a r c h i p e l a g o is presenting I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, a publication resulting from the exhibition of the same name held in Palermo, Italy, in 2018. The book combines the show’s many type of contents, from the bibliography that serves for the research to the playlist that constituted a soundtrack for the opening, reconfiguring them into a performative document. The show explored the notion of ‘affects’ in the digital era and their place in contemporary communication. Observing the extensive use of affective signs triggers questions on the negotiations at stake between emotions and the digital space. Are affects - love, care, intimacy - becoming motifs, leitmotivs without content? How do we really relate to each other in the digital space? What is the relationship between technologies, capitalism and love? Why are tactility and materiality such pivotal themes at this particular time? I Never Promised You a Rose Garden explored these ideas in an open manner, mixing and creating echoes between different levels of contents in the space, from artworks to contemporary and classical books, essays to novels, music on vinyl to music on the Internet, artists on Instagram to artists’ books. The present publication mirrors these many layers of contents and intertwines them in order to unveil unsuspected connections.