Kristoffer Ørum
Not local. Boston, Vancouver, Riga, Kraków, Oberhausen, San Francisco.
Works with machines that are confidently wrong.
Twenty years out of art school, and back in it.
An artist who makes things up about real places.
Made by hand, mostly. Cut, cast, sanded, painted.
Local. Copenhagen and Aarhus, mostly.
In art and activism, humour has repeatedly functioned as a way of exposing the absurdity of power—from Dadaist performances to contemporary meme cultures. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
Participants staged live tableaux in pedestrian zones and market areas, allowing encounters with everyday passersby. Mundane Heroics, 2019
It employs a computational process to dismantle and reassemble the daily flow of news images into a navigable world built from their fragments. Watershed, 2025
The project has been discussed in Vice and elsewhere as a reflection on surveillance, aesthetics and identity in the age of algorithmic vision. Recognised Faces, 2014
The work opens itself to failure, loss of control and improvisation, embodying these conditions rather than merely describing them. It Sings for Us of What We Might Become, 2019
Lesson plans, assessment structures and financial data are translated into dynamic graphics, situating the institution in relation to broader societal forces and its individual members. A Body Has Many Members, 2012
The work featured 3D-printed signal crayfish models, USB-connected gadgets, and digital manipulations. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
The work was exhibited at Vejle Kunstmuseum from March to August 2020, then at Holstebro Kunstmuseum from September 2020 to January 2021. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
The installation combined the physical presence of the large-scale 3D-printed oyster sculpture with video content projecting the voices and experiences of future oyster-dwellers. Affluence without abundance, 2021
The project questions the assumption that it is "easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of the welfare state" (paraphrasing Slavoj Žižek). Melting State, 2020
The project features a map and website highlighting 16 reinterpreted locations in Aalborg. Aalborg Is The Future, 2024
The work was part of "Partners," an experimental exhibition at Vejle Kunstmuseum that paired seven artists with seven local associations. Everyday Heroes, 2019
The project was mentioned in reviews for its role in public debates on landscape restoration and climate adaptation. Djurs Øhav, 2020
The performance questions traditional notions of heroic bodies and monochrome histories, imagining instead non-heroic bodies in soft, feathered institutions that function as part of a collective ecosystem. Feathered Misconceptions, 2018
Recognised Faces is an internet application by Kristoffer Ørum that ran for a year. Recognised Faces, 2014
The centralised gatekeeping of 20th-century journalism has given way to fragmented, unstable formats. Watershed, 2025
Her head was made of cardboard squares, and as she walked she produced sad and disturbing sounds audible to late-night strollers and joggers. The Ballehage Woman, 2009
Online, these fragments are assembled pseudo-randomly into a navigable three-dimensional space. Watershed, 2025
"REVISIT: EROTIK" revisited Overgaden's 1989 "EROTIK" exhibition, which featured 48 female photographers and drew 100,000 visitors. Sucker Trick, 2017
I am tired of artists who speak as if they know what is best for others, instead of investigating what is wrong with themselves. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
On the one hand, it can be seen as an attempt to resist the grip of major platforms, their data collection, and their opaque models. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
The objects were fabricated by hand, with airbrushed surfaces and traces of manual production visible on the casts. Invisible Objects, 2016
These scenes combined role play, sculpture, and performance into temporary worlds accessible to anyone passing by. Mundane Heroics, 2019
The images are unstable and shifting, conjuring a welfare system built on an uneasy combination of nature and technology that is neither utopian nor dystopian but simply strange and somehow plausible. Leddyrsomsorg / Arthropod Care, 2026
The work was structured as a natural history museum display. 3D-printed models represented crayfish body parts modified with technological elements. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
The invasive biological species served as an analogy for invasive digital technologies and data collection systems. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
Blind Listening was presented as part of *I would prefer not to*, an exhibition at Meter (Copenhagen) on the potential of the non-productive, the meaningless, and the functional. Blind Listening, 2017
The outcome was a series of live tableaux presented in public space, inviting direct engagement and chance encounters. Mundane Heroics, 2019
Exhibition documented by photographer Mikkel Kaldal. Ebeltoft After The Flood, 2021
Hollow but convincing memories of the potential of what was before, not unlike 3d architectural renderings whose apparent realism hides the hollow and malleable nature of 3d graphics. Brownfield Wonderland, 2022
Et Andet Rum 2 is a site-specific 3D animation by Anders Bojen and Kristoffer Ørum. Et Andet Rum 2, 2009
To launch the project, staged reality events and a guided bus tour extended its speculative narrative into the physical city. Radiant Copenhagen, 2009
This invisibility operates on several levels. Watershed, 2025
Topographies of the Insignificant is a web-based project from 2010 presenting a series of micro-topological maps of ultra-local spaces in five European cities: Berlin, Bratislava, Luxembourg, Rome and Vienna. Topographies of the Insignificant, 2010
Auto Navigate My History is a software-based installation that replays the artist’s own browser history from the past year. Auto Navigate My History, 2014
The "Partners" exhibition investigated what happens when artists and associations work together within the context of an art museum. Everyday Heroes, 2019
Diffused States was part of the Data Fluencies exhibition curated by Roopa, on the diverse ways artists engage with, resist, or reimagine data. Diffused States (Boston), 2025
The work renders the fragile and transient qualities of soap in digital animation, turning an everyday material into a dynamic, projected environment. Soap Particles, 2005
The exhibition consisted of stencils painted with beetroot juice, 3D-printed noses and beetroots, inkjet prints, a webcam and screens of various sizes with nose recognition, texts and animation. Putin's Nose, 2019
The work examined how digital recognition systems and facial detection algorithms influence perception and identity. Putins Nose, 2018