Kristoffer Ørum

Kristoffer Ørum

Local. Copenhagen and Aarhus, mostly.

An artist who makes things up about real places.

A documentary practice. Every work here has an address and a date.

This text is generated. He decided what it generates from.

Not research. The works were made first and explained afterwards.

Not local. Boston, Vancouver, Riga, Kraków, Oberhausen, San Francisco.

The headline read "The Inscrutable Face of Russia." This sparked reflections on how much difference there actually is between the paranoid gaze of computer surveillance technologies and that of human beings. Putin's Nose, 2019

The exhibition opened on 8 October 2009 and remained on view until 30 October 2009. Et Andet Rum 2, 2009

The electromagnetic pick-ups were integrated into the crayfish body parts, creating hybrid biological-technological entities that could detect and respond to electromagnetic fields in the environment. Signal_Crayfish, 2021

What looks like a glitch to humans is in fact a trace of the statistical modelling that drives the software. Recognised Faces, 2014

Text panels presented both accurate biological information and fabricated technical specifications. Signal_Crayfish, 2020

The project used the signal crayfish as a figure for examining digital surveillance and mapping of human movement through wireless networks. Signal_Crayfish, 2020

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

The project was documented by Kevin Malcolm and received coverage in Danish art press as part of discussions about digital art and algorithmic perception. Putins Nose, 2018

Instead of treating these models as definitive or universal, the project approaches them as partial and provisional—open to reinterpretation, modification, and play. Diffused States (Vancouver), 2025

At Drottninggatan 6, the building itself becomes a collaborative canvas, shaped by decades of creative reuse. Even the City Dreams of Being Another, 2025

The artists sent unsolicited emails to residents of the Ballehage area warning of an epidemic of Involuntary Tessellation and offering cures with a link to tessellax.com, a fake medical website based on an altered AIDS treatment site. The Ballehage Woman, 2009

In the machine's failure to see me correctly, and in the unexpected beauty of its attempt, I was given a chance to see myself in new ways. Speaker 1, 2026

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

From advertising screens on buses to personal mobile phones, we are daily surrounded by lifelike computer-generated representations of physical phenomena. Melting State, 2020

The exhibition featured 26 contemporary artists responding to photographs that had been recovered from the ship Svartlöga after it capsized and sank in August 2018. 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

It was curated by Nanna Lysholt-Hansen and supported by Vesterbro Lokaludvalg. Et Andet Rum 2, 2009

The work has been presented in lectures at universities, on AI, welfare mythologies and hope through the creative misuse of digital infrastructure. Frihed, Lighed Og Hip-Hop, 2023

All 3D-printed in R-PETG and painted with urethane. Leddyrsomsorg / Arthropod Care, 2026

The Danish Arts Foundation's support enabled the presentation of the work in Vermont, introducing international digital art practices to the local community. Mundane Monsters, 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

The exhibition recounted the story of a black magnetic fluid, ferrofluid, that generated forms and figures without human interaction. The End of the Universe as We Know It?, 2007

Figures gather for shared meals, sweep longhouse floors, inscribe runes like graffiti, perform stylised rituals, or take part in dance battles and DJ sets using flat stones. The Good, the Lost, and the Beautiful, 2025

The Pattern In Us All (2007) was a lecture performance created by Anders Bojen & Kristoffer Ørum at the University of Copenhagen. The Pattern In Us All, 2007

By constructing new faces from parts of the most widely circulated images online, Recognised Faces created a snapshot of the constant data collection and algorithmic recognition happening daily on the internet. Recognised Faces, 2014

When I use myself as material, my body and my image become a site for institutional self-critique—where paradoxically critique and complicity overlap. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025

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 installation combines mathematical structures, popular psychology, video, narration, sound and custom-designed software. AutoBiography, 2011

It is this everyday, digital infra-ordinary that Watershed makes tangible. Watershed, 2025

Rather than scaling towards planetary computation, this speculative trajectory follows a slower, more situated evolution—one in which algorithms adapt to the languages, histories, and needs of their immediate context. Diffused States (Vancouver), 2025

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

One text reads: “In the bottom drawer of my fridge are a few beetroots that have been left there for so long that they have begun to leak red liquid. Qua Aqua (Beetroot Texts), 2017

The work featured electromagnetic pick-ups installed within body parts of a 3D-printed signal crayfish, comparing fears of digital transformation with concerns about invasive species. Signal_Crayfish, 2021

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

The project was part of Nordic Sessions II, focusing on artistic "walking protocols" based on senses, local places, and movement in urban space. According to the Nose, 2021

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

Signal_Krebs was an installation work presented in the group exhibition "Navigeringer – På kanten af en verden i forandring". Signal_Crayfish, 2020

Recognised Faces unfolded publicly on a dedicated Tumblr, where the daily composites accumulated into a year-long portrait of both an individual and the internet’s visual culture at large. Recognised Faces, 2014

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

Ordinary objects—such as a box of detergent or a web browser—become the basis for fictional universes, playful interfaces, and alternative representations of the data embedded in daily life. Day to Day Data, 2008

Aalborg Is The Future
Aalborg Is The Future See the work →