Fantastic deities, robots, alien creatures and spaceships are featured in videos and photographs with the artist herself dressed up in various self-made costumes as characters.

Mori's early works, such as photograph Play with Me (1994), use her own body as the subject, and she costumes herself as a sexualized, technological alien woman in everyday scenes.

Mori attributes her fascination with consciousness and death to experiencing sleep paralysis in her early-twenties for several hours which left her unsure if she was alive or dead.

[11] The juxtaposition of Eastern mythology with Western culture is a common theme in Mori's works, often through layering photography and digital imaging,[12] such as in her 1995 installation Birth of a Star.

Later works, such as Nirvana show her as a goddess, transcending her early roles via technology and image, and abandoning realistic urban scenes for more alien landscapes.

[17] Mori manipulates a photo of a real public swimming place as she inserts herself in a blue plastic mermaid costume in several locations within the scene.

[20] Rebirth is an exhibition from works spanning a number of years that was first shown in London at the Royal Academy of Art in 2012 and came to Japan Society in New York City in 2013.

[21] Mori also took inspiration from ancient Celtic practices, notably the stone circles in her Transcircle 1.1 (2004), a group of LED lit columns that periodically shift color.

Inspired by Buddhism and ecology, the Faou Foundation's mission is to create six art installations around the world as homages to the natural environment of each locale.

On the winter solstice each year, the shadow of the Sun Pillar will reach the Moon Stone, serving as, Mori writes: "a ceremonial emblem of eternal rebirth for all living things."