Women Artists Score Big In Virtual Reality, Scoring Big In Male-Dominated Tech Space

A mere tech child or not, virtual reality is expected to be a $150 billion industry by 2020. In Virtual Reality, Women Run the World writes New York Magazine . Silicon Valley and gaming Internet culture in general are known for their hard-ass mentality about women in their midst. Because virtual reality is truly an original opportunity for creators, women are -- for once -- operating in a relatively level playing field. There is “no formalized industry, and therefore no industry hierarchy, making it particularly welcoming to outsiders and newcomers,” explains Julia Kaganskiy, director of the New Museum’s New Inc. incubator. “Effectively everyone is a newcomer, and there are virtually no insiders.”

Women populate VR panels, conferences, support groups, and mentor relationships in significant numbers. Four of the 11 virtual-reality projects in the New York Film Festival’s Convergence division, a creative combo of VR and immersive storytelling, were created by women. and Convergence programmer Matt Bolish, a Convergence programmer, says in the five years of the program, “women have not only been at the forefront as creators, but as producers, writers, and financiers."

Women made a strong showing at the New Frontier VR exhibition at Sundance this past January. Helping celebrate the 10th anniversary of the program,  40% or a record 13 of the 32 lead artists on VR projects were women. “This is really a powerful medium and we have to make sure we do better this time,” says Kamal Sinclair, who directs the New Frontier Labs program. “We saw how women dropped out of computer science in the early ’80s. They were there in the beginning. How do we make sure we learn from those missteps?”