Joyspace by Adam Rolston. Pacific, 112 pp., $35.
Fear not, for you live in the best of all possible worlds, aesthetically speaking. I’m sure this will come as a relief to some of you; to others, it will induce surprise, disbelief, even, in my case, confusion. (This? This is our brave new world?) Such claims and provocations form the core of Joyspace, architect Adam Rolston’s new manifesto, which aims to recalibrate our understanding of how power and culture flow in architectural and design economies revolutionized by digital technologies. Invoking the wisdom of the demos, he declares that we have finally broken free of the old tyrannies of consumption, the grizzled powerbrokers and patricians, and stand on the cusp of personal liberation.
I’ll have what he’s having. Joyspace never pretends to be impartial, measured, or restrained. In its structure and its style, the book vibrates at a feverish pitch of maximalism. Indeed, drawing from his background as an AIDS activist in ACT UP, Rolston describes it in the preface as a work in “manifesto dr…