gonte am vegonte | gonten is ponding

publication and scent, 2020

concept, text, editing, scent—marc norbert hörler
design—lucas kramer

shown in remixing: brunnen, öffentlichkeit und andere geschichten @ auto ex nextex, st. gallen, ch, 23 oct - 15 nov 2020

gonte am vegonte | gonten is ponding consists of a publication and a room scent. the publication is a speculative and poetic meditation on water and the different containers it flows through. it retraces the linguistic alchemy linking words like brewing and burning, thereby also referencing a local healing method in appenzell (ch) called fö hitz ond brand (en. “for heat and fervor”) that echoes the somatic chemistry and transmutational world-making in performances of enchantment. in a scenic description of a future narrative set in the pre-alpine landscapes of appenzell, time and space become malleable entities, the water flowing through those worlds as a carrier bag for stories and knowledges. the text itself is performing the confluence of different streams of thought, stories, languages ultimately that flow together and create different densities and intensities. the scent is a proto-archaeological relic conjuring the title in its evocation of a speculation on the olfactory perception of gonten having become more and more humid. the name of the village gonten resonates with the local swiss german idiom, meaning “pond” or “puddle” and thereby grounding the narrative in the ecological environment of a community that has been living alongside and working with the marshes at its periphery for a long time.

camera: sandro lussmann