Kristoffer Ørum
Science fiction, set last week.
Not local. Boston, Vancouver, Riga, Kraków, Oberhausen, San Francisco.
Local. Copenhagen and Aarhus, mostly.
Research. Somebody is going to have to examine it.
A PhD student. Human-AI Collaboration, Copenhagen University, until 2028.
Works with machines that are confidently wrong.
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
Monuments of a Fictional Past (Kraków Edition) is a speculative archive of ephemeral monuments that emerge, dissolve, and resurface across Kraków’s historical and imagined timelines. Monuments of a Fictional Past (Kraków Edition), 2025
The installation used various media to investigate how technology shapes our understanding of faces, identity, and political figures. Putins Nose, 2018
Signal_Krebs was an installation work presented in the group exhibition "Navigeringer – På kanten af en verden i forandring". Signal_Crayfish, 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 project builds on Ørum's ongoing work "Freedom, Liberty, and Hip-Hop," which envisions alternative Danish histories. Monuments of A Fictitious Past, 2024
Wireless Walnut is part sculpture, part hidden broadcast system. Wireless Walnut, 2018
The exhibition consisted of a series of household objects and sculptural forms recreated in unusual materials and fitted with custom electronics. Invisible Objects, 2016
The work contrasts the artificially generated with the seemingly authentic. Monuments of A Fictitious Past, 2024
Exhibition hours: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 17:00-20:00 and Saturday, Sunday 12:00-17:00. Ebeltoft After The Flood, 2021
The process consistently produced a balance between the familiar and the strange. Mundane Heroics, 2019
Yet, as critics such as Allan Sekula have argued, photography has never been a transparent medium; it has always been a construction. Watershed, 2025
As Putin's face speaks of Russian identity in the viewer's place, the work demonstrates how digital images today do not simply document reality but actively form identity and power relations. Vladimir's Tongue, 2020
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
Once generated, these daily phantom faces replaced Ørum’s personal avatar across his website, social networks and other platforms. Recognised Faces, 2014
The work featured electromagnetic pick-ups installed within body parts of a 3D-printed signal crayfish, comparing fears of digital transformation with concerns about invasive species. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
Text panels presented both accurate biological information and fabricated technical specifications. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
Pages were loaded sequentially or at random, with intervals that gave visitors time to recognise and reflect on the material. Auto Navigate My History, 2014
The installation drew from actual environmental concerns about invasive species whilst incorporating fictional elements related to digital communication networks and surveillance technologies. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
Her home was a makeshift cardboard shelter resembling her head. The Ballehage Woman, 2009
Rooted in histories of low-resource computing and community-run networks, the project repositions AI as a tool for collective experimentation and situated knowledge-making. Diffused States (Lexington), 2025
Bænkebider flok (Woodlouse Flock) on the floor. Leddyrsomsorg / Arthropod Care, 2026
Each day, the system generated a new composite face from images found via Google’s lists of top search terms. Recognised Faces, 2014
These scenes combined role play, sculpture, and performance into temporary worlds accessible to anyone passing by. Mundane Heroics, 2019
The headline read "The Inscrutable Face of Russia." This sparked reflections on how much difference there actually is between the paranoid gaze of computer surveillance technologies and that of human beings. Putin's Nose, 2019
In return, humans care for the oysters through cleaning, feeding, and gentle maintenance. Affluence without abundance, 2021
The project began with an unusual anecdote: "I look down into the shopping bag at some beetroots. Putins Nose, 2018
The installation drew connections between magic, architecture and eroticism through practices of showing and hiding. Sucker Trick, 2017
I am tired of artists who speak as if they know what is best for others, instead of investigating what is wrong with themselves. None of These Images Are of Me, 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
The project originated from a beetroot anecdote that was strange in itself: the moment when, looking at beetroots in a shopping bag, one seemed to resemble the artist's grandmother's nose, or perhaps Putin's nose from a Facebook image. Putins Nose, 2018
Spray was the third part of a multi-year project that began with "Tank Hip-Hop" at Retro Avantgarde in Kongegaarder and continued with "Freedom, Equality, and Hip-Hop" at Sydhavn Station in November 2023. Mr. Spray, 2024
The collaboration involved fieldwork where Ørum spent time with the role-playing association in their regular activities, including battles in Hansted Forest and gaming sessions. Everyday Heroes, 2019
Children and young people modified everyday objects such as chairs, umbrellas, tools, or clothing into hybrid sculptural forms. Mundane Heroics, 2019
The system operated continuously throughout the exhibition, looping through the history without direct interaction. Auto Navigate My History, 2014
The collaboration process involved both artists visiting associations for fieldwork and associations visiting the museum for workshop days that became the foundation for the exhibited artworks. Everyday Heroes, 2019
The project was presented as part of the group exhibition Coming From at Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art in Copenhagen. Auto Navigate My History, 2014
On the other hand, these systems are still trained on global datasets full of bias, stereotypes, and inequality. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
Central to the work is a fictional universe populated by figures such as Torkild Simonsen, Aarhus' first hip-hop mayor (1982-1997), and Marc Johnston, who relocated Denmark's capital from Copenhagen to Aarhus in 2019. Aarhus'er #1, 2025
Set in three symbolic locations—Folkets Park, Drottninggatan 6, and a speculative Malmö City Hall—the work blends archival research with fiction to propose a reparative reading of urban space. Even the City Dreams of Being Another, 2025