Kristoffer Ørum
Most of it was built on other people's work.
Twenty years out of art school, and back in it.
A teacher who keeps a studio in order to have something to teach from.
A documentary practice. Every work here has an address and a date.
An artist who makes things up about real places.
Not research. The works were made first and explained afterwards.
About this website This is one of many possible records of Kristoffer Ørum's work, but it's never going to be complete.
How might civic memory be shaped not by permanence and power, but by shared breath, transient gatherings, and structures built to dissolve? Monuments of a Fictional Past (Kraków Edition), 2025
The second ten minutes show a baby sleeping, curled peacefully against a blue woodlouse. Leddyrsomsorg / Arthropod Care, 2026
"Perpetual Interpreter" featured works by Kristoffer Akselbo (DK), Andreja Andric (RS/DK), Joana Chicau (PT/NL), Rosemary Lee (US/DK), Winnie Soon (HK/DK), Anders Visti + Tobias Stenberg (DK), and Kristoffer Ørum (DK). Listening Without Ears, 2019
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
A model of a Cosmic Carrot ray invented by the fictional Dr. Cosmic Carrot, 2005
The game turns on how the concept of gravity is embedded in language, metaphors, and everyday actions. Disbelieving Gravity, 2013
A collective of ten artists, led by Anders Bojen and Kristoffer Ørum, documented these spaces and transformed them into an interconnected web of associations, facts, myths and misunderstandings. Topographies of the Insignificant, 2010
There is a creative pleasure in this surrender of control: in letting a system run and being surprised by the strange, poetic, or nonsensical landscapes that result. Watershed, 2025
The project was mentioned in reviews for its role in public debates on landscape restoration and climate adaptation. Djurs Øhav, 2020
On the contrary, humour often arises in breaks with the expected, in encounters with the unknown, bringing fear and laughter close together. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
The first part of the project was held at Galleri Image in Aarhus in 2017. Putin's Nose, 2019
This does not mean that vulnerability is shared equally—some bodies are more exposed than others—but that we might begin in a recognised mess rather than in ideals of purity. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
The project asks what meaning remains in news images once they are stripped of context, headlines, and captions, reduced to fragments of colour and form. Watershed, 2025
The faces produced through this process often appear distorted or uncanny to human eyes, yet they retain a resemblance to mainstream ideals of beauty. Recognised Faces, 2014
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
Rather than illustrating a lost history, the project manipulates familiar visual tropes and embraces the productive errors of AI. Aarhus'er #1, 2025
As a user zooms in on a fragment, its pixel structure reveals itself, breaking the illusion of seamlessness. Watershed, 2025
Some pieces he remembers to add, others he forgets.
We are guided by digital defaults, where smartphone cameras enhance, correct, or beautify before we even see the result. Watershed, 2025
Especially simulations of destruction are so widespread and credible that one quickly forgets what the original physical phenomena looked like. Melting State, 2020
The exhibition took place in various locations throughout the ship, including the forecastle, aft cabin, engine room, and deck. Depth Estimation, 2019
In Helsinki, at the ANTI Contemporary Art Festival the project unfolded in the streets and open squares of the city centre. Mundane Heroics, 2019
Brownfield Wonderland is a multi-platform art project at Spanien 19C in Aarhus, Denmark. Brownfield Wonderland, 2022
Diffused States imagines a counterfactual technological history in which graffiti and phone phreaking converged through the discovery that modified spray paint could interact with electromagnetic infrastructure. Diffused States (Boston), 2025
I make portraits because I would like to avoid them, but I know they are part of the game on which I depend. None of These Images Are of Me, 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
The electromagnetic pick-ups were integrated into the crayfish body parts, creating hybrid biological-technological entities that could detect and respond to electromagnetic fields in the environment. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
Maps are freely available across Aalborg, and the project’s website continues to expand its speculative histories. Aalborg Is The Future, 2024
The publication set out the species' survival capabilities and cross-distance chemical communication systems, positioning the crayfish as superior to human technological networks in this comparison. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
The work was presented at NLH Space in Copenhagen, which was run by The Organisation – Association for Artistic and Curatorial Platforms. Et Andet Rum 2, 2009
The exhibition was supported by Novo Nordisk Fonden. Affluence without abundance, 2025
The project questioned human privilege by highlighting the sophisticated communication systems of non-human species that operate beyond human perception. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
Text panels presented both accurate biological information and fabricated technical specifications. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
Each map focuses on a section of pavement filled with overlooked details such as cigarette butts, coffee spills, chewing gum and small weeds. Topographies of the Insignificant, 2010
Yet it is also a paradox: even though AI produces many versions of me, they all point back to a recognisable “I.” This double movement—dissolution and reinforcement—is part of what interests me. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
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
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
In the work, a series of news broadcasts are presented by a talking carrot. Search for Carrot ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, 2006
The exhibition was part of SixtyEight Art Institute's two-year programme "Modes and Notes on the Local". Signal_Crayfish, 2020