Kristoffer Ørum
An artist who makes things up about real places.
Twenty years out of art school, and back in it.
Local. Copenhagen and Aarhus, mostly.
Made by hand, mostly. Cut, cast, sanded, painted.
Some of it only exists as a photograph now.
A documentary practice. Every work here has an address and a date.
The work mixed factual information about signal crayfish with invented characteristics, including claims that the species can grow to 1.8 metres and possess wireless communication abilities. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
Central to the work is a fictional universe populated by figures such as Torkild Simonsen, Aarhus' first hip-hop mayor (1982-1997), and Marc Johnston, who relocated Denmark's capital from Copenhagen to Aarhus in 2019. Aarhus'er #1, 2025
The work was reviewed in The Brooklyn Rail and included in a panel discussion about interspecies publications created during the pandemic. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
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
Data Kroppe is a video artwork by Kristoffer Ørum, commissioned and broadcast by Danish national television (DR) and featured on DR Kulturklubben. Data Kroppe, 2017
The work takes up how repeated exposure to images of buildings sinking into rubble with glass shards and dust spreading symmetrically creates expectations that the physical world behaves the same way. Melting State, 2020
The project's visual materials referenced aesthetics from Djurs Sommerland and airplane safety folders. Djurs Øhav, 2020
This video asks a question that sits at the heart of our digital lives: how do we appear to a machine? Speaker 1, 2026
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
As a user zooms in on a fragment, its pixel structure reveals itself, breaking the illusion of seamlessness. Watershed, 2025
Wireless Walnut is part sculpture, part hidden broadcast system. Wireless Walnut, 2018
Simultaneously with the physical performances, stories of The Ballehage Woman were disseminated across media including a website, YouTube video, Google ads, newspaper articles, and emails. The Ballehage Woman, 2009
It was curated by Nanna Lysholt-Hansen and supported by Vesterbro Lokaludvalg. Et Andet Rum 2, 2009
All 3D-printed in R-PETG and painted with urethane. Leddyrsomsorg / Arthropod Care, 2026
The project dismantles these logics and scrambles their effects. Watershed, 2025
Each piece suggested both familiarity and a shift in function, as common domestic items appeared in new materials, configurations, and with networked capabilities. Invisible Objects, 2016
Its on-screen lyrics tell the factual story of a 507-year-old clam killed during the scientific process of determining its age. Djurs Øhav, 2020
The work featured a large, curved canvas onto which the magician's hands were projected. Sucker Trick, 2017
Watershed is an online art project about the algorithmic gaze in an era of digital news. Watershed, 2025
Hydrographic prints on cornstarch included text "NO pearls or seaweed in the toilets!!! they are getting clogged" (2021). Ebeltoft After The Flood, 2021
Exhibition documented by photographer Mikkel Kaldal. Ebeltoft After The Flood, 2021
On YouTube, the video “Ballehage Woman Sighting” shows the figure moving through Marselisborg Forest. The Ballehage Woman, 2009
On the other hand, these systems are still trained on global datasets full of bias, stereotypes, and inequality. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
It employs a computational process to dismantle and reassemble the daily flow of news images into a navigable world built from their fragments. Watershed, 2025
The project examined the invasive signal crayfish species currently displacing native Danish freshwater crayfish. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
Artists were invited through an open call to create works in dialogue with the water-damaged photographs. Depth Estimation, 2019
Signal_Crayfish was commissioned as a book work for "Interspecies Futures ," the first survey of bookworks by international practitioners from bio-art and speculative design fields. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
I believe a stronger foundation for community lies in a shared recognition of vulnerability. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
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 work involved 3D-printing signal crayfish models equipped with electromagnetic sensing components. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
The hardware is produced through resource-intensive processes, and even the “local” is entangled in a global infrastructure. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
The work was documented through performance protocols and connected to broader research into facial recognition, identity, and technological surveillance through embodied experience in public space. According to the Nose, 2021
By engaging with the game, players experience how facts and assumed truths can be challenged, restructured and rearranged in playful and experimental ways. Disbelieving Gravity, 2013
Some of the objects broadcasted content directly through custom-built wireless networks. Invisible Objects, 2016
The project builds on Ørum's ongoing work "Freedom, Liberty, and Hip-Hop," which envisions alternative Danish histories. Monuments of A Fictitious Past, 2024
We are used to our own sight, shaped by memory and emotion, and to the camera's lens, with its illusion of objectivity. Speaker 1, 2026
Some elements are only revealed through exploration, others remain invisible, and a hidden part of the project can be discovered by persistent visitors. Topographies of the Insignificant, 2010
Hverdagens Helte (Everyday Heroes) consists of a series of interactive sculptures created in collaboration with Vitar Horsens Rollespilslaug (role-playing association). Everyday Heroes, 2019
Opening reception held Thursday 4 November at 16:00. Ebeltoft After The Flood, 2021
The exhibition opened on Friday, November 8th, 2019. Listening Without Ears, 2019