TALE AS OLD AS TIME by Anika Meier is a portrait of the inner world of girlhood. The young women are trapped with feelings that might never pass: fear, bewilderment, and vulnerability. The images created with AI evoke tropes of the Dead Girl (Alice Bolin), the Sad Girl Theory (Audrey Wollen), and the female gaze. It could be stills from 1970s horror movies, scenes taken from Laura Palmer’s red room, or a window into the dreamy, pastel-tinted safe space for girls created by Petra Collins. These coming-of-age stories trigger instantaneous unease while reflecting the topic of authentic female self-expression with dramatic irony. Or, with the words of Taylor Swift: "A man is allowed to react. A woman can only overreact."