Space Drawing 5 was created at tower Kronpriz in Kaliningrad, Russia, the construction site for the city’s new contemporary art centre. It is part of the artist’s Space Drawing series of videos. Dramatic and compelling, this video captures the journey mapped by a line of rope across a space. Pulled taut, the rope springs into life once released, snapping, ricocheting, bouncing off brick walls, slithering along dusty floors, flying across rooms, and creating a hollow percussion as it weaves in and out between scaffolding and pillars. With high energy and drama, it defines the space it travels through, drawing our attention to the details of the derelict construction site where the artwork was made. The Space Drawing series is a witty reinterpretation of the function of a line (that is, to divide, subtract, and define a space) and the age-old art form of drawing, by extending the conventional two-dimensional practice of drawing (putting lines on paper or onto some other surface) into a three-dimensional spatial intervention, documented not on canvas but on video. Space Drawing 5 is drawing, video, performance, and a kind of spatial sculpting, all in one, and like much of Sai’s work, illustrates the artist’s playful approach to conventional categories and forms of art, and his willingness to go beyond these to explore new possibilities that emerge when they combine.Space Drawing 5 has been presented at several exhibitions and video art festivals internationally, including the Singapore Art exhibition 2009, the International Festival for Arts and Media Yokohama 2009, the Salon Video Art Prize 2010, London, and the Busan International Short Film Festival. This work has also received a number of awards, including: “Best of WRO”, 14th Media Art Biennale WRO 2011 - Alternative Now, Wrocław, Poland; “Best film of FAFF2010”, Fundada Artists’ Film Festival, Wakefield, United Kingdom; and Winner of International Competition, “Tower Kronprinz: Second Advent”, National Centre for Contemporary Art, Kaliningrad, Russia.
