Kristoffer Ørum
A portraitist. None of the portraits are of him.
Science fiction, set last week.
A lot of it is waiting for a render to finish.
A sculptor. Jesmonite, foam, clay, 3D-printed plastic.
A record-keeper. The website is the work.
A documentary practice. Every work here has an address and a date.
The piece functioned within the broader context of examining technological fears and the archetype of the monstrous machine. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
The resulting images visualise how computers perceive individuals not as whole people but as patterns within datasets. Recognised Faces, 2014
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
The work takes up how repeated exposure to images of buildings sinking into rubble with glass shards and dust spreading symmetrically creates expectations that the physical world behaves the same way. Melting State, 2020
The performative lecture addresses how we might recover some semblance of agency and hope while living under the gaze of ever more watchful algorithmic systems of control. It Sings for Us of What We Might Become, 2019
The Ballehage Woman was created by Anders Bojen and Kristoffer Ørum for the outdoor sculpture exhibition Sculpture by the Sea, organised by AROS Museum in Aarhus in 2009. The Ballehage Woman, 2009
The project is a labyrinthian installation composed of hand-printed cardboard boxes, arranged to create interconnected spaces. In a Dark Room/a Storm in a Coffee Cup, 2004
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
Affluence without abundance (2021) shown in Nyt Lys, a group exhibition at Sophienholm in Kongens Lyngby, 19 November 2025 to 25 January 2026. Affluence without abundance, 2025
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
The exhibition allowed passersby to experience the animation in the context of the public street, at the junction of site-specific art and urban space. Et Andet Rum 2, 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
The sculptures Sovende bænkebider (Sleeping Woodlouse) in three sizes, the middle one in a wheelchair. Leddyrsomsorg / Arthropod Care, 2026
In the video, Ørum reflects on the human body as data by visually overlaying biometric patterns, abstracted motion, and rhythmic shifts of light and texture. Data Kroppe, 2017
This duality exposes both the shortcomings of surveillance technologies and the alternative forms of perception they enact, offering a mechanical way of seeing that highlights aspects of our species that human vision alone might overlook. Recognised Faces, 2014
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
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
Nyt Lys is lit at dusk and switched off at eight. Affluence without abundance, 2025
The exhibition dealt with invisible communication systems including Wi-Fi networks, radio communications, and chemical signals that operate undetected around us. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
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
The Downloadable Augmented Reality App (available here: https://s.oerum.org/BW) allows one to build one's own messy and unregulated digital architectures, both on and off the building site around Spanien 19C. Brownfield Wonderland, 2022
"Mundane Monsters" brought together three speculative and humorous everyday monsters in an installation at the artist-run exhibition space Bonamatic in Copenhagen. Mundane Monsters, 2023
None are permanent, but all leave residues—sonic, material, or narrative. Monuments of a Fictional Past (Kraków Edition), 2025
In Putin's Nose, a pattern recognition program cast a paranoid-critical gaze upon the exhibition's visitors. Putin's Nose, 2019
Coffee Lake continues Ørum's ongoing investigation of the analog and digital spaces we navigate daily, both physically and mentally. Coffee Lake, 2019
The project's visual materials referenced aesthetics from Djurs Sommerland and airplane safety folders. Djurs Øhav, 2020
The work involved 3D-printing signal crayfish models equipped with electromagnetic sensing components. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
The opening performance on 30 May 2024 was paired with Linnea Langfjord's work on alternative presents focused on care and slowness in the art world. Mr. Spray, 2024
The project imagines a future where columns echoing ancient Greek wooden architecture lose their weight or melt, where gravity is suspended for a moment while art institutions deform and dance in the wind before the air goes out of them. Melting State, 2020
Across media, the fictional creatures were presented with a mixture of pop cultural humour and the kind of scientific authority familiar from public information campaigns. Mundane Monsters, 2023
Aarhus'er #1 doesn't offer a single reading of what was or what could be. Aarhus'er #1, 2025
The same work was shown at Keramoda, Lønstrup, in 2021. Affluence without abundance, 2025
Guests were invited to renegotiate their role — not just as viewers, but as potential participants in a system of storytelling, symbols, and rituals that reframed both the neighbourhood and the museum as shared sites of imagination. Game Continent, 2010
The book was commissioned during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of a group of works that examined interspecies entanglement and human vulnerability. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
Being your own record-keeper means accepting these gaps and changes.
Each is hand-cut XPS foam, worked from a computer-generated sketch. Leddyrsomsorg / Arthropod Care, 2026
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
A "Sucker Trick" is a magic trick where the magician offers false clues to hide what they are actually doing. Sucker Trick, 2017
A third video, A Song for Ming, was a karaoke track by Kristoffer Ærørum with music and performance by Josefine Struckmann. Djurs Øhav, 2020
Fed back into the internet, these phantom portraits acted as a small disturbance within systems of profiling maintained by intelligence agencies, corporations and other data collectors. Recognised Faces, 2014