The “learning matrix” is currently regarded as a "forgotten" pioneering achievement in computer science, cybernetics, and AI—an "artificial neural network" invented by the communications engineer Karl Steinbuch. This paper argues, however, that approaches like cybernetics played only a marginal role in the design of the “learning matrix.” By following the research process and the operational redefinition of epistemic things (Rheinberger, 2021), it demonstrates how shifts in focus were driven by questions of materials, functionality, and the economic conditions of research.

Moreover, the link between engineering research and the practical application of automating human activities necessitated expanding theoretical approaches to include human organisms. Here, implicit and explicit assumptions of the developers converged with structural inequalities in the workplace. On the one hand, these assumptions and inequalities were incorporated into the design of the technology, and on the other hand, the circuit diagrams served as an "objective" basis to confirm the assumptions.

Using an expanded collection of sources that explicitly includes circuit diagrams, this study contributes to a history of science and technology operating at the intersection with media archaeology. The paper argues that a deeper understanding of the terms “machine seeing,” “understanding,” and “learning” can be achieved by recognizing that it was often the technology, rather than the organism, that served as the model.

Stamps are a unique communication tool. Their potential global reach leads issuers (governments as well as international organisations) to use them as a vehicle for political propaganda, to promote an organisation or a country, and as a tool for awareness-raising campaigns on important social issues such as health or education.
In my presentation, I will focus on the visual tropes and rhetorical strategies used on stamps that depict technological, medical, therapeutic solutions, as well as social and cultural issues related to the HIV/AIDS epidemics in the 20th and 21st centuries. I will map the recurring visual motives such as the virus, medical expertise and equipment, condoms or fidelity. I will examine the narratives of care and solidarity with the victims of HIV/AIDS, as well as the narratives of progress in which the issuer positions itself as a participant in the fields of technology, science and medicine in relation to the global fight against the disease.
The proposed analysis is based on the Gwen Prout Medical Stamp Collection, housed in the Wellcome Collection, London. This collection was chosen for the analysis because of its comprehensive and complete nature, its global scope and its inclusion of a wide range of health-related topics. This will allow me to analyse global changes and trends in the iconography and rhetorical strategies used on the stamps, and to place these representations within the wider context of the dynamics of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.