Sam Nicoresti @ Banshee Labyrinth
Messy but very absorbing, Sam Nicoresti's new show Cancel Anti Wokeflake Snow Culture feels a little like a cult classic in the making
Both funny and frustrating, Sam Nicoresti’s new show Cancel Anti Wokeflake Snow Culture takes us on an intriguing and sometimes bewildering ride through gender and culture wars. With allusions and symbols that sometimes remain unexplained, there’s an esoteric air to proceedings which largely works well, partly supported by the show's strong visual language (special mention to Michael Julings for the striking poster design).
Determined to solve ‘the gender issue’ in under an hour, Nicoresti plunges into a whistlestop survey of the anti-woke brigade, with a montage of GB News pundits and Piers Morgan haranguing us from the screen. Parodying the frothing animus of such commentators, Nicoresti live-streams on stage, eagerly awaiting the arrival of right-wing favourite Jordan B. Peterson for interview. The live-streaming breaks down into trippy digital visuals spliced with flickers of another persona that might suggest a future transitional or transcendental self. It’s a vision we see more of later in the show, and its dream-like, unabashedly arthouse aesthetic is a beguiling one.
Nicoresti moves easily between the observational and the more surreal: lovely bits on the Dark Web and the fuss about gender-neutral pronouns for example, which start rooted in concrete detail and then spin out into surrealism, showcasing a gift for baroque language play. There’s a larger sense at work of a contrast between the world as it is and the world as it might be, Nicoresti's trans identity making them especially invested in potential and possibility.
There’s also some really thoughtful, heartfelt analysis of the trans experience, as Nicoresti wonders whether the increasing interest in transitioning is linked to wider generational dynamics around transience; with young people less likely to own their own homes, and experiencing precarity as a matter of course.
Messy but very absorbing, and an important antidote to the slickly commercial, Cancel Anti Wokeflake Snow Culture feels a little like a cult classic in the making.
Sam Nicoresti: Cancel Anti Wokeflake Snow Culture, Banshee Labyrinth (Cinema Room), until 28 Aug, 8.55pm, free / pay-what-you-can