Kristoffer Ørum
Digital art.
A teacher who keeps a studio in order to have something to teach from.
Comedy.
A programmer who picks the wrong algorithm on purpose.
Nothing digital about it. A screen is an object, and objects sit in rooms.
Not research. The works were made first and explained afterwards.
Mundane Heroics is a collaborative project by Kristoffer Ørum and Nilas Dumstrei. Mundane Heroics, 2019
The project draws inspiration from the largely forgotten history of ternary computing—an alternative to binary systems that operates on three states: true, false, and unknown. Diffused States (Boston), 2025
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
The audience received a hand-out titled The Pattern in Us All: Exposing the Substructures of the World attributed to Kristian Husted. The Pattern In Us All, 2007
Rather than proposing a return to older models, Watershed treats this uncertainty as an opportunity: a chance to experiment with new arrangements of familiar material, to test how different structures shape perception. Watershed, 2025
The game turns on how the concept of gravity is embedded in language, metaphors, and everyday actions. Disbelieving Gravity, 2013
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
The city of Aarhus serves as both source and subject, remixed through the lens of local imagination and global street culture. Aarhus'er #1, 2025
Retired factory workers repurpose their technical knowledge to build speakers and maintain audio infrastructure, passing skills across generations. Even the City Dreams of Being Another, 2025
The project began with an unusual anecdote: "I look down into the shopping bag at some beetroots. Putins Nose, 2018
The work utilises the props and techniques of an academic presentation in a playful and open-ended manner, examining present-day culture of classification and the potential of letting go of control. It Sings for Us of What We Might Become, 2019
Text panels presented both accurate biological information and fabricated technical specifications. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
Ander Bojen & Kristoffer Ørum’s contribution combined personal narrative, historical research, and speculative urban theory to question how collective experience and perception shape the city. A Subjective History of Gdańsk, 2011
Game Continent transformed The Aarhus Art Building and its surrounding neighbourhood into a living game world. Game Continent, 2010
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
Instead of treating these models as definitive or universal, the project approaches them as partial and provisional—open to reinterpretation, modification, and play. Diffused States (Vancouver), 2025
The project was documented in the publication "Radar Contemporary: Extensions vol I II III" by Dr. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
Over the past year, I have created a series of self-portraits using locally run AI. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
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
The signs Prognose eller kaos (Prognosis or Chaos) and a second Leddyrsomsorg in the gallery. Leddyrsomsorg / Arthropod Care, 2026
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
And we interpret everything through cultural repertoires of symbols and social cues. Watershed, 2025
The exhibition took as its subject the sources of inspiration behind artistic practice, inviting 35 Danish artists to contribute an object, material, or work that revealed part of their process. Auto Navigate My History, 2014
The work featured voices of people who inhabit these oysters, taking in post-work society, symbiotic relationships and alternative models of abundance. Affluence without abundance, 2021
During the exhibition a collaboration with Anders Bojen, a printer continuously produced emails describing fictional events taking place on Amager. City Planning, 2010
Through these monstrous and bizarre creatures, the work addressed our relationship to more familiar creatures and digital systems that we share the modern technological world with. Mundane Monsters, 2023
The project has been discussed in Vice and elsewhere as a reflection on surveillance, aesthetics and identity in the age of algorithmic vision. Recognised Faces, 2014
Day to Day Data highlights the poetic, speculative, and sometimes humorous dimensions of personal and domestic data. Day to Day Data, 2008
Original photographs were by Henrik Grønborg, with exhibition photography by Billedmageren. Depth Estimation, 2019
The title refers to multiple senses of “diffusion”: the technical process of image generation; the social circulation of tools and knowledge; and the physical dispersal of small-scale devices across different environments. Diffused States (Vancouver), 2025
The art world overflows with images of beautiful, smart, and confident artists. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
By reinserting them into the same online environments where facial recognition is used for surveillance, marketing and classification, the project subtly disrupted how automated systems construct a digital identity. Recognised Faces, 2014
The visuals evoke a digital anatomy—an intersection of physical presence and quantifiable information, and of a body sensed, represented and transformed in media systems. Data Kroppe, 2017
It considers what AI might look like if it evolved through neighbourhood initiatives, recycled consumer hardware, and community-specific datasets, moving at the pace of shared maintenance rather than commercial urgency. Diffused States (Lexington), 2025
The work examines the autobiography as a cultural phenomenon and the staging of artistic identity, setting up a tension between the impersonal logic of systems and the personal search for self. AutoBiography, 2011
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
As a result, it is now defunct and can no longer be accessed in its original form. Topographies of the Insignificant, 2010
Recognised Faces is an internet application by Kristoffer Ørum that ran for a year. Recognised Faces, 2014
DIFFUSED STATES imagines an alternative trajectory for artificial intelligence—one in which computational systems develop through local, small-scale infrastructures rather than centralised corporate platforms. Diffused States (Lexington), 2025
Like collage, the work is not about arriving at a definitive meaning but about generating provisional configurations that open new ways of seeing. Watershed, 2025