Kristoffer Ørum
Not local. Boston, Vancouver, Riga, Kraków, Oberhausen, San Francisco.
An artist who makes things up about real places.
Mostly it is admin.
Not research. The works were made first and explained afterwards.
Most of it was built on other people's work.
A record-keeper. The website is the work.
The project treats everyday objects and routines as sites of discovery and narrative potential, turning personal and mundane experience into shared, speculative material. Day to Day Data, 2008
Each day, Watershed collects images from international news websites and subjects them to a watershed segmentation algorithm. Watershed, 2025
It questions the implications of surveillance, the accumulation of digital traces, and the way ordinary routines are recorded and interpreted. Day to Day Data, 2008
Geometric shapes emerge from the boxes, forming a complex sculptural environment. In a Dark Room/a Storm in a Coffee Cup, 2004
The Pattern In Us All (2007) was a lecture performance created by Anders Bojen & Kristoffer Ørum at the University of Copenhagen. The Pattern In Us All, 2007
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
Rather than proposing a return to older models, Watershed treats this uncertainty as an opportunity: a chance to experiment with new arrangements of familiar material, to test how different structures shape perception. Watershed, 2025
Philosopher Donna Haraway has called this illusion a “god trick”: a view from nowhere that claims to see everything. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
The project began the process of using advanced imaging technology and AI as fabulation techniques to create speculative scenarios where the labour movement and hip-hop culture intersected. Tank Hip-Hop, 2022
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
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
Created in 2019, the work was exhibited by Radar Contemporary as an online piece. Vladimir's Tongue, 2020
When I use myself as material, my body and my image become a site for institutional self-critique—where paradoxically critique and complicity overlap. None of These Images Are of Me, 2025
Erikson’s model of personality development, a voice-over chronicles formative experiences in their lives. AutoBiography, 2011
At the Edge II is supported by Kulturrådet, Malmö stad, Region Skåne, and Statens Kunstfond. Even the City Dreams of Being Another, 2025
About this website This is one of many possible records of Kristoffer Ørum's work, but it's never going to be complete.
Curated by Kevin Malcolm (Vermilion Sands), the show brings together works by Jamila Drott, Maxime Hourani, Maia Torp Neergaard, and Kristoffer Ørum. Even the City Dreams of Being Another, 2025
Recognized for its experimental approach, Data Kroppe is cataloged in the Danish public digital archive Vores Kunst, which preserves commissioned television art. Data Kroppe, 2017
At that time, Denmark experienced economic growth and falling unemployment, and society was marked by optimism and collective visions of a better future — hopes that are harder to find today. Hvidovre Makes Good Times Better, 2025
The work departed from the exhibition space but moved as performative action into urban space, with an online component extending the offline event. According to the Nose, 2021
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 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
Spray was a counterfactual exhibition that used AI to tell the story of a fictional relationship between the labour movement and hip-hop culture. Mr. Spray, 2024
Being your own record-keeper means accepting these gaps and changes.
The taste of the titanium pigment which is also used as a whitening agent in milk and sugar. Qua Aqua (Beetroot Texts), 2017
Bænkebider betragtere (Woodlouse Observers), the title of the ones placed around the hospital. Leddyrsomsorg / Arthropod Care, 2026
The wireless transmissions and video projections created an atmosphere where technology and nature intersected in unexpected ways. Mundane Monsters, 2022
Custom software automated the browsing process by reading from the recorded history file and simulating user clicks. Auto Navigate My History, 2014
"Sucker Trick" is a collaboration between visual artist Kristoffer Ørum, magician Claus Mulbjerg, and architect Tomas Skovgaard. Sucker Trick, 2017
The work takes up how computer technology mediates our relationship to the physical world, creating hybrid zones where digital simulation and material reality intersect. Coffee Lake, 2019
Signal_Crayfish takes the invasive signal crayfish, which displaces native Danish freshwater species and communicates chemically across distance, and sets it beside human communication technology. Would You Like to Know More, 2017
The project continued themes from the "Putin's Nose" project, extending nose-based investigations into performative and participatory formats. According to the Nose, 2021
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
Each email contained a unique, computer-generated text announcing fictional construction projects — ranging from the plausible to the fantastic. City Planning, 2010
None are permanent, but all leave residues—sonic, material, or narrative. Monuments of a Fictional Past (Kraków Edition), 2025
By working with models that reflect the biases and gaps of their training data, DIFFUSED STATES treats these systems not as definitive or universal but as provisional, adaptable, and open to reinterpretation. Diffused States (Lexington), 2025
The aesthetic of this space is deliberately glitchy and non-photorealistic. Watershed, 2025
The project asks what meaning remains in news images once they are stripped of context, headlines, and captions, reduced to fragments of colour and form. Watershed, 2025
The project extended across the museum basement, a nearby grocery store, and surrounding public lawns. Game Continent, 2010
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