2012
In The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies (2012), edited by Trevor Pinch and Karin Bijsterveld, Max Neuhaus is positioned as a foundational figure who helped define the field by moving beyond traditional musicology into the realms of history, sociology, and technology.
In the chapter "Underwater Music: Tuning Composition to the Sounds of Science," Stefan Helmreich analyzes Neuhaus's 1971 diagram for Water Whistle III. He uses it to illustrate how artistic experience can be mapped through scientific geometry, showing how Neuhaus "tuned" physical spaces to dissolve boundaries between the human body, technology, and the environment.
The handbook acknowledges Neuhaus as the artist generally credited with coining the term "sound installation" in the early 1970s. This distinction is critical to the handbook’s broader goal of theorizing sound that exists in space rather than just time.