Publications
The Annular Patent
As a collection, the Annuli are formally patent-pending within the United States. You can read the application as published by the USPTO here.
The process began organically, from the question of how to protect a new invention. Research on the subject quickly became a true fascination for Brandon, as he realized that a patent is a kind of riddle: can you thread a needle, describing the innovation narrowly enough to satisfy the requirement of novelty, but afterward weave a blanket wide enough to cover a vast domain of inventions? This question was intriguing enough to warrant nearly 2 years of study, writing, and editing of Brandon’s provisional application, in a necessary hermitic solitude.
Attempting to answer this riddle was instrumental in distilling the Annulus down from their physical representations into its simplest concept, as well as expanding the vision of the Annuli to include designs not yet thought of, including Paul’s Annulus for the planet Arrakis and a Freman sky.
The next steps in the patenting process will come after it is picked up by an examiner as the USPTO, who will likely issue objections, followed by a series of negotiations until they are satisfied with the claims. At this point, the Annular patent will be granted, and the Annuli will be officially Patented! Though the regular capitalist function of a patent allows gives the right to prevent others from producing or selling the invention within the US, this is not my goal. My intention in patenting the Annulus has been to use the language of the legal system to prove its utility and uniqueness.
Annular Theory & Praxis
The Annulus has been additionally published as an artwork within the academic journal “Metamodern Theory & Praxis”, through Williams College. You can view the piece here.
Metamodernism is a cultural paradigm emerging now, after Postmodernism has run its course. Its insatiable skepticism and deconstruction no longer edgy or thrilling, it left a hole in the human society and psyche, which metamodernism seeks to fill. MM artifacts do so via many methods, but an oft-cited tactic is “oscillation”, inviting the user to toggle back and forth between naïveté and knowing, play and seriousness, irony and honesty.
The Annulus represents a purely Metamodern artifact. It is at once a toy, a sculpture, a scientific instrument, an educational model, a vehicle for myth generation, and a mandala for contemplation. It demands oscillation from the user in its physical design, where the Annulus must be assembled, disassembled, flipped, and reassembled before interpretation can take place, but also encourages oscillation within the user’s mind as this process takes place.
Publishing in an academic journal was a big step for the Annulus. Though not a peer-reviewed paper, this piece of Praxis is the first iteration of the Annular idea presented for an audience steeped in philosophy, granting exposure in a new sphere of thought. The next goal is to write a full paper for the Theory section of this paper that will be peer reviewed, and more thoroughly make the case that the Annulus represents a new class of “Solved Object”.