Kristoffer Ørum
Nothing digital about it. A screen is an object, and objects sit in rooms.
This text is generated. He decided what it generates from.
Some of it only exists as a photograph now.
An artist who makes things up about real places.
Not research. The works were made first and explained afterwards.
Made by hand, mostly. Cut, cast, sanded, painted.
With deepfakes and decentralised information sources, the photograph’s credibility as evidence is under renewed scrutiny. Watershed, 2025
The installation combined the physical presence of the large-scale 3D-printed oyster sculpture with video content projecting the voices and experiences of future oyster-dwellers. Affluence without abundance, 2021
In collaboration with local live role-players, Anders Bojen and Kristoffer Ørum created a fictitious universe whose rules and borders were only fully known to its participants. Game Continent, 2010
Putin's Nose began with an everyday moment: looking into a shopping bag full of groceries and noticing a beetroot that, for a moment, looked like the artist's Russian grandmother's nose. Putin's Nose, 2019
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
These narratives, blending hope and fiction, are both plausible and subtly flawed, exposing their computer-generated origins while opening new ways to reimagine the past and future. Aalborg Is The Future, 2024
Day to Day Data highlights the poetic, speculative, and sometimes humorous dimensions of personal and domestic data. Day to Day Data, 2008
The show aimed to make the realm of coded instructions, programming languages, software protocols, electrical signals and logical operations available to aesthetic experience. Listening Without Ears, 2019
Players are encouraged to question the presumed truth of gravity and their own assumptions, gradually adopting a new perspective through interactive challenges. Disbelieving Gravity, 2013
Recognised Faces unfolded publicly on a dedicated Tumblr, where the daily composites accumulated into a year-long portrait of both an individual and the internet’s visual culture at large. Recognised Faces, 2014
Signal_Crayfish was exhibited at Center for Book Arts from April to June 2021 as part of "Interspecies Futures ," curated by Oscar Salguero. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
Two folders, with texts by medical historian Adam Bencard and by Kristoffer Ørum, printed inkjet and held in 3D-printed R-PETG holders in both buildings. Leddyrsomsorg / Arthropod Care, 2026
Additional elements included a video installation where visitors had Putin's face projected over them, making them momentarily become Putin speaking about Russian male superiority and Western decadence. Putin's Nose, 2019
I sat at a table in a crayfish costume, in front of a screen, and talked while speech recognition transcribed me and projected the transcript behind my head. A Human Pretending To Be An Artist Pretending To Be A Crayfish, 2022
Installation took place aboard Svartlöga ship functioning as gallery space. Ebeltoft After The Flood, 2021
None of us escape this system by pretending we are not part of it. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
Google ads for tessellax.com used keywords like AROS and Sculpture by the Sea. The Ballehage Woman, 2009
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
Recognised Faces is an internet application by Kristoffer Ørum that ran for a year. Recognised Faces, 2014
The work was exhibited alongside Emily Rosamond's work on historical communication systems, from ancient oracles to wartime frequency-hopping technologies. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
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
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 project began with an unusual anecdote: "I look down into the shopping bag at some beetroots. Putins Nose, 2018
On YouTube, the video “Ballehage Woman Sighting” shows the figure moving through Marselisborg Forest. The Ballehage Woman, 2009
It weaves together factual history, fiction, and AI-generated imagery to imagine a meeting between hip-hop’s pursuit of individual freedom and the labor movement’s collective struggle for better conditions. Aalborg Is The Future, 2024
Participants staged live tableaux in pedestrian zones and market areas, allowing encounters with everyday passersby. Mundane Heroics, 2019
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
The monumental buildings are inflated like weightless balloons, melt like butter on a hot pan, and are covered with soft multicoloured hair. Melting State, 2020
Students and staff appear as avatars moving within these systems, creating a portrait of the university as a living, shifting organism. A Body Has Many Members, 2012
The exhibition contributed to ongoing discussions about AI, storytelling, and alternative histories. Mr. Spray, 2024
The exhibition Coming From took place from 23 August to 14 September 2014, with an opening on 22 August. Auto Navigate My History, 2014
Video elements included a deep fake sequence featuring politician Pernille Vermund discussing invasive species. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
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 operated as both a functional listening device and a sculptural intervention, questioning the boundaries between surveillance, documentation, and artistic practice. Listening Without Ears, 2019
Standard interfaces are optimised for speed, reducing engagement to rapid recognition. Watershed, 2025
Over a period of 107 days, Anders Bojen and Kristoffer Ørum had a custom computer program rewrite the history of Roskilde in real time, from the town’s foundation by the Vikings in 980 to its present-day status as a world heritage site. Roskilde Parahistory, 2009
NLHspace was initiated in 2006 by artist Nanna Lysholt Hansen and operated as an "always open / always closed" space. Et Andet Rum 2, 2009
Yet, as critics such as Allan Sekula have argued, photography has never been a transparent medium; it has always been a construction. Watershed, 2025
Signal_Crayfish takes the invasive signal crayfish, which displaces native Danish freshwater species and communicates chemically across distance, and sets it beside human communication technology. Would You Like to Know More, 2017
Affluence without abundance was a video installation featuring a giant 3D-printed oyster that presented a speculative future scenario where the earth is covered by an endless ocean and people live in giant oysters. Affluence without abundance, 2021