Kristoffer Ørum
Science fiction, set last week.
A programmer who picks the wrong algorithm on purpose.
A teacher who keeps a studio in order to have something to teach from.
Some of it only exists as a photograph now.
Not research. The works were made first and explained afterwards.
Made by hand, mostly. Cut, cast, sanded, painted.
This approach shares a lineage with experimental practices such as Surrealist automatic writing and collage. Watershed, 2025
A ghostly city that is no less real than the cities summoned forth in digital renderings by architects and planners to convince us of the future they are proposing. Brownfield Wonderland, 2022
A third video, A Song for Ming, was a karaoke track by Kristoffer Ærørum with music and performance by Josefine Struckmann. Djurs Øhav, 2020
The "Partners" exhibition investigated what happens when artists and associations work together within the context of an art museum. Everyday Heroes, 2019
However, following decades of “misuse”, the area is presently being integrated back into the rest of the city as a productive and commercially viable new part of town called “art city”. Brownfield Wonderland, 2022
The exhibition was curated by museum inspector Pernille Rom Bruun and featured partnerships between artists and associations including nature conservation, bird watching, boxing, gliding, gymnastics, and rabbit breeding groups. Everyday Heroes, 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
This breaks with the idea of a coherent and authentic artistic subject—an illusion that the art market is still deeply dependent on. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
The exhibition was supported by Novo Nordisk Fonden. Affluence without abundance, 2025
The festival invited artists to work across the boundaries between history, urban space, and perception, creating site-specific works and lectures that engaged with the city’s social and architectural context. A Subjective History of Gdańsk, 2011
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
First released in an edition of 10 and sold through the Specta Surplus Store at Galleri Specta, Copenhagen in February 2018. Wireless Walnut, 2018
I am also tired of a “call-out” culture that too easily becomes hostile and makes it difficult to build the broad alliances we need. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
The solo exhibition Djurs Øhav addressed climate change and ecological narratives concerning Kolindsund, a formerly drained lake on Djursland. Djurs Øhav, 2020
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 result is a fleeting, fractured archive of the collective present—an algorithmic shadow of daily events. https://oerum.org/watershed/ Watershed, 2025
The project continued themes from the "Putin's Nose" project, extending nose-based investigations into performative and participatory formats. According to the Nose, 2021
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
Maps are freely available across Aalborg, and the project’s website continues to expand its speculative histories. Aalborg Is The Future, 2024
Kristoffer Ørum’s contribution imagines Malmö as shaped by the afterlives of its industrial past and alternative forms of civic imagination. Even the City Dreams of Being Another, 2025
Rather than recognising faces, it was trained exclusively to see noses or beetroot-like patterns. Putin's Nose, 2019
Shown alongside Honey Biba Beckerlee, Anna Bak, Elina Brotherus and Wang & Söderström, among others. Affluence without abundance, 2025
The project arises from a media environment where trust in both institutions and images is unsettled. Watershed, 2025
The exhibition opened on Friday, November 8th, 2019. Listening Without Ears, 2019
The transcription was done by Google's speech recognition, which is better at place names and brand names than at anything I was trying to say. A Human Pretending To Be An Artist Pretending To Be A Crayfish, 2022
By establishing rules and constraints—writing without interruption, juxtaposing unrelated images—the Surrealists sought to bypass rational control and provoke unexpected associations. Watershed, 2025
The exhibition was the second presentation by OXER and was supported by Statens Kunstfond. Depth Estimation, 2019
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
The work documents their attempts to deconstruct a person into data: to apply a label, assign a tracking ID, map the body's motion onto a skeletal grid, and strip a voice down to plain text. Speaker 1, 2026
Watershed is an online art project about the algorithmic gaze in an era of digital news. Watershed, 2025
The project was documented by Kevin Malcolm and received coverage in Danish art press as part of discussions about digital art and algorithmic perception. Putins Nose, 2018
Works included "When nature looks back at you" (3D print, 2021), "Pearl House" (mixed media, 2020), "Habitation Oyster from Kolidsound" (3D print, 2020), and "WARNING FLOOR FLOODED DURING HIGH TIDE" (hydrographic print on cornstarch, 2021). Ebeltoft After The Flood, 2021
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 fact that they are made with local AI is important, because it provides a certain independence from the major platforms and makes it possible to work with the technology on my own terms. None of These Images Are of Me, 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
It was accompanied by scholarly publication and received coverage in Danish art press. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
The artist-run space Spanien 19c used to be located in a messy and unregulated, but fairly central, part of the increasingly gentrified city of Aarhus. Brownfield Wonderland, 2022
At the same time, abstract projections of colour and computer-generated sound evolve according to the same underlying logic. AutoBiography, 2011
As one deciphers mud from the ground that has been smeared onto the wall in the shape of geometric letterforms, dust from the building site made up of particles that were once buildings enters one's lungs. Brownfield Wonderland, 2022