the interface

the interface is not a thing but an effect — not a surface between two stable zones but the threshold where the relation is produced. Which matters for sorter/sorted specifically, since it means the interface is not where two already-separate parties meet but where the separation is continuously manufactured. An interface is a sorting device: it decides what counts as inside, outside, signal, control — the operational form of where is noise located. Protocol is the companion term: control through distribution rather than despite it, governance located in the standard rather than a centre.