As artificial intelligence becomes woven into everyday life, conversations around creativity, companionship, and identity are becoming less theoretical and more immediate. Artists across disciplines are responding to these shifts, exploring what AI means not only as a technological tool but as a cultural and emotional force. For London-based costume designer and supervisor Faith Powlett, those questions became the foundation of Mirror Girl, a multidisciplinary project that reimagines artificial intelligence through the unlikely setting of a 1940s advertisement. Blending costume design, performance, film, and historical research, the work imagines an alternate past where AI emerged decades earlier, shaped by wartime anxieties and post-war optimism instead of the digital age.

“‘Mirror Girl’ is based on a story by Hiroshi Yamamoto, of the same name, and is about a girl’s personal growth alongside her AI companion. My interpretation features the girl as a 1940s woman, using her own ‘Mirror Girl’ as a source of comfort in her life. The woman’s costume showcases a 3D visible patchwork heart, with circulatory system veins made from electrical wire. In contrast, the costume of mirror girl is a sleek white silicone ball dress, showing her advancements both in material, and in the representation of social class.” Faith describes to us.

Rather than presenting a futuristic vision of artificial intelligence, Mirror Girl asks viewers to look backwards. By placing contemporary debates about AI inside a carefully constructed historical setting, Powlett creates a space to reflect on the timeless human desire for connection, comfort, and technological progress.

“My personal creative style embraces the weird and obscure, with my love for sci-fi, anatomy and technology inspiring the foundations of the Mirror Girl project,” Faith shared in a conversation with us about the work.

At the centre of the installation is an AI companion named Mirror Girl, introduced through a vintage-style promotional film that echoes the visual language of mid-century advertising. Designed to offer emotional support during periods of loneliness and uncertainty, the character feels both nostalgic and strangely contemporary, prompting audiences to question how quickly emotional dependence on technology can become normalised.

Costume plays a central role in communicating these ideas. One character represents a woman rooted in the 1940s, while Mirror Girl herself appears in a sleek white silicone ball gown that suggests a more advanced era of technology while maintaining the silhouette of the period. Through their contrasting designs, Powlett explores changing ideas of progress, identity, and social class.

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She explains: “The woman’s costume showcases a 3D visible patchwork heart, with circulatory system veins made from electrical wire. In contrast, the costume of Mirror Girl is a sleek white silicone ball dress, showing her advancements both in material, and in the representation of social class.”

Historical computing technology also informed the construction of the garments. Inspired by machines such as Colossus and ENIAC, Powlett incorporated more than 200 eyelets into a navy coat, referencing the punched cards used to operate early computers. The details quietly bridge the gap between analogue history and today’s digital conversations.

“The 1940s was significant in computer technology, with the development of computers such as Colossus and ENIAC. When I looked into these computers, I drew inspiration from the punchcard mechanic used to operate them. On the navy coat I made, the collar, cuffs and belts are embellished with over 200 eyelets mimicking the design of the cards.”

While Mirror Girl engages with artificial intelligence, Powlett is careful not to position herself as a technologist. “I am not a scientist, nor a computer expert. I am a creative with a love for experimentation. The piece is not made to invoke any particular emotion, it is purely to make people think about artificial intelligence in their own perspective.”

That openness is perhaps what makes the project so compelling. Rather than offering answers about the future of AI, Mirror Girl invites viewers to sit with uncertainty and consider what truly distinguishes humans from the machines we create. In an era where artificial intelligence is increasingly embedded in everyday life, Faith Powlett’s work reminds us that technology has always reflected our hopes, fears, and imagination back to us.

Mirror Girl explores the evolution of technology while engaging with contemporary conversations around artificial intelligence and the possibility of machine sentience. At its core, the project examines emotional intelligence in AI and the ways humans increasingly seek connection through technology.

By placing these modern questions within the imagined world of a 1940s advertisement, the work offers a fresh perspective on our relationship with technological progress and the emotions that shape it. A recurring heartbeat serves as the emotional thread throughout the performance, culminating in a shared pulse between the human character and her AI companion. This symbolic moment invites viewers to reflect on a central question that lies at the heart of the project: if machines can think, learn, and connect, what truly sets us apart from them besides our humanity?

Faith Powlett is a freelance Costume designer and Supervisor, working across both stage and screen. Most recently, her work with Tabard Theatre’s ‘H.M.S. Pinafore’ was nominated for a Fringe Theatre Award in Opera – Costume. Follow her on Instagram and YouTube.