2006
In his 2006 article, "The MP3 as a Cultural Artifact," published in New Media & Society, Jonathan Sterne draws on the work of Max Neuhaus to examine how sound is constructed through perception and technical mediation.
Perceptual Techniques
Sterne's main argument is that the MP3 format is not merely a technology, but a "cultural artifact" built on psychoacoustic principles. He connects this concept to Neuhaus through the concept of perceptual techniques:
Sterne famously argues that "sound is a product of perception, not something 'external'"—physical reality is simply vibration that the body organizes into sound.
Neuhaus's work is cited as an artistic exploration of these precise perceptual boundaries. Just as the MP3 uses "perceptual coding" to discard "inaudible" data (masked frequencies) and shape the listening experience, Neuhaus created installations in which the sound itself might be inaudible, yet it altered the listener's perception of their surroundings.
Management of Attention: Both the MP3 and Neuhaus's installations (such as Times Square) rely on the social and political management of sound. They require a specific type of "perceptual labor" on the part of the listener, where what we "hear" is as much about what is filtered as what is present.
HAL Open Archive
The full article is available via SAGE Journals and is further explored in Sterne's subsequent book, MP3: The Meaning of a Format (2012).