This presentation examines the recurring image of a single red rose placed beside personal computers in 1980s advertising, particularly in campaigns by IBM. First appearing in advertisements alongside a Charlie Chaplin spokesperson referencing Modern Times, the rose persisted even as the Chaplin figure and other visual elements fell away. Tracing its circulation across major computer magazines throughout the decade, the presentation considers how this motif functioned as a symbolic mediator at a moment when the personal computer was entering the domestic sphere and lacked stable cultural language. Positioned beside the machine, the rose introduced associations of intimacy, romance, and gendered affect, framing the computer as a relational “other” within the home. Within the research-based art project Diskette///Rosette, these archival images are re-engaged through material and time-based works which reconsider this earlier moment of technological domestication as a site of restoration, exploring how emotional and interpersonal models of human–machine interaction were first staged, and how this can inform contemporary encounters with conversational interfaces and AI chatbots.