Kristoffer Ørum
Some of it only exists as a photograph now.
Not a joke.
Twenty years out of art school, and back in it.
An artist who makes things up about real places.
A portraitist. None of the portraits are of him.
A documentary practice. Every work here has an address and a date.
Diffused States was part of the Data Fluencies exhibition curated by Roopa, on the diverse ways artists engage with, resist, or reimagine data. Diffused States (Boston), 2025
Invigilators tell stories of events that could have transpired, whilst screens display the construction of monuments that never materialised. Monuments of A Fictitious Past, 2024
These precedents inform an imagined shift towards AI systems that are modest in scope, but deeply embedded in the cultures that maintain them. Diffused States (Vancouver), 2025
The work operated as both a functional listening device and a sculptural intervention, questioning the boundaries between surveillance, documentation, and artistic practice. Listening Without Ears, 2019
Hverdagens Helte (Everyday Heroes) consists of a series of interactive sculptures created in collaboration with Vitar Horsens Rollespilslaug (role-playing association). Everyday Heroes, 2019
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
A face judged as both 'neutral' and 'fake' by two different systems at the same time is more than a technical glitch; it's a new kind of image that hints at a possible new understanding of identity. Speaker 1, 2026
This video asks a question that sits at the heart of our digital lives: how do we appear to a machine? Speaker 1, 2026
The selected sites appear to lack history or unique features, yet they contain complex layers of information and hidden connections. Topographies of the Insignificant, 2010
A multidisciplinary team including architects, artists, designers, engineers, musicians and literary theorists collaborated with Bojen and Ørum to jointly create this immersive vision. Radiant Copenhagen, 2009
The installation featured speculative scenarios about living arrangements including large oyster habitations. Ebeltoft After The Flood, 2021
The animation recreates the street outside the former artist-run space, projecting a computer-generated scene onto a screen covering the window. Et Andet Rum 2, 2009
Monuments of a Fictional Past references both the speculative tradition of counterfactual history and the architectural poetics of unrealized futures. Monuments of a Fictional Past (Kraków Edition), 2025
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
Anders Bojen and Kristoffer Ørum focus on Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity and the metaphors and assumptions surrounding it. Disbelieving Gravity, 2013
The work unfolds through short video sequences in which a man slowly unpacks a large box while Olsen’s text is read aloud. KAOS, 2012
The work featured a large, curved canvas onto which the magician's hands were projected. Sucker Trick, 2017
Here I was using the same setup I had been trying to get out of: the darkened room, the rows of chairs facing me, the table, the laptop. A Human Pretending To Be An Artist Pretending To Be A Crayfish, 2022
These objects continuously monitored conversations in the gallery space, converting spoken words into text through automated transcription systems, then physically printing the transcribed text. Listening Without Ears, 2019
In the weeks before, I was waiting for the results of cancer tests. A Human Pretending To Be An Artist Pretending To Be A Crayfish, 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
In Putin's Nose, a pattern recognition program cast a paranoid-critical gaze upon the exhibition's visitors. Putin's Nose, 2019
Participants staged live tableaux in pedestrian zones and market areas, allowing encounters with everyday passersby. Mundane Heroics, 2019
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
Taking its starting point in classical ideas about the end of the world, the exhibition mixed anxiety and faith in the future into a playful soap-opera-like narrative, relocating human fate to mysterious experiments of a distant time. The End of the Universe as We Know It?, 2007
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
Local rumours, past dreams, and forgotten figures merge with the town’s documented history across media: an interactive video installation, posters, sound works, and music. Hvidovre Makes Good Times Better, 2025
Through a visual language that draws on both scientific simulations and computer games, the flows of economy, knowledge and power are animated as dynamic systems. A Body Has Many Members, 2012
The work is presented as a factual lecture, framed through the perspective of a former shipyard worker experiencing Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (AIWS), a neurological disorder that distorts the perception of body size and spatial scale. A Subjective History of Gdańsk, 2011
These hollow approximations of the original fragments are half-remembered memories made tangible. Brownfield Wonderland, 2022
Listening Without Ears consists of 3D printed copies of everyday objects that transcribe what is said in the exhibition space and print it out. Listening Without Ears, 2019
"Sucker Trick" is a collaboration between visual artist Kristoffer Ørum, magician Claus Mulbjerg, and architect Tomas Skovgaard. Sucker Trick, 2017
Exhibited in several international contexts, the piece was shown in The Blender’s Orbit (Kingly Court, London), Time Pop 2 (Prince Charles Cinema, London), and Loop Pool (Raum für Projection, Oberhausen). The Perfect Wave, 2004
Part of Ørum’s ongoing project "Freedom, Equality, and Hip-Hop", the work engages AI technologies (Flux.1, Stable Diffusion 3.5) to construct histories that never were. Aalborg Is The Future, 2024
Auto Navigate My History uses the digital archive of daily browsing as both source and medium. Auto Navigate My History, 2014
The transcription was done by Google's speech recognition, which is better at place names and brand names than at anything I was trying to say. A Human Pretending To Be An Artist Pretending To Be A Crayfish, 2022
Another, the film The City that No Longer Exists (2020), was shown as a projection of a purple oyster narrating a story where humans transform into oyster-like beings after their city on a drained lake is flooded. Djurs Øhav, 2020
The show took place from 2017-08-18 to 2017-12-09, inspired by Herman Melville’s *Bartleby, the Scrivener* and its quiet refusal: “I would prefer not to.” Blind Listening, 2017
Rather than illustrating a lost history, the project manipulates familiar visual tropes and embraces the productive errors of AI. Aarhus'er #1, 2025