Female artists and the VR crucible: expanding the aesthetic vocabulary

A survey done in 2007 of VR Artworks (Immersive Virtual Environments or VEs) showed that women have created the majority of these immersive works. While this may seem counter to popular ideas that the field has been dominated by men, it seems rather, that the truly unique works appear to emerge from a feminine approach. Such an approach seems well suited to immersive environments as it incorporates aspects of inclusion, wholeness, and a blending of the body and the spirit. Female attention to holistic concerns fits the gestalt approach needed to create in a fully functional yet openended virtual world, which focuses not so much on producing a finished object (like a text or a sculpture) but rather on creating a possibility for becoming, like bringing a child into the world. Immersive VEs are not objective works of art to be hung on a wall and critiqued. They are vehicles for experience, vessels to live within for a piece of time.