-Directors ArKtype, Festival Producer More information at utrfest.org

Special Thanks: Danilo Grande, Gökalp Cakmak, Matthew Niederhauser, Aaron Santiago, Jazia Hammoudi, Sofia Pipa, James George, Chris Healer

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.