Unweaving Gender - A Tactile VR Experience on Gender Norms and Embodied Resistance

Unweaving Gender is an immersive VR installation where users physically pull a weight to unravel woven threads representing gender norms. Through embodied interaction, the project invites reflection on how gender roles are constructed and dissolved through repeated actions.

Project Video

Abstract

Unweaving Gender is an interactive virtual reality installation that invites users to physically engage with the act of disrupting gender norms. Drawing upon Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity, the project visualizes gender as something woven — not innate, but continuously enacted and reinforced through repeated behaviors. In this immersive experience, users interact with a tactile physical interface: pulling a weight vertically through a PVC tube connected to an IR sensor. Each successful pull corresponds to the unraveling of one virtual thread that in front of user in VR space.

The threads are visualized as delicate wefts and warps made with a translucent bamboo texture — referencing the Chinese bamboo weaving. Traditionally associated with femininity, domesticity, and order, weaving in this context becomes a metaphor for the structured systems that encode gender roles. As the user continues to pull and “unweave,” layers of this structure begin to disappear. With each disappearance, the surrounding VR environment shifts—light grows warmer and more saturated, audio evolves, and shader graph on the ground changes—making the process sensorially rich and reflective.

Rather than using traditional game controllers, Unweaving Gender emphasizes physical motion and embodied resistance. The labor of pulling simulates the invisible weight of societal expectation, and the repeated gesture mirrors the ongoing effort required to interrogate internalized norms. This focus on embodied interaction also nods to the historical parallel between looms and computers—two systems of logic, repetition, and pattern—positioning the player within a feminist media archaeology of technology and gender.

The installation uses Unity, Meta Quest 2, Arduino Uno, and Uduino for sensor-based input. When all threads are fully unweaved, the experience loops: threads reappear, evoking the cyclical, persistent nature of norm reproduction. The environment is largely white with soft pink hues—colors chosen to evoke purity, silence, and softness—while sound and light serve as feedback channels tied to progress and emotion.

Ultimately, Unweaving Gender is not about achieving a blank slate, but about making the labor of unlearning visible and tangible. Through physical effort, environmental shifts, and poetic metaphor, the project creates space for personal and collective reflection on how gendered systems are woven—and how they might be unwoven.

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