New Trees

Munich-based photographer Robert Voit has discovered a new kind of tree that is sprouting up all over the world: the cellular phone antenna tree, made from steel, fiberglass and plastic, molded to resemble a real tree, and clad with fake branches and leaves. Dubbing these weird sore thumbs “new trees,”Voit has found all kinds of specimens—pine, palm, cypress, cactus— throughout the world, in deserts or in the middle of newly planted forests, in fields and parking lots, next to highways or in housing developments. The artificiality of these “new trees” readily declares itself—they are necessarily taller than most trees, their antennae are often visible through the leaves, or the trunks may be marked with warnings to keep away— and even without these clues they stick out from their surroundings as “not quite right,” like Stepford wives of the arboreal world. Voit’s photographs are composed with deliberate beauty, and the contrast he achieves between tree and sky is especially well judged, enhancing the atmosphere of artifice within these otherwise serene landscapes. Voit traveled throughout the U.S., South Africa and Europe to compile this volume, a sort of postindustrial arboretum that is at once fun and alarming to peruse.