ABSTRACT
This chapter examines feminist approaches to curating overlooked gender-diverse contributions to extended reality (XR) technologies from 1980 to 2012. Analysis of the ‘GLOW: Illuminating Innovation’ exhibition (2024) reveals how women innovators established foundational elements of contemporary immersive technologies. The historical artefacts document ground-breaking developments, including haptic interfaces, Virtual Reality filmmaking, a collaborative virtual production platform, and Augmented Reality eyewear. Through the various works, the chapter demonstrates how experimental creations paved the way for immersive experiences and collaborative virtual technologies before commercial interests narrowed these explorations. An archaeological approach reveals how feminist technologists anticipated contemporary concerns about virtual embodiment decades before mainstream adoption. By connecting these innovations to broader feminist technology theories as well as production studies and media archaeology, the chapter illustrates how gender-diverse contributions transformed human relationships with digital technologies, prioritising haptic experience, collaborative systems, and fluid identities while challenging dominant narratives of XR technology evolution. The following response piece by Zeynep Abes, ‘Feminist Epistemologies for Preserving XR,’ explores how standpoint theory, intersectionality, and ethics of care can shape more embodied, relational, and inclusive approaches to archiving and preserving the very immersive media innovations highlighted in this historical excavation.
