Kristoffer Ørum
An artist who makes things up about real places.
Mostly it is admin.
A documentary practice. Every work here has an address and a date.
A PhD student. Human-AI Collaboration, Copenhagen University, until 2028.
Collaborative. Most of it was made with other people.
Twenty years out of art school, and back in it.
The 3D printed objects served as camouflaged recording devices, appearing as innocuous everyday items while performing the technical operation of speech-to-text conversion. Listening Without Ears, 2019
The pieces incorporated Wi-Fi network names printed on crayfish bodies, casting the invasive species as a digital hybrid creature living within communication networks. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
The works form part of Ørum’s ongoing series Även staden drömmer om att vara en annan ("Even the city dreams of being another"), offering glimpses of civic and technological alternatives rooted in joy, memory, and shared invention. Even the City Dreams of Being Another, 2025
Despite this, they were largely abandoned in favour of commercially driven binary architectures. Diffused States (Boston), 2025
The project encompasses three galleries featuring a 15-metre legal graffiti wall, a giant record player, DIY furniture, lo-fi mixtapes, deepfakes and look-alikes, speculative snapshots, and video fragments from another world. Aarhus'er #1, 2025
The site opens on the series title and a single line — "Would you like to know more?" — set in pale green with a cartoon crayfish at the edge of the frame. Would You Like to Know More, 2017
The exhibition was curated by Ida Schyum as the third presentation in Radar Contemporary's Extensions series. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
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 postcards extend this blending of eras, presenting scenes where identity, memory, and cultural imagination converge and transform. The Good, the Lost, and the Beautiful, 2025
Signal_Crayfish (2021), the book work, shown in Futurity Library: Disobedient Artists' Books in the Postbook Age at the San Francisco Center for the Book, 25 April to 26 July 2026, curated by bex ya yolk. Signal_Crayfish, 2026
Ørum's contribution used algorithmic depth estimation to analyse one of the recovered photographs and generate a three-dimensional interpretation. Depth Estimation, 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
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
Bænkebider flok (Woodlouse Flock) on the floor. Leddyrsomsorg / Arthropod Care, 2026
Today, images are filtered, analysed, and manipulated by systems we rarely notice or understand. Watershed, 2025
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 work opens itself to failure, loss of control and improvisation, embodying these conditions rather than merely describing them. It Sings for Us of What We Might Become, 2019
The resulting work consists of around 600 interlinked texts, images and videos. Topographies of the Insignificant, 2010
It positions deliberate misunderstanding as a productive alternative to seamless digital communication and reliable interpretation systems. Feathered Misconceptions, 2018
Shown with Colette Fu, Diagonal Press / Tauba Auerbach, Kate Conlon, Myungah Hyon, Neta Bomani, Noam Youngrak Son, Sonnenzimmer / Nick Butcher, Nadine Nakanishi, Rujuta Rao, Stephanie Simek and THUNGRY / bex ya yolk. Signal_Crayfish, 2026
Or the massive folk festival held in Fælledparken the day graffiti was legalised? Frihed, Lighed Og Hip-Hop, 2023
All images were generated using Flux.1 diffusion models from Black Forest, on a used computer powered by green-certified Nordic solar, wind, and hydro energy. Hvidovre Makes Good Times Better, 2025
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 work also examines how digital interaction can transform learning. Disbelieving Gravity, 2013
The aesthetic of this space is deliberately glitchy and non-photorealistic. Watershed, 2025
Original photographs were by Henrik Grønborg, with exhibition photography by Billedmageren. Depth Estimation, 2019
The project examined the invasive signal crayfish species currently displacing native Danish freshwater crayfish. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
Soap Particles (2005) is a 3D animation work exhibited in two venues: as part of a solo show at Q, Copenhagen (20–29 May 2005) and in the group exhibition Critical Mass at Skulpturens Hus, Stockholm (3 May 2005). Soap Particles, 2005
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
The project treats everyday objects and routines as sites of discovery and narrative potential, turning personal and mundane experience into shared, speculative material. Day to Day Data, 2008
Works were deliberately constructed with glitching and raw digital noise to make visible the technological mediation and signal transmission processes. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
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
By establishing rules and constraints—writing without interruption, juxtaposing unrelated images—the Surrealists sought to bypass rational control and provoke unexpected associations. Watershed, 2025
It was accompanied by scholarly publication and received coverage in Danish art press. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
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
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
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 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
Instead of showing only what is lost when a human is translated into data, these moments offer a new perspective. Speaker 1, 2026
The fragmented narrative of Coffee Lake takes place in the grey area between computer-simulated 3D graphics and human imagination. Coffee Lake, 2019