Site-Specific Sound Installation, DUMBO, New York, 2002

For the D.U.M.B.O. Art Under the Bridge Festival Michelle installed a mega sound system under the Manhattan Bridge that played a recording of angry elephants snorting, crying and stomping for the duration of the three-day festival.

The sound of these elephants filled the neighborhood and visitors found themselves drawn to the fenced-in archway, searching for the “animals” locked behind the gates.

This piece confronts the growing gentrification of the D.U.M.B.O area using their marketing mascot, an elephant.

In recent years the area has been bought up by realtors, with rising rents driving out the artists who originally made the neighborhood desirable. The developers’ advertising banners that now fill the neighborhood have images of elephants on them, and so here Michelle presented the idea of the wild beast held captive by realtors, just as the artist, society’s wild beast, cannot escape gentrification; trapped by the progress of architecture.

The sound of angry elephants trapped under a historic piece of architecture was an easy choice because elephants never forget.

Director/Producer: Michelle Handelman

Sound Designer: Vincent Lanier Baker