works

Artifacts

Artifacts mean many things.

They are the products of humanity and of machine learning. They are also errors of perception and representation. At the end, they are traces of what has been and what might be — evidence of our majesty and fallibility.

These artifacts are an attempt to imagine a new token economy where both image and coinage can challenge tired histories. By harnessing the emergent potential of generative AI, they unearth the unexpected while hinting at human-machine cultures not yet discovered.

Through a process of devoted iteration, we have inserted alternative histories into the complex of ancient and medieval money, thereby posing the question: what might images of pregnancy, of family, and of domesticity mean when minted onto currency?

Our tokens tell simple stories of private lives but the identities of their subjects remain unknown. artifacts exist in a space of contested histories, displacing value from established, patriarchal power and situating it in our homes. In doing so, they ask the collector to join in the creation of new meanings.

Co-created with Alex Estorick and launched on September 26, 2023 via Emergent Properties. The initial collection of 100 coins sold out in under twenty four hours.

artifacts was a finalist for the 2024 Lumen Prize in the Still Image Category.

Since the launch of the genesis collection, Caballero and Estorick have developed two site-specific iterations of artifacts: the first in partnership with Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum and the second for the 2026 inaugural edition of Rome New Media Week, held at Casa Museo Hans Christian Andersen.

For the Ashmolean Museum’s 2025 Money Talks exhibition, the artists intervened the institution’s iconic Oxford Crown coin, introducing a recto and verso side. In the words of curator Shailen Bhandare: “The artists were interested in ‘knocking the king off his horse’, replacing the static image of the king with a form of narrative coinage depicting a female figure in flux, providing an alternative story of power.” The artifacts Ashmolean Edition became the first digital artwork to enter the museum’s collection.

For Synthetic Histories, an exhibition of new media pioneers organized as part of Rome New Media Week, Caballero and Estorick reworked the florin, the currency of medieval Florence, presenting two new iterations of the project. The images on the reverse side of the coin are rooted in the Iris florentina, or Florentine iris, the flower of Florence.

Installation images of both exhibitions are included below.

Installation views of the exhibitions Synthetic Histories at Casa Museo Hans Christian Andersen in Rome (2026) and of Money Talks at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford (2024), where the Rome and Ashmolean Editions of the project were presented.