Kristoffer Ørum
Not research. The works were made first and explained afterwards.
Twenty years out of art school, and back in it.
A record-keeper. The website is the work.
Comedy.
Most of it was built on other people's work.
An artist who makes things up about real places.
The works form part of Ørum’s ongoing series Även staden drömmer om att vara en annan ("Even the city dreams of being another"), offering glimpses of civic and technological alternatives rooted in joy, memory, and shared invention. Even the City Dreams of Being Another, 2025
One room was painted bright pink with beetroot juice, smelling earthily of childhood beetroot soup, and featured a Russian rap sung by a life-sized copy of Putin's nose. Putin's Nose, 2019
The work functioned as both catalogue and speculative field guide, examining the invasive species through the lens of technological comparison. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
The project began with an unusual anecdote: "I look down into the shopping bag at some beetroots. Putins Nose, 2018
The project constructed a local myth about a deformed outcast living in a park frequented by wealthy residents. The Ballehage Woman, 2009
Shown with Colette Fu, Diagonal Press / Tauba Auerbach, Kate Conlon, Myungah Hyon, Neta Bomani, Noam Youngrak Son, Sonnenzimmer / Nick Butcher, Nadine Nakanishi, Rujuta Rao, Stephanie Simek and THUNGRY / bex ya yolk. Signal_Crayfish, 2026
The machine's interpretation is not just a poor copy of reality; it creates a new representation with its own logic and uncanny aesthetic. Speaker 1, 2026
The work combines AI-generated imagery with human-written captions, forming a dispersed narrative around how such systems might emerge—from grassroots tinkering to collectively governed infrastructures and hyper-local training data. Diffused States (Vancouver), 2025
The work operates as both a technical demonstration and a poetic meditation on the relationship between computation and imagination, revealing the "reservoirs of strangeness" that exist within everyday technological objects. Coffee Lake, 2019
About this website This is one of many possible records of Kristoffer Ørum's work, but it's never going to be complete.
The process consistently produced a balance between the familiar and the strange. Mundane Heroics, 2019
Over a period of 107 days, Anders Bojen and Kristoffer Ørum had a custom computer program rewrite the history of Roskilde in real time, from the town’s foundation by the Vikings in 980 to its present-day status as a world heritage site. Roskilde Parahistory, 2009
Putin's Nose began with an everyday moment: looking into a shopping bag full of groceries and noticing a beetroot that, for a moment, looked like the artist's Russian grandmother's nose. Putin's Nose, 2019
The installation consisted of 3D-printed crayfish models, information screens, video material, and text displays on pink pedestals. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
None are permanent, but all leave residues—sonic, material, or narrative. Monuments of a Fictional Past (Kraków Edition), 2025
Visitors could observe the browser wandering through familiar and obscure websites, highlighting the fragmented and associative nature of online experience. Auto Navigate My History, 2014
Signal Crayfish was presented as part of "Monstrous Machines," an exhibition on why new technologies provoke fear and how this impacts our perception of technology. Signal_Crayfish, 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
We are collectively searching for new grammars of public discourse. Watershed, 2025
Yet, as critics such as Allan Sekula have argued, photography has never been a transparent medium; it has always been a construction. Watershed, 2025
Each figure is both a memory and a proposition—an echo of what might have been, and a sketch of what still could be. Monuments of a Fictional Past (Kraków Edition), 2025
By establishing rules and constraints—writing without interruption, juxtaposing unrelated images—the Surrealists sought to bypass rational control and provoke unexpected associations. Watershed, 2025
The exhibition was supported by Novo Nordisk Fonden. Affluence without abundance, 2025
The project draws inspiration from the largely forgotten history of ternary computing—an alternative to binary systems that operates on three states: true, false, and unknown. Diffused States (Boston), 2025
The oysters provide shelter, regulate air quality, supply electricity and heating, and monitor their human inhabitants' health and behaviour. Affluence without abundance, 2021
Aarhus'er #1 is the most expansive chapter in Kristoffer Ørum's ongoing counterfactual project "Frihed, lighed og hip-hop" (Freedom, Equality and Hip-Hop), created in collaboration with rapper Emilio Hestepis. Aarhus'er #1, 2025
Putin's Nose worked at the boundary between object and image, examining how digital images not only register meaning but enter physical space to shape identity and power relations. Putins Nose, 2018
As a user zooms in on a fragment, its pixel structure reveals itself, breaking the illusion of seamlessness. Watershed, 2025
It was coded using the then-ubiquitous Flash interactive format. Topographies of the Insignificant, 2010
At the same time, these messages were automatically sent to random email addresses in the local Amager area near the gallery. City Planning, 2010
Recognised Faces is an internet application by Kristoffer Ørum that ran for a year. Recognised Faces, 2014
At the moment the building site is a site of overlapping and contested imaginaries and Brownfield Wonderland is a celebration of this brief moment where two ideas of what a city is coexist. Brownfield Wonderland, 2022
It is an experiment in seeing, questioning not just what we see in the news, but how we are conditioned to see it. Watershed, 2025
Depth Estimation is a 3D printed sculpture made from corn starch with inkjet transfer, based on algorithmic depth estimation of a photograph. Depth Estimation, 2019
Bænkebider betragtere (Woodlouse Observers), the title of the ones placed around the hospital. Leddyrsomsorg / Arthropod Care, 2026
The project examined the invasive signal crayfish species, cataloguing its chemical communication abilities in comparison to human technologies like Wi-Fi. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
Through a visual language that draws on both scientific simulations and computer games, the flows of economy, knowledge and power are animated as dynamic systems. A Body Has Many Members, 2012
Rooted in histories of low-resource computing and community-run networks, the project repositions AI as a tool for collective experimentation and situated knowledge-making. Diffused States (Lexington), 2025
The work created an immersive environment where digital creatures appeared to coexist with physical artworks. Mundane Monsters, 2022
The starting point was the woodlouse as a kind of care worker. Leddyrsomsorg / Arthropod Care, 2026