David Tudor’s Rainforest V (variation 1) in 360

Try watching this video in a spinning chair.

No two viewers will take the same path through Rainforest V (variation 1), David Tudor’s sprawling, immersive sound installation. Tudor used to say that kids were an ideal audience for this work because they could experience it with more presence and joy than adults. To honor this idea, we thought the children of MoMA’s staff should be the first to interact with it, and we decided to film the encounter.

It would be impossible to capture Tudor’s work on a two-dimensional plane, so we ventured into the relatively new (if potentially corny) world of 360-degree filmmaking.

I enlisted a friend, video journalist Niko Koppel, to collaborate with me. We filmed with his Insta360 Pro camera, which looks like a globe on a stick. Its six wide-angle cameras shoot simultaneously, and the footage gets “stitched” together digitally to create a 360-degree virtual sphere around the viewer.

When filming in three dimensions, everything is in the shot; as filmmakers, we had to adapt. Niko and I tried to blend in with the art handlers when we were documenting the installation of the work. During the interview portion of the shoot, we hid behind the doors of the studio and shouted our questions at the artists.

Tips for watching:

When viewing on a desktop computer, click and drag to look around. But for the best experience we recommend watching on your phone—move it to explore the space around you.

Step 1: Download the YouTube app (if you don’t have it already)

Step 2: Open the YouTube link in the YouTube app (mobile browsers do not support 360 video playback yet)

Step 3: Sit in a spinning chair (if you have one)

Step 4: Explore the space around you