Kristoffer Ørum
Made by hand, mostly. Cut, cast, sanded, painted.
Twenty years out of art school, and back in it.
This text is generated. He decided what it generates from.
Collaborative. Most of it was made with other people.
Nothing digital about it. A screen is an object, and objects sit in rooms.
A programmer who picks the wrong algorithm on purpose.
The project reflected on the transformation of the district: once a mixed working-class and industrial area, now rapidly becoming an upscale residential neighbourhood. City Planning, 2010
The project was presented as part of the group exhibition Coming From at Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art in Copenhagen. Auto Navigate My History, 2014
The work involved creating AI-generated posters and videos that depicted an alternative Danish history where the labour movement and 1990s hip-hop culture merged. Frihed, Lighed Og Hip-Hop, 2023
The project also responds critically to the historical metaphors of the human body as a model for political and social order. A Body Has Many Members, 2012
A protestor’s sign, a celebrity’s face, a patch of sky, or a piece of rubble—all are treated as equivalent grayscale image data to be segmented and archived. Watershed, 2025
The work featured a large, curved canvas onto which the magician's hands were projected. Sucker Trick, 2017
The monumental buildings are inflated like weightless balloons, melt like butter on a hot pan, and are covered with soft multicoloured hair. Melting State, 2020
Depth Estimation is a 3D printed sculpture made from corn starch with inkjet transfer, based on algorithmic depth estimation of a photograph. Depth Estimation, 2019
Once generated, these daily phantom faces replaced Ørum’s personal avatar across his website, social networks and other platforms. Recognised Faces, 2014
Original photographs were by Henrik Grønborg, with exhibition photography by Billedmageren. Depth Estimation, 2019
The animated scene acts as a virtual doubling of both the street in front and the interior space behind the window. Et Andet Rum 2, 2009
The mud text is a site-specific text that has been made from the place where it has been written, even as it attempts to reimagine and remember this very place. Brownfield Wonderland, 2022
One was an animated video about life inside an oyster. Djurs Øhav, 2020
The project involved citizen participation in creating the final artwork, with local residents contributing both their pets' physical forms and personal stories. The Kolding Creature, 2021
My focus, however, lands on the moments of breakdown and confusion where this logic fails. Speaker 1, 2026
The work featured 3D-printed signal crayfish models, USB-connected gadgets, and digital manipulations. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
The familiar rhythm of news consumption—fast, frictionless, designed for scanning—is replaced by movement through a spatial terrain. Watershed, 2025
Some pieces he remembers to add, others he forgets.
The collaboration involved fieldwork where Ørum spent time with the role-playing association in their regular activities, including battles in Hansted Forest and gaming sessions. Everyday Heroes, 2019
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
The installation featured speculative scenarios about living arrangements including large oyster habitations. Ebeltoft After The Flood, 2021
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
Each of the 26 participating artists presented a single work, and the audience was permitted to view each piece for exactly one minute. Where the walls weep sugar, 2025
Each email contained a unique, computer-generated text announcing fictional construction projects — ranging from the plausible to the fantastic. City Planning, 2010
The exhibition featured works from 26 artists, including paintings, sculptures, photos, and video pieces The exhibition's core concept was uniquely time-based and site-specific. Where the walls weep sugar, 2025
The project's visual materials referenced aesthetics from Djurs Sommerland and airplane safety folders. Djurs Øhav, 2020
The two spaces integrate into each other, creating a continuous fluid motion where the boundary of the window is removed. Et Andet Rum 2, 2009
Amorphous forms in PU foam were combined with media players hidden inside. Invisible Objects, 2016
The work asks how we can imagine a future after the welfare state, now that it seems to be definitively being dismantled. Melting State, 2020
By working with AI models trained on biased and incomplete datasets, DIFFUSED STATES engages with both their limitations and their possibilities. Diffused States (Vancouver), 2025
While gentrification night favour one imagined future out of all the others that could have come about, the ongoing struggle of whose imaginaries will be realised, and whose will be kept as potential or unrealistic futures, remains. Brownfield Wonderland, 2022
The opening performance on 30 May 2024 was paired with Linnea Langfjord's work on alternative presents focused on care and slowness in the art world. Mr. Spray, 2024
However, following decades of “misuse”, the area is presently being integrated back into the rest of the city as a productive and commercially viable new part of town called “art city”. Brownfield Wonderland, 2022
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
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 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
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
"Mundane Monsters" brought together three speculative and humorous everyday monsters in an installation at the artist-run exhibition space Bonamatic in Copenhagen. Mundane Monsters, 2023
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
Affluence without abundance (2021) shown in Nyt Lys, a group exhibition at Sophienholm in Kongens Lyngby, 19 November 2025 to 25 January 2026. Affluence without abundance, 2025