The first I recall seeing was the art/science project "Immaculate Telegraphy". This was the first time I saw, or perhaps felt, that memory and knowledge is also imparted into the tools themselves -- knowing what to do is not enough, there's a bunch of subtle boot-strapping steps that need to bake progress into actual artifacts too. And also how much of this extra-cranial knowledge is taken for granted now.

https://immaculatetelegraphy.tumblr.com/

Yeah the bit where his hut was full of smelter fumes reminded me of how the toaster creator poisoned themself tring to refine metal