First off - welcome back! Looks like you had a blast. In a synchronistic way, my friend sent me a link to icaros.net that is building a device that let's you "fly" through the air as you explore the VR world.

Back at the world expo in 1967 in Canada there was a round theatre where the film was shown from a 360 degree perspective like the painting you mentioned. They had to put up railings because during the car chase scene people were falling over. Here's a link cinemaexpo67.ca that describes it.