Kristoffer Ørum
Research. Somebody is going to have to examine it.
Collaborative. Most of it was made with other people.
A portraitist. None of the portraits are of him.
Not local. Boston, Vancouver, Riga, Kraków, Oberhausen, San Francisco.
Nothing digital about it. A screen is an object, and objects sit in rooms.
The machines are collaborators and cannot be credited.
Enigmatic posters appear in public spaces where these structures were never erected, and a website hosts an archive with weekly updates on images and stories. Monuments of A Fictitious Past, 2024
Exhibition documented by photographer Mikkel Kaldal. Ebeltoft After The Flood, 2021
Rather than presenting the institution as a fixed architectural entity, the work represents it as an evolving body defined by the everyday activities, lessons, evaluations, and exchanges taking place within and around it. A Body Has Many Members, 2012
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
This duality exposes both the shortcomings of surveillance technologies and the alternative forms of perception they enact, offering a mechanical way of seeing that highlights aspects of our species that human vision alone might overlook. Recognised Faces, 2014
Anders Bojen and Kristoffer Ørum investigate the hidden systems, routines, and traces that ordinary objects and personal behaviors generate, from domestic habits to browsing histories and household interactions. Day to Day Data, 2008
None of us escape this system by pretending we are not part of it. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
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
Players are encouraged to question the presumed truth of gravity and their own assumptions, gradually adopting a new perspective through interactive challenges. Disbelieving Gravity, 2013
The project is a labyrinthian installation composed of hand-printed cardboard boxes, arranged to create interconnected spaces. In a Dark Room/a Storm in a Coffee Cup, 2004
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
By naming the work after the processor used to create it, Ørum draws attention to the material infrastructure of digital media while simultaneously questioning the boundaries between virtual and physical experience. Coffee Lake, 2019
The project examined the invasive signal crayfish species, cataloguing its chemical communication abilities in comparison to human technologies like Wi-Fi. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
Once generated, these daily phantom faces replaced Ørum’s personal avatar across his website, social networks and other platforms. Recognised Faces, 2014
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
Mundane Heroics is a collaborative project by Kristoffer Ørum and Nilas Dumstrei. Mundane Heroics, 2019
The photographs were found in a cabin after the vessel had spent seven days on the seabed, having been exposed to three atmospheres of pressure and salt water. Depth Estimation, 2019
This approach shares a lineage with experimental practices such as Surrealist automatic writing and collage. Watershed, 2025
Works were deliberately constructed with glitching and raw digital noise to make visible the technological mediation and signal transmission processes. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
The museum basement acted as a “rabbit hole,” filled with props, relics, tables, and charts that grounded the fictitious world. Game Continent, 2010
The fragmented narrative of Coffee Lake takes place in the grey area between computer-simulated 3D graphics and human imagination. Coffee Lake, 2019
The exhibition dealt with invisible communication systems including Wi-Fi networks, radio communications, and chemical signals that operate undetected around us. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
The work examines the autobiography as a cultural phenomenon and the staging of artistic identity, setting up a tension between the impersonal logic of systems and the personal search for self. AutoBiography, 2011
The work departed from the exhibition space but moved as performative action into urban space, with an online component extending the offline event. According to the Nose, 2021
Several video works were part of the exhibition. Djurs Øhav, 2020
The work forms part of De Tabte Runesten, a group exhibition returning nine lost cultural artefacts to Rundetaarn through the visions of contemporary artists. The Good, the Lost, and the Beautiful, 2025
Coffee Lake is a video installation combining computer-generated video with animated text, created for the group exhibition "Machine sans nom" at Bonamatic. Coffee Lake, 2019
The piece functioned within the broader context of examining technological fears and the archetype of the monstrous machine. Signal_Crayfish, 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 exhibition borrows its title from 1960, when the Social Democratic Party campaigned under the slogan “Make Good Times Better”. Hvidovre Makes Good Times Better, 2025
The exhibition gathers artists' books from the handmade to the high-tech, including 3D-printed structures and works that leave the codex behind. Signal_Crayfish, 2026
Leddyrsomsorg / Arthropod Care is a twenty-minute video, one of nine works Ørum showed in FORSTADIER / Precursors — a duo exhibition with Aske Thiberg, curated by Morten K Jacobsen and Heidi Hove. Leddyrsomsorg / Arthropod Care, 2026
As the lecture unfolded, the lecturer (actor Kristian Husted) gradually transformed from a detached academic into a man consumed by his subject. The Pattern In Us All, 2007
The installation ran on a standard computer connected to a screen in the exhibition space. Auto Navigate My History, 2014
The fact that they are made with local AI is important, because it provides a certain independence from the major platforms and makes it possible to work with the technology on my own terms. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
*KAOS* is an interactive iPad app created in collaboration with poet Ursula Andkjær Olsen. KAOS, 2012
By establishing rules and constraints—writing without interruption, juxtaposing unrelated images—the Surrealists sought to bypass rational control and provoke unexpected associations. Watershed, 2025
Instead of showing only what is lost when a human is translated into data, these moments offer a new perspective. Speaker 1, 2026
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
None are permanent, but all leave residues—sonic, material, or narrative. Monuments of a Fictional Past (Kraków Edition), 2025