PAUL GOODMAN, a sonologist and Poet, was born in Vancouver, Canada, 1955. He studied 
Electronic and Computer music at the Institute for Sonology at the University of 
Utrecht, the Netherlands. At Sonology, he was a substitute lecturer for the courses in 
the History of Electro-Acoustic Music of Frits Weiland and, as assistant to the Swiss 
Composer and Musicologist Dr. Wemer Kaegi, gave (with Jos Janssen) a workshop in the 
use of the MIDIMIVOSIM system for sound synthesis which was designed by Dr. Kaegi. He 
has taken part in numerous concerts within Holland and outside the country. Over the 
last ten years he has worked closely with an international group of visual artists on 
various projects, among others, 1996 Bienal Intemacional Sao Paulo: computer tape for 
an installation by Heleen Comet and a series of installations, performances and 
exhibitions at the Gallery 13 in Hanover, Germany. As poet and composer he has 
co-written with Jos Janssen a series of Radiophonic Poems all of which have been 
broadcast in the Netherlands and also at the Luigi Russolo/EBU RomaEuropa Festival, 
"The Tree Where The Wind Lives"; and the SFB Radio in Berlin, "KOS". He was 
commissioned by the Opem Biennale Mtlnchen and the Staatsoper Hamburg to write the 
libretto, "The Mother of Black-Winged Dreams" for the Polish composer Hanna Kulenty, 
which was premiered in December 1996 in Munich and in January 1997 in Hamburg. For 
the last 18 years he has lived and worked in the Netherlands.


MIRROR IMAGES (1999) Duration:6:13. The first step is always to create or find a basic set of sound material. From 1981 to  1989 1 made use of a sound synthesis program called MIDIMNOSIM developed by Dr. 
Wertier Kaegi at the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht, the Netherlands. In these years a 
very strict aesthetic was adhered to, namely,. that all sound material had to originate 
by means of sound synthesis, that is built solely withitr the boundaries of the 
MIDIMNOSIM system. A basic set of material was operated upon to create families of 
related sounds and then structured. Since 1989 it is, for various reasons, no longer 
possible to work with MIDIMNOSIM therefore I have opted for an eclectic approach. Now 
sound material comes from anywhere, regardless of its origins as long as it is 
expressive and its technical quality is acceptable. Sound Synthesis is still used but not 
to the exclusion of other means of sound production or reproduction. Whereas 
previously one worked with synthetic soundswhich had to be made to sound non-
artificial it is now necessary when working with a 'concrete' sound to make it sound 
not too mundane. The challenge was formerly to bring sounds into the world while at 
the present it is to take them out of the world so to speak. From the beginning the term 
'associative' was applied to describe the music. The sounds were conceived of as 
'magnetic fields' (in the sense in which Andr& Breton and Philippe Soupault used it 
which held aural and visual associations. The sound fields overlap each other and 
therefore by operating upon the one we could lead it in the direction of other sound 
fields creating associative complexes. For example if I take the sound of a cat as my 
basic material and apply a series of operations to it I not only transform the sound 
itself but the associations (aural and visual) called up in the listener. The sounds also 
serve as image-generators. The tape entitled 'Mirror Images' was created for an open 
project at the Bourges Festival 1999 and was given its premiere there.