The 101 Plays Itself is a new project from a Southern California creator that converts cars on California interstates into a calming musical soundscape.
The 101 Plays Itself maps traffic to sound
About a decade ago, Jay Judah worked on the 10th floor of a building overlooking Interstate 405 in Los Angeles. Watching the flow of cars, trucks, and motorcycles in their lanes, he thought the movement resembled a music video game. He described the traffic from that vantage as a river or a screensaver, and began imagining what it would sound like if a virtual play bar passed through the scene.
Ten years later, Judah unveiled The 101 Plays Itself, a system that takes live traffic camera feeds of U.S. 101, five lanes wide, and produces music-like output.
According to Judah, a computer vision program detects each vehicle and assigns it a note. The lane determines pitch. Speed controls note duration. The vehicle type sets the octave. The experience is free online, and users can choose which instruments the system plays.
Judah’s preferred setup blends a theremin, a harp, a sub-bass frequency, and a handpan steel drum. He also favors the period just after rush hour, when there are still many vehicles but traffic is not tightly compressed, which he says produces a more varied and listenable pattern.
Judah said he is unsure what comes next for the project. For now, he is satisfied that pattern recognition allows people to perceive art in unexpected places, including freeway traffic.