Kristoffer Ørum
A programmer who picks the wrong algorithm on purpose.
Local. Copenhagen and Aarhus, mostly.
Made by hand, mostly. Cut, cast, sanded, painted.
An artist who makes things up about real places.
Research. Somebody is going to have to examine it.
Science fiction, set last week.
The project also speaks to a transitional moment. Watershed, 2025
The work was documented in a video presentation and included in the festival’s program alongside other international and local artists working in experimental modes of storytelling and urban critique. A Subjective History of Gdańsk, 2011
The plate facing it is green and reads "I cheer as the pink-green crayfish team score a goal", over a passage about crayfish sending messages to each other across the same wireless networks that carry a live football game. Signal_Crayfish, 2026
The exhibition was noted for providing a rare opportunity to interact with cutting-edge technology in a gallery setting. Mundane Monsters, 2022
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
Using AI, familiar sites are transformed into speculative visions, such as Karolinelunden as a DIY amusement park or Aalborg Shipyard taken over by its workers. Aalborg Is The Future, 2024
The work takes up how electronic systems constantly push at our understanding of who we are, our history and context, suggesting that their constant misunderstanding provides opportunities to see the world with fresh eyes. Feathered Misconceptions, 2018
Recognised Faces is an internet application by Kristoffer Ørum that ran for a year. Recognised Faces, 2014
Like Haraway, I believe the only honest critique must come from a situated place—knowledge that is always embodied, compromised, and grounded in specific contexts. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
I also do it because local AI is itself an impure position. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
Taniguchi of veggie-science.org, part of the daytodaydata.com project. Cosmic Carrot, 2005
The signal crayfish served as a figure for both biological invasion and technological infiltration. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
The work used artificial intelligence as a tool for speculative storytelling about Danish social and political history. Mr. Spray, 2024
A ghostly city that is no less real than the cities summoned forth in digital renderings by architects and planners to convince us of the future they are proposing. Brownfield Wonderland, 2022
The installation drew from actual environmental concerns about invasive species whilst incorporating fictional elements related to digital communication networks and surveillance technologies. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
In Aalborg, at Nordkraft the project was hosted in a former power plant turned cultural venue. Mundane Heroics, 2019
Once generated, these daily phantom faces replaced Ørum’s personal avatar across his website, social networks and other platforms. Recognised Faces, 2014
Taking its starting point in classical ideas about the end of the world, the exhibition mixed anxiety and faith in the future into a playful soap-opera-like narrative, relocating human fate to mysterious experiments of a distant time. The End of the Universe as We Know It?, 2007
The series also exists as gallery installations, an artist's book and 3D prints; this is its web form. Would You Like to Know More, 2017
The project was documented in the publication "Radar Contemporary: Extensions vol I II III" by Dr. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
Inside the exhibition space at Sydhavn Station (housed in a former DSB kiosk), the walls were painted with abstract graffiti and AI-generated videos showed various demonstrations and concerts related to this fictional history. Frihed, Lighed Og Hip-Hop, 2023
Strange audio players and distorted timelines hint at other ways things could have turned out, with hip-hop positioned not as a fixed genre or imported form, but as a set of evolving principles. Aarhus'er #1, 2025
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 involved 3D-printing signal crayfish models equipped with electromagnetic sensing components. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
Set in three symbolic locations—Folkets Park, Drottninggatan 6, and a speculative Malmö City Hall—the work blends archival research with fiction to propose a reparative reading of urban space. Even the City Dreams of Being Another, 2025
One is pink and perforated, carrying a crown and, in mirror writing, "Find them, eat them & enjoy them" — the Danish Nature Agency's advice on the invasive signal crayfish. Signal_Crayfish, 2026
Wireless Walnut is part sculpture, part hidden broadcast system. Wireless Walnut, 2018
The code sets the procedure, but the visual outcomes remain emergent and unpredictable. Watershed, 2025
Search for Carrot ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, 2006, is a PAL DVD video with a duration of 22 minutes, created in collaboration with Anders Bojen. Search for Carrot ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, 2006
The show aimed to make the realm of coded instructions, programming languages, software protocols, electrical signals and logical operations available to aesthetic experience. Listening Without Ears, 2019
Another, the film The City that No Longer Exists (2020), was shown as a projection of a purple oyster narrating a story where humans transform into oyster-like beings after their city on a drained lake is flooded. Djurs Øhav, 2020
Produced for Aarhus Public Libraries and published by Haandholdt, the app was made freely available through iTunes. KAOS, 2012
It is this everyday, digital infra-ordinary that Watershed makes tangible. Watershed, 2025
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
Local rumours, past dreams, and forgotten figures merge with the town’s documented history across media: an interactive video installation, posters, sound works, and music. Hvidovre Makes Good Times Better, 2025
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
NLHspace was initiated in 2006 by artist Nanna Lysholt Hansen and operated as an "always open / always closed" space. Et Andet Rum 2, 2009
The exhibition opened on 8 October 2009 and remained on view until 30 October 2009. Et Andet Rum 2, 2009
Generated with a Chinese variant of the Huyuan algorithm, the images include intentional misreadings of the runic inscriptions, echoing centuries of translation, loss, and projection. The Good, the Lost, and the Beautiful, 2025
Several video works were part of the exhibition. Djurs Øhav, 2020