Kristoffer Ørum
A programmer who picks the wrong algorithm on purpose.
The machines are collaborators and cannot be credited.
The website keeps itself up to date. He does not.
This text is generated. He decided what it generates from.
Most of it was built on other people's work.
Made by hand, mostly. Cut, cast, sanded, painted.
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
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
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
Aarhus'er #1 doesn't offer a single reading of what was or what could be. Aarhus'er #1, 2025
The work proposes a less apocalyptic demise where representative buildings don't explode and crash into computer-generated rubble, but instead lose their weight, melt, or are covered with colourful hair. Melting State, 2020
As a user zooms in on a fragment, its pixel structure reveals itself, breaking the illusion of seamlessness. Watershed, 2025
The solo exhibition Djurs Øhav addressed climate change and ecological narratives concerning Kolindsund, a formerly drained lake on Djursland. Djurs Øhav, 2020
The question it starts from is what kinds of monuments we need today. Monuments of a Fictional Past (Kraków Edition), 2025
Maps are freely available across Aalborg, and the project’s website continues to expand its speculative histories. Aalborg Is The Future, 2024
Roskilde Parahistory was part of the group exhibition Kurs at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde in 2009. Roskilde Parahistory, 2009
Staged as a series of narrative “figures,” the project invents and documents civic architectures that never existed—but perhaps could have. Monuments of a Fictional Past (Kraków Edition), 2025
The contrast is not presented as a solution but as a tool of critique—making the invisible conventions of ordinary web interfaces visible by inverting them. Watershed, 2025
Everyday objects were recognisable yet altered. Mundane Heroics, 2019
Two texts were airbrushed directly onto the wall using beetroot juice for the group exhibition *Qua Aqua* at Koldinggade 12 in Copenhagen. Qua Aqua (Beetroot Texts), 2017
The familiar backdrop of urban life became part of the work, framing the reimagined objects and frozen scenes within the flow of daily routines. Mundane Heroics, 2019
The installation combined digital and physical media to create humorous and inventive takes on contemporary environmental and technological themes. Mundane Monsters, 2022
Components included routers, antennas, and cables arranged alongside the biological forms. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
These moments reflect our own unstable, contradictory digital selves. Speaker 1, 2026
Working with AI models trained on biased data, the project asks how such systems can still be repurposed to imagine collective and collaborative futures. Diffused States (Boston), 2025
Visitors could connect their phones to new networks appearing in the gallery space and receive fragments of text and video. Invisible Objects, 2016
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
The exhibition included sangtekster written with algorithms, erosion models, 3D prints, and architectural models. Ebeltoft After The Flood, 2021
And we interpret everything through cultural repertoires of symbols and social cues. Watershed, 2025
The fragmented narrative of Coffee Lake takes place in the grey area between computer-simulated 3D graphics and human imagination. Coffee Lake, 2019
The work presented a speculative interface for interacting with locally trained language models on recycled consumer hardware, quietly resisting the scale and speed of mainstream AI deployments. Diffused States (Boston), 2025
It is based on the belief that there is no inevitability to the current process of gentrification, it is simply one choice taken out of a million other possible ways we could develop our cities. Brownfield Wonderland, 2022
An urban planning term for any previously developed land that is not currently in use. Brownfield Wonderland, 2022
By working with models that reflect the biases and gaps of their training data, DIFFUSED STATES treats these systems not as definitive or universal but as provisional, adaptable, and open to reinterpretation. Diffused States (Lexington), 2025
Participants borrowed nose-shaped masks equipped with audio guides from Lokale, taking them on walks through the Nørrebro area around Griffenfeldsgade 27. According to the Nose, 2021
Together, the elements formed a series of overlapping linguistic and visual displacements. Putin's Nose, 2019
Participants staged live tableaux in pedestrian zones and market areas, allowing encounters with everyday passersby. Mundane Heroics, 2019
Diffused States was presented as part of *Data Fluencies: Tributaries*, curated by Roopa Vasudevan, which brought together artists working on the ways data can be resisted, rerouted, or reimagined outside dominant narratives. Diffused States (Vancouver), 2025
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
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
Algorithms originally trained for advertising are repurposed to remix the town’s architecture and stories into new visions of community and possibility. Hvidovre Makes Good Times Better, 2025
I also do it because I, as a white, established, middle-aged male artist, embody many of the privileges and blind spots that shape both the world and the art world. None of These Images Are of Me, 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
The resulting images visualise how computers perceive individuals not as whole people but as patterns within datasets. Recognised Faces, 2014
Disbelieving Gravity is an interactive online game created for the Net.Specific exhibition Communication Paths. Disbelieving Gravity, 2013