02
Sea Fist
How to Practice Fisting in Waterscapes
Go in front of the sea.
Gradually immerse yourself in the water, until it reaches your pelvis.
Eyes open or closed.
Take a few moments for the body to get used to the water, and relax.
Close the fingers of one hand into a fist.
With the fist parallel to the surface of the water, inhale and lift the elbow to shoulder height.
As you exhale, slowly lower your fist until it’s submerged in the water up to the knuckles, then up to the palm, to the wrist, penetrating the sea until it reaches the elbow.
Pause for a moment, keeping your fist and the forearm immersed in the water. Take a few breaths.
As you inhale, make the reverse movement.
Slowly lift your elbow to pull your fist out of the water. The penetration is slow and gentle.
With the next exhale, repeat the action, this time faster, punching the fist on the surface of the sea until you penetrate the water again to the elbow.
Sea squirts and foam start to occur at the point of contact between the fist and the water.
As you inhale, pull your fist out of the water again. Exhale again, plunging your fist back into the water.
Find the rhythm for the practice with the sea, waves, foam, and squirts.
Relax enjoying the water.
Keeping your breathing regular and deep, repeat the action several times, with ardour and strength or gently, alternating softer thrusts with deeper ones, and slower penetrations with faster ones.
Repeat for a few minutes letting yourself go.
The last penetration of the fist in the water is slow and soft, with a deep inhale, slowly pull your fist out of the water.
As you exhale, release your closed fist and bring your arm back down to your side, waiting a few moments until the water around your body returns to a state of calm.
Wait until no sign of this practice remains on the water surface.
Take a few deep breaths, motionless, looking towards the horizon.
In Sea Fist, the artist performs a minimal eco-sexual practice in the bubbling waters of Vulcano Island: her fist repeatedly penetrates the surface of the sea; it is a hole of water and squirts. From her fist, the shockwave propagation dissipates as a craving onto the water's surface. The underwater fumarola responds with bubbles of sulfurous steam: hot volcanic gases emitted from rocky holes in the seabed, in correspondence with active volcanic activity. The sea surface appears repellent. The act of fisting, compared to the fluid mass, and the release of energy from the volcanic fumarola, is irrelevant. The live performance is about the sensual relations contrasted between the body and sea, queering the elements of heteronormativity/homonormativity that we project on waterscapes, moving towards queer erotic practices.
During the walk to the Sea Fist performance site, the geologist Monia Procesi, a researcher at INGV (National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology) shared with participants the phenomena of fumarole and volcanic underwater gas emissions. (Sea Fist was part of Volcanic Attitude International Festival, Eolian Islands, Italy, 2023, and presented at OPR Gallery, Excess Island, solo show, Milan, 2021)
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- Sea Fist is an interconnection of all the elements Benedetta Panisson has focused on in recent years, both as a Venetian artist and an academic researcher in the UK: the sea as an erotic environment, queer cultures in island spaces, the power of pleasure dynamics. The waterscape in Panisson’s work is a space crossed by affective, erotic, imaginative tensions and in her intimate material productions becomes a pleasure visual support. The transcultural and physical operation that Panisson performs, all-round, makes us participate not only in her own affective islander body and sense of belonging, but also in an analysis of how all gazes - from mainland, sea, island - are constructed by culture, morality, and aesthetic powers. The operation detonates Panisson's productions, exposing biases and ironizing as much about the artist's poetics as the academic seriousness. In Panisson there is optimism, a subtle goliardy and erotic playfulness that make us participate in a form of levity. Even in People Do Water and Excess Island, the experience of the sea is something deeply physical, which is what artistic practice demands—from photographic film to the performing body. Or an excuse to stay immersed in the water, or to make others want to do the same.