入場無料
アーティストやクリエイターとのコラボレーションによって生まれた「ArtScience Encounters」は、アートサイエンス・ミュージアムの独特な建築の中に隠された驚きと発見の空間へと誘うプログラムです。
Explore the Maps
In accompaniment to Sounding Lines, a series of maps presented in the Oculus traces the transformations in the seabed across time. Viewed together, these maps reveal the North Sea and Singapore’s seabed as a living landscape shaped by the intersections between ecological life, human presence, and industrial activity.
Image Credit: A map from The Piscatorial Atlas of the North Sea, English and St George’s Channels, by O.T. Olsen, F.L.S, F.R.G.S. (Grimsby/London, 1883; map 2).
North Sea Seabed
Representation of the North Sea floor in the second half of the 19th century.
Ole Theodor Olsen collected comprehensive statistical information on the North Sea by creating a standardised form for ships’ logs, and distributing it to fishermen all over the UK.
Oyster reefs once covered large areas of the North Sea seabed, creating habitats that supported rich marine ecosystems. During the 19th century, new dredging and transportation technologies intensified oyster harvesting. In the early 19th century, shellfish reefs covered around 30% of the seabed; today, less than 1% remains. This map captures a period when industrialisation transformed both marine ecosystems and the ways people worked with the sea.
Image Credit: Map based on data of the NSEC SG2 Timelines Database (North Sea Energy Corporation 2025), the EMODnet Offshore windfarm database (2024), and the OSPAR Offshore Renewables database (2023).
Offshore Wind Farms (Present & Future)
Representation of currently operational offshore windfarms (OWF), the ones under construction, the OWF already authorised; sites for future planning or tendering, and areas designated as development zones for OWF, or currently being explored as such.
In 2023, nine European countries set a collective ambition to expand offshore wind capacity across the North Sea to at least 300 gigawatts by 2050. The same seabed that once sustained extensive oyster reefs will increasingly support infrastructure that harnesses wind to generate renewable energy, marking another chapter in its transformation into an increasingly human space.
At some offshore wind farm sites, early experiments are exploring whether artificial oyster reefs can create habitats around turbine foundations. This map invites us to consider what might be gained or lost as we reshape the seabed, and how energy production, marine life and environmental restoration might be balanced.
Image Credit: David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford University Libraries. Adapted from Via Eastern: The Eastern and Associated Telegraph Companies' Cable System. Cropped from original with legend by ArtScience Museum.
Subsea Cable Systems (Past)
Representation of Singapore’s telegraphic cable network and wireless stations in the first half of the 20th century.
Singapore's first subsea cables were telegraphic lines carrying coded messages across great distances. The laying of cables linking Singapore to Madras in the late 19th century marked the beginning of its emergence as a regional communications hub.
Like the North Sea explored in Sounding Lines, the seabed around Singapore bears traces of changing relationships between people, technology and the marine environment. This map captures a moment when new communication networks began extending across the sea floor, connecting Singapore to a growing web of global exchange. Beneath the water's surface, the seabed was already becoming a place where natural and human histories intersected.
Image Credit: TeleGeography. Adapted from Submarine Cable Map 2026. Cropped from original with legend by ArtScience Museum.
Subsea Cable Systems (Present and Future)
Representation of currently operational submarine cable systems, submarine cable systems under construction alongside their respective planned ready-for-service year, and cable landing sites in Singapore.
From offshore wind farms in the North Sea to submarine cables in the Singapore Strait, the seabed is becoming an increasingly human space. Replacing the telegraph cables of the 19th century, today’s fibre optic networks carry vast flows of data and communications across continents.
Singapore plans to strengthen its position as an international communications hub, with capacity for submarine cable landings to double over the next decade. As these networks expand further into marine environments, this map invites us to consider our growing dependence on the seabed, and how technological needs might be balanced with the ecological life already present there.