Recorded in 2018 at the Malvern Jewish Center in Long Island, New York, I gathered a group of eighteen older folks to play a game of Duck Duck Goose, which I recorded on a 360 degree camera mounted on a rolling tripod. After some encouragement, the youthfully-spirited participants took to a game of breaking the rules instead of following them. Each moment funnier than the next, this experience brought incalculable joy to everyone involved, a feeling that translates to viewers in VR. This experience leaps through time as elderly people play a childhood game with the presence of new virtual reality technology. As the participants became more comfortable I offered that they pass the tripod around the circle, keeping it in front of them for as long as they wanted. Watching them interact with the camera, having absolutely no understanding of 360 video or virtual reality, reveals intimate, deeply human moments that transcend age or context.

One participant sums up the work perfectly with one statement at 2:44: “I don’t know, Alanna, everyone who’s going to go into this virtual reality world is going to say ‘What’s with this older generation, can’t they follow simple rules?” To which I responded, “That is the beauty of this video.”