Kristoffer Ørum
Local. Copenhagen and Aarhus, mostly.
An artist who makes things up about real places.
Not local. Boston, Vancouver, Riga, Kraków, Oberhausen, San Francisco.
A lot of it is waiting for a render to finish.
The machines are collaborators and cannot be credited.
A portraitist. None of the portraits are of him.
Jensen; Ida Marie Hede Bertelsen; Peter Rasmussen; Kasper Hesselbjerg; David Rex; Ulrik Nørgaard; Daphne Bidstrup; Andreas Pallisgaard; and Kristin Haarløv. Radiant Copenhagen, 2009
Game Continent transformed The Aarhus Art Building and its surrounding neighbourhood into a living game world. Game Continent, 2010
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 piece functioned within the broader context of examining technological fears and the archetype of the monstrous machine. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
These objects were then animated through role play and staged as collective tableaux, blurring the line between workshop and public presentation. Mundane Heroics, 2019
The work involved creating AI-generated posters and videos that depicted an alternative Danish history where the labour movement and 1990s hip-hop culture merged. Frihed, Lighed Og Hip-Hop, 2023
It was accompanied by scholarly publication and received coverage in Danish art press. Signal_Crayfish, 2020
The video can be described as a combination of Half-Life 2, Hitchcock's *Vertigo*, and Bridget Riley, rendered in a computer-game-like animation of a man watching a screen. Once We All Walk through Solid Objects, 2007
Each contribution provided insight into the often hidden or indirect references shaping contemporary art. Auto Navigate My History, 2014
The second ten minutes show a baby sleeping, curled peacefully against a blue woodlouse. Leddyrsomsorg / Arthropod Care, 2026
Two texts were airbrushed directly onto the wall using beetroot juice for the group exhibition *Qua Aqua* at Koldinggade 12 in Copenhagen. Qua Aqua (Beetroot Texts), 2017
The installation was produced specifically for Interdimensionale II at Gammelgaard (September 2020) using three 4K video players (Raspberry Pi 4), three IIYAMA B2888UHSU screens, and video rendering services from foxrenderfarm.com. Melting State, 2020
These scenes combined role play, sculpture, and performance into temporary worlds accessible to anyone passing by. Mundane Heroics, 2019
The project was presented as part of the Alternativa 2011–2012 festival, a contemporary art festival in Gdańsk that focused on experimental and interdisciplinary approaches to art and culture. A Subjective History of Gdańsk, 2011
Signal_Krebs was an installation work presented in the group exhibition "Navigeringer – På kanten af en verden i forandring". Signal_Crayfish, 2020
Players learn a new language through twelve game-based exercises, each designed to deliberately reinterpret established ideas and challenge conventional understanding. Disbelieving Gravity, 2013
For me, these are not just errors, but moments of strange beauty and surplus meaning. Speaker 1, 2026
The faces produced through this process often appear distorted or uncanny to human eyes, yet they retain a resemblance to mainstream ideals of beauty. Recognised Faces, 2014
Some elements are only revealed through exploration, others remain invisible, and a hidden part of the project can be discovered by persistent visitors. Topographies of the Insignificant, 2010
Running small, open systems on one’s own hardware provides a degree of autonomy and technological self-determination. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
Figures gather for shared meals, sweep longhouse floors, inscribe runes like graffiti, perform stylised rituals, or take part in dance battles and DJ sets using flat stones. The Good, the Lost, and the Beautiful, 2025
The game turns on how the concept of gravity is embedded in language, metaphors, and everyday actions. Disbelieving Gravity, 2013
These images, generated through AI, deliberately embrace glitches and impossibilities to question how historical narratives are constructed and repeated. Aarhus'er #1, 2025
Each day, the system generated a new composite face from images found via Google’s lists of top search terms. Recognised Faces, 2014
The Video was Presented as part of Illumenarts, the work took the form of a thriller-like visual sequence in which digital structures spread and evolve. Once We All Walk through Solid Objects, 2007
Created in 2019, the work was exhibited by Radar Contemporary as an online piece. Vladimir's Tongue, 2020
The title reflects several forms of diffusion: the algorithmic process of generating images; the grassroots spread of ideas and tools; and the physical scattering of devices across different environments. Diffused States (Lexington), 2025
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
Depth Estimation is a 3D printed sculpture made from corn starch with inkjet transfer, based on algorithmic depth estimation of a photograph. Depth Estimation, 2019
The project served as the conceptual foundation for later work on how artificial intelligence could be used to create alternative historical narratives about Danish society. Tank Hip-Hop, 2022
Putin's Nose was a multi-year project that sought to turn surveillance systems' simplified identity categories and tools against themselves. Putin's Nose, 2019
The exhibition was accompanied by the website Mundanemonsters.oerum.org and a series of interventions in the local urban space. Mundane Monsters, 2023
The publication set out the species' survival capabilities and cross-distance chemical communication systems, positioning the crayfish as superior to human technological networks in this comparison. Signal_Crayfish, 2021
We are shaped by the grammar of the frame, where composition and colour psychology direct our gaze and mood. Watershed, 2025
The series also exists as gallery installations, an artist's book and 3D prints; this is its web form. Would You Like to Know More, 2017
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
In Helsinki, at the ANTI Contemporary Art Festival the project unfolded in the streets and open squares of the city centre. Mundane Heroics, 2019
Each figure is both a memory and a proposition—an echo of what might have been, and a sketch of what still could be. Monuments of a Fictional Past (Kraków Edition), 2025
This is a subjective and living archive - it grows and shifts as time passes and the world changes.
The title refers to multiple senses of “diffusion”: the technical process of image generation; the social circulation of tools and knowledge; and the physical dispersal of small-scale devices across different environments. Diffused States (Vancouver), 2025