About

Paulus van Horne (b.1994 Amsterdam, NL) is a sound artist and media technology researcher based in Colorado. Their creative practice encompasses machine learning, radio production, game design and large-scale audiovisual installation. Paulus is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Critical Media Practices at University of Colorado Boulder. Their practice-based research focuses on voice synthesis, gender simulation and trans studies.

In their work, Paulus uses text generation, vocal synthesis and transgender voice training method books as tools to explore the perception and embodied experience of gender through sound. Normative ideas about gender, sex and personhood are disrupted in the process of synthesizing and further manipulating a voice, a medium that is often closely tied to body and personal identity. Paulus’ work complicates what might be considered a "natural (human) voice,” experimenting with the use of synthetic voices to evoke feelings of gender euphoria. 

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Paulus holds a B.A. and B.Mus. from Oberlin College & Conservatory in Environmental Studies and Technology In Music And Related Arts respectively. They are a Thomas J. Watson Fellow (2017) and has received additional support from the New York State Council on the Arts (individual artist grant program, 2019). Paulus has been an artist’s assistant at EMPAC for jaamil olawale kosoko (2020) and has been an artist-in-residence at Kriti Gallery (Varanasi, India, 2018), notam (Oslo, Norway, 2016) and NEST Studio for the Arts (Boulder, CO, 2022-3).