Squamata headset dances with the Music

Inspired by body language of animals (in particular squamates and porcupines), designer Jop Japenga created a headphone with an adaptive skin that responds to the music played on them – resembling a bird performing a mating dance.

The concept of his headphone was to make an public depiction of one’s frame of mind rather than a set of headphones that just reacted to the hits of every song. Inner atmosphere is communicated through a skin of reflective scales. Japenga used memory metal, an Arduino controller and custom electronic to create a working prototype with kinetic scales on the band that wave with either energetic or subtle force in accordance with the genre of music.

The headset was created last year as part of the Next Nature lab.