Vollebak's Sonic Jacket, a wearable sound field with 180 inward-facing speakers, claims to shift the wearer's cognitive and physiological state through sound. The jacket, crafted with FBFX, the special effects studio behind films including Dune and Project Hail Mary, delivers frequencies from 4 Hz to 20,000 Hz that are felt rather than heard.
Design and Inspiration
Nick Tidball, co-founder of Vollebak, was inspired by three things: past civilisations' obsession with sonic frequencies; sonic warfare and its potential for good; and his cat purring at the bone-healing frequency of 90 Hz. The jacket is the first of its kind, designed to provide portable, personalised sound therapy.
According to Tidball, the effects of the jacket are instantaneous and can be turned off immediately, unlike drugs. He stated, "What's funny is the instantaneity of it. Let's say if someone were to take mushrooms or MDMA, it's going to take a while to kick in and you can't turn it off, whereas with this you can immediately turn it off or take it off."
Potential Therapeutic Benefits
Tidball believes the jacket could have vast therapeutic benefits and unlock new scientific discoveries about consciousness. He said, "I think probably the biggest unlock we're going to experience over the next 10 years is how we understand consciousness. I'm pretty certain everything has a consciousness — the tree, the rock, the atom — it's just we can't interact with it. I think this technology might unlock different parts of your consciousness and allow you to access them. It might allow you to access flow state, for example, in like two minutes."
User Experience
When trying on the jacket, the initial reaction for an anxiety-prone claustrophobe was panic, but once the alarm subsided, the feeling was astounding. The wearer becomes cocooned in sound, losing concept of time and space. Certain frequencies feel great, while others feel instinctively wrong, and this differs from person to person.
The jacket is currently available for interested artists, creators, musicians, athletes, and the scientific community to explore its effects.
