Kristoffer Ørum
An artist who makes things up about real places.
Most of it was built on other people's work.
Works with machines that are confidently wrong.
Not local. Boston, Vancouver, Riga, Kraków, Oberhausen, San Francisco.
Mostly it is admin.
Not a joke.
The work operated as both a functional listening device and a sculptural intervention, questioning the boundaries between surveillance, documentation, and artistic practice. Listening Without Ears, 2019
It operates in a zone where phenomena such as computer screens, lakes of coffee, simulated fire, and collective machines all influence our conceptions and expectations of the physical world. Coffee Lake, 2019
We are guided by digital defaults, where smartphone cameras enhance, correct, or beautify before we even see the result. Watershed, 2025
Once generated, these daily phantom faces replaced Ørum’s personal avatar across his website, social networks and other platforms. Recognised Faces, 2014
Within the installation, a microclimate experiment is contained in a coffeemaker, adding subtle atmospheric variation to the space. In a Dark Room/a Storm in a Coffee Cup, 2004
The project was presented as part of the Alternativa 2011–2012 festival, a contemporary art festival in Gdańsk that focused on experimental and interdisciplinary approaches to art and culture. A Subjective History of Gdańsk, 2011
Players learn a new language through twelve game-based exercises, each designed to deliberately reinterpret established ideas and challenge conventional understanding. Disbelieving Gravity, 2013
Two folders, with texts by medical historian Adam Bencard and by Kristoffer Ørum, printed inkjet and held in 3D-printed R-PETG holders in both buildings. Leddyrsomsorg / Arthropod Care, 2026
Works included "When nature looks back at you" (3D print, 2021), "Pearl House" (mixed media, 2020), "Habitation Oyster from Kolidsound" (3D print, 2020), and "WARNING FLOOR FLOODED DURING HIGH TIDE" (hydrographic print on cornstarch, 2021). Ebeltoft After The Flood, 2021
The opening included a performance component set in an alternative past, presenting counterfactual work that narrated fictional relationships between political movements and cultural expression. Mr. Spray, 2024
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
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 project invited citizens to have their pets gently scanned to contribute to a composite digital monster that would inhabit the area around Borchs Gård in Kolding city centre. The Kolding Creature, 2021
The project involved both the creation of a physical artist's book and a 3D-printed sculptural element integrated into the cover design. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
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 project emphasizes local DIY spirit, encouraging citizens to reimagine Hvidovre’s past and future. Hvidovre Makes Good Times Better, 2025
The installation ran on a standard computer connected to a screen in the exhibition space. Auto Navigate My History, 2014
At the same time, abstract projections of colour and computer-generated sound evolve according to the same underlying logic. AutoBiography, 2011
The exhibition took place in various locations throughout the ship, including the forecastle, aft cabin, engine room, and deck. Depth Estimation, 2019
jerklædte Misforståelser (Feathered Misconceptions) is a fifteen-minute associative performance commissioned by Ny Carlsberg Fondet for their annual celebration of their founder on 28 February 2018. Feathered Misconceptions, 2018
The work consists of more than 30 screens distributed throughout the campus, each showing a real-time visualisation of the institution’s invisible infrastructures. A Body Has Many Members, 2012
The inkjet transfer process applied the processed imagery to the printed form. Depth Estimation, 2019
The Kolding Creature was unveiled on 30 October 2021 as part of a Kunstwalk featuring multiple artists working in Kolding city centre. The Kolding Creature, 2021
I am also tired of a “call-out” culture that too easily becomes hostile and makes it difficult to build the broad alliances we need. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
Combining elements from the early labor movement with the local hip-hop culture of the 1990s, the project looks for untapped potential where creativity, community, and enjoyment take center stage. Aalborg Is The Future, 2024
Deconstructed 2D news images drift across a constructed 3D landscape, never pretending to be windows onto reality. Watershed, 2025
Some elements are only revealed through exploration, others remain invisible, and a hidden part of the project can be discovered by persistent visitors. Topographies of the Insignificant, 2010
Rather than proposing a return to older models, Watershed treats this uncertainty as an opportunity: a chance to experiment with new arrangements of familiar material, to test how different structures shape perception. Watershed, 2025
Video elements included a deep fake sequence featuring politician Pernille Vermund discussing invasive species. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
The book was commissioned during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of a group of works that examined interspecies entanglement and human vulnerability. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
The process consistently produced a balance between the familiar and the strange. Mundane Heroics, 2019
Especially simulations of destruction are so widespread and credible that one quickly forgets what the original physical phenomena looked like. Melting State, 2020
The project was realised in three different locations, each with its own public settings and time frame. Mundane Heroics, 2019
It suggests that the media of the future may not converge into a single stable format, but instead coexist as a patchwork—some fostering clarity, others producing estrangement. Watershed, 2025
Installation took place aboard Svartlöga ship functioning as gallery space. Ebeltoft After The Flood, 2021
The work suggests that our understanding of phenomena like fire, water, and collective action is increasingly shaped by computational models and digital representations. Coffee Lake, 2019
The Wave made by Anders Bojen & Kristoffer Ørum is a computer-animated video installation depicting a stormy sea with the tower of Copenhagen City Hall in the background. The Wave, 2009
The augmented reality component allowed viewers to see additional digital layers through their smartphone cameras, revealing hidden "monsters" that existed only in the augmented space. Mundane Monsters, 2022
The project used artificial intelligence not as a thinking entity, but as a tool filled with errors and biases that could inspire new ways of thinking. Frihed, Lighed Og Hip-Hop, 2023
The performative lecture addresses how we might recover some semblance of agency and hope while living under the gaze of ever more watchful algorithmic systems of control. It Sings for Us of What We Might Become, 2019