Kristoffer Ørum
Works with machines that are confidently wrong.
Not local. Boston, Vancouver, Riga, Kraków, Oberhausen, San Francisco.
Nothing digital about it. A screen is an object, and objects sit in rooms.
Made by hand, mostly. Cut, cast, sanded, painted.
Science fiction, set last week.
A PhD student. Human-AI Collaboration, Copenhagen University, until 2028.
The images are unstable and shifting, conjuring a welfare system built on an uneasy combination of nature and technology that is neither utopian nor dystopian but simply strange and somehow plausible. Leddyrsomsorg / Arthropod Care, 2026
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
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
Admitting this is not, in Andrea Fraser’s spirit, a defeat, but a strategy: I would rather acknowledge my own narcissism and greed and use them as material, than pretend I stand outside. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
This invisibility operates on several levels. Watershed, 2025
A Body Has Many Members is a large-scale public commission by Anders Bojen & Kristoffer Ørum for the University College Capital (UCC) Campus Nordsjælland, produced with support from the Danish Agency for Culture. A Body Has Many Members, 2012
The project invited citizens to have their pets gently scanned to contribute to a composite digital monster that would inhabit the area around Borchs Gård in Kolding city centre. The Kolding Creature, 2021
The project used the signal crayfish as a figure for examining digital surveillance and mapping of human movement through wireless networks. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
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
Recognised Faces is an internet application by Kristoffer Ørum that ran for a year. Recognised Faces, 2014
Another, the film The City that No Longer Exists (2020), was shown as a projection of a purple oyster narrating a story where humans transform into oyster-like beings after their city on a drained lake is flooded. Djurs Øhav, 2020
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 exhibition continued this approach, combining speculation with a documentary style to produce objects that felt like remnants of possible futures. The End of the Universe as We Know It?, 2007
The work consists of more than 30 screens distributed throughout the campus, each showing a real-time visualisation of the institution’s invisible infrastructures. A Body Has Many Members, 2012
For the exhibition opening, Vitar Horsens Rollespilslaug performed an InCrowd game at the art museum, bringing their practice directly into the gallery space. Everyday Heroes, 2019
It presented a dystopian scenario where computer-generated body fragments and singing microwave ovens suggested a post-human future. The End of the Universe as We Know It?, 2007
Exhibition hours: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 17:00-20:00 and Saturday, Sunday 12:00-17:00. Ebeltoft After The Flood, 2021
Auto Navigate My History is a software-based installation that replays the artist’s own browser history from the past year. Auto Navigate My History, 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
Custom software automated the browsing process by reading from the recorded history file and simulating user clicks. Auto Navigate My History, 2014
Each contribution provided insight into the often hidden or indirect references shaping contemporary art. Auto Navigate My History, 2014
It is not pure resistance, but rather an example of how critique and complicity inevitably coincide. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
Each monument is situated in a specific district or moment in Kraków’s layered history, blending archival poetics with infrastructural speculation. Monuments of a Fictional Past (Kraków Edition), 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 project began with an unusual anecdote: "I look down into the shopping bag at some beetroots. Putins Nose, 2018
The installation combined digital and physical media to create humorous and inventive takes on contemporary environmental and technological themes. Mundane Monsters, 2022
Brownfield Wonderland is a multi-platform art project at Spanien 19C in Aarhus, Denmark. Brownfield Wonderland, 2022
Topographies of the Insignificant is a web-based project from 2010 presenting a series of micro-topological maps of ultra-local spaces in five European cities: Berlin, Bratislava, Luxembourg, Rome and Vienna. Topographies of the Insignificant, 2010
In Copenhagen, at Live Art for Kids the project took shape in courtyards, playgrounds, and cultural centres. Mundane Heroics, 2019
Each scanning session lasted approximately 30 minutes and included conversations between pet owners and the artist about their animals. The Kolding Creature, 2021
Text panels presented both accurate biological information and fabricated technical specifications. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
Inside the exhibition space at Sydhavn Station (housed in a former DSB kiosk), the walls were painted with abstract graffiti and AI-generated videos showed various demonstrations and concerts related to this fictional history. Frihed, Lighed Og Hip-Hop, 2023
Historical facts, such as names of kings or weather reports, were interwoven with stories of the Rosicrucian Order, royal lizards, and extraterrestrials landing on the outskirts of town. Roskilde Parahistory, 2009
Instead of being representations in a conventional sense, they functioned as productions of effects, transforming the exhibition space into an operational field based on concepts such as energy, velocity, and transformation. Coffee Lake, 2019
Wireless Walnut is part sculpture, part hidden broadcast system. Wireless Walnut, 2018
The project draws on the history of low-resource and locally maintained computing, from community-run bulletin board systems to peer-to-peer networks sustained by recycled hardware. Diffused States (Vancouver), 2025
As a result, it is now defunct and can no longer be accessed in its original form. Topographies of the Insignificant, 2010
A face judged as both 'neutral' and 'fake' by two different systems at the same time is more than a technical glitch; it's a new kind of image that hints at a possible new understanding of identity. Speaker 1, 2026
Google ads for tessellax.com used keywords like AROS and Sculpture by the Sea. The Ballehage Woman, 2009
Signal Crayfish was presented as part of "Monstrous Machines," an exhibition on why new technologies provoke fear and how this impacts our perception of technology. Signal_Crayfish, 2021