See It: Brandon Vickerd in Halifax

Brandon Vickerd brings the Canadian landscape into the digital age with his Bionic Forest installation; modelled after Tom Thomson’s landscapes of Northern Ontario, Vickerd’s woodland is composed of seven steel trees that “sway and rustle as if propelled by an invisible wind” via a series of hidden timers and power couplings. The robotic trees twitch and move delicately in the still and windless gallery, inspiring an unsettling sense of déjà vu: here, the lone trees of Group of Seven paintings, which continue to haunt our constructions of Canadian identity almost a century after their creation, are eerily reactivated in industrial, man-made materials. Ultimately, these iconic, neo-Frankensteinian trees take on a life of their own, “emulating organic movement through mechanical means,” as Vickerd describes it, and remind us that, although technology has automated almost every aspect of modern life, we continue to be fascinated by the possibilities of mimicking the natural world. (5865 Gorsebrook Ave, Halifax NS)

www.smuartgallery.ca