Chronotopic ruptures: (Dis)assembling Ljubljana’s Avtonomna Tovarna Rog

This paper addresses the question of how the spatiotemporal processes of urban assemblages can be understood in the context of a controversial urban squat. We mobilise concepts of time and temporality and employ the notion of the chronotope as a methodological frame to rethink the politics of change in urban contexts. Our multi-temporal, chronotopic analysis centres on Avtonomna Tovarna Rog , a squat in Ljubljana (Slovenia) that was forcibly demolished in January 2021. The paper highlights contingencies, tensions, contradictions, and potentialities of Rog by foregrounding four ‘volves’, or turns, that capture the elasticity yet cohesiveness which characterise assemblage. Through this, we contend that changes in/to chronotopes can approach lines of flight that fundamentally alter their composition when a temporality prevails – a transformation we term ‘chronotopic ruptures’. We substantiate this claim by showcasing the theoretical relationship between chronotopic ruptures, multiple times and temporalities, and assemblages.