The New York Times reported last week that, in Ukraine, an inexpensive military drone punched a hole in Chernobyl's outer steel shell and caused a fire. Engineers aren't sure how to repair it, given the dangers of working at the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster. The story is real, but it al so suggests the beginning of a sci-fi novel or a radioactive monster movie — or an origin story for the world that Québec artist Stéphanie Morissette has created with "Speculative Future," her exhibition currently on view at BCA Center in Burlington. The show presents sculptures of imaginary hybrid bird-drone creatures, all black, featuring propellers in different shapes and configurations. "Bird/Drone" has an X-shaped body and cut paper feathers curling up from its underside in a reversal of how wings usually work. It stands on delicate metal bird legs with sharp talons. One face of its square, blocky torso is covered in yellow glass eyes. Nearby, smaller specimens sprout propellers from every direction. One looks like a pom-pom, with feathers and mechanical parts all trying to occupy the same space and no visible head. Another rests on folding legs, its horizontal body spread out like a little four-winged plane, with a single red eye almost covered by paper feathers. Even minimal interventions by the artist, such as adding bird feet, make the drones zoomorphic, recasting existing screw holes or plastic vents as eyes and mouths. On the walls, Morissette has displayed 36-by-26-inch digital prints of drawings. The first of these appears as a page in a giant book, similar in format to John James Audubon's Birds of America. A title page identifies these images as belonging to "Birds of Prey." Each drawing depicts a different kind of drone, often flying over a wrecked, rubble-strewn landscape. Some of these drones have attacked actual birds — eagles, a great blue heron — which lie dead at the base of their landing gear. Many fly in what seem to be swarms or flocks. The images are captioned with collective nouns — "A Descent of Reapers," "A Banditry of Valkyries," "A Murder of Drones." The drawings reference Audubon's detailed etchings without resembling them. Instead, they're cartoony, their inked black outlines filled in with watercolor marker. It's as though the naturalist's penchant for encyclopedic avian documentation has manifested itself in that one kid in every fifth-grade class who's obsessed with drawing… ...read more read less