2011
In David Griffin's 2011 doctoral dissertation, "Suitably Underspecified: Systematic Notations and the Relations Between Paper and Music," references to Max Neuhaus typically focus on the specific role of drawing as a conceptual tool for sound art, rather than simply as a musical score.
'Through building a taxonomy of drawing, and a set of four drawing research studies aimed at generating innovative cross-disciplinary practices, an argument will be developed that systematised drawings such as the music notation are hybrid representational environments, sufficiently different from other inscriptive practices as to merit a separate classification. The taxonomical model will decentralise specific modes of drawing, in favour of a multi-disciplinary view appropriate to the persistence of its subject as a deeply rooted strategic and executive practice, and the four studies will engage the time-factoring of notation systems as transductive environments, setting the conditions for innovative practices both in and outside of the frame of the inscription'.
Griffin discusses how Max Neuhaus used "circumscribed drawings"—which combined hand-drawn images with text—not as a script for performers to follow, but as a way to define and delimit the "invisible" sonic space for the viewer.
"Radio Broadcasting Works" and "Audium": These terms refer to specific categories of Neuhaus's output.
Radio Broadcasting Works: Radio-based projects such as Public Supply and Radio Net, in which the "paper" (or technical diagram) served as a blueprint for a network rather than a melody.
Griffin uses Neuhaus's rejection of the term "sound art" to support his argument that notational systems are "transductive environments." For Neuhaus, the "paper" (the drawing) was a hybrid representational space that established the conditions for the listener's perception, in line with Griffin's taxonomy of spatiotemporal drawings.