The chapter introduces the icon of HIV and its place in the history of AIDS. It follows the position of representations of HIV in the AIDS atlas from 1986 to today and asks for the conditions of its pervasive and seemingly neutral appearance. Against the historical backdrop of the visualisation of bacteria by Robert Koch and the experimental materialisation of the virus as an epistemic thing, the visualisation of HIV is discussed as a transformation of the epidemic into a techno-scientific object. Associated with temporality of the virus, the appearance and significance of the epidemic's complex history begins to change. With the example of a price winning HIV model from 2010, the chapter shows how the icon of HIV assembles visibility and knowledge, past and present of the epidemic into one powerful picture.