User interfaces hide the material code that structures digital capitalism.

Evidence

Interface is here understood as the dissemblance of material relations; thus does theorist Wendy Chun directly analogize software to Althusser’s famous definition of ideology as the imaginary relation of individuals to their real conditions of existence. The symbolic operations that structure the conditions of circulation-forward capitalism—namely, computer code—are vanishing mediators, leaving us in an imaginary mirror hall of rippleless icons. — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 74

Categorization

• DEFINE: Chun’s Althusserian analogy defines the interface as ideology: dissembled material relations, vanishing mediators — core conceptual vocabulary for the immediacy thesis.
• XREF: Directly relevant to judging the reader’s structural debt to Jameson: ‘vanishing mediators’ is the Jamesonian/Althusserian machinery for describing mediation’s occlusion. — connects to: Technical rationalization hides who benefits from the machinery. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 689; Digital speculation obscures inequality through hidden code just as nations hid exploitation — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 138; Algorithmic trading interfaces can render harmful working conditions invisible to users. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 281 (+2 more)