Perception of Relationship between Art and Science in Contemporary African Arts and Technology

Introduction

The development and popularizing perception regarding the relationship between art and science, most of which, include educational, cultural and technological dimensions, over the years, a similar dialogue has developed within the context of these two school of thought or the two cultures (art and science) that they co-exist in an autonomous manner and cooperate on equal terms to achieve special goals. In the history of science as well as arts, there emerge elements of a formal or informal dialogue between the two fields.

The visage between art and science with regard to the theory of perception in art are many and varied these are divided into three faculty. (1) Perception is scientific in art which can be interpreted as the faculty of power acquiring immediately and fundamental knowledge through senses. This is often called sense perception. (2) It is the process of acquiring knowledge of scientific origin and process of observation in art and critical analysis in science. (3) It is a mental production obtained from the two fields of thought. As a result it is a complex term that allows us to understand the relevance of science and arts in representational forms. All forms of representation in arts have syntactical structure which is also present in science. The term “syntax” comes from Latin ‘syntaxes’ which, means to arrange, for example forms of perception used in painting or drawing and sculpture which requires art, science and technology principles, but when harmonized together they reveal the basic urges and aspiration of mankind, for man had learnt to use stone tools to meet his domestic and social needs in Africa, before these can be possible some elementary form of science and art had been put in place. There is no doubt that a lot of science and arts advancement had taken from the prehistoric time to the present day even, nations, weather developed or developing have got their own science and art suitable to their own environment. While some nations, have reached an advanced stage of development. Others, especially the developing ones, are gradually assimilating the culture of modern science and arts.

Art and science are related phenomenon, not only in their nature and the mutual influence, they are at times seen to exert on each other but they are also involved in each other and do share common phenomena. According to Ekeada (1990), creativity is a phenomenon of art as well as science. The notion of structure, that are related to the concept of order and forms are the features of science which have the potentials of bringing into being utterly new and surprising experiences out of most common place ideas. Art and Science do change man’s reality in one way or the other. Science may change man physical reality, while art changes man’s perceptual reality which, conditions his physical reality. The outer physical reality of man’s where the creativity of science seems to excel is not misrelated to the inner world of man, the domain of the creativity of art and the sources of all creative acts.

In African society, art and science are viewed as oil and water that cannot mix, and also symbolically precarious that they tend to stand at the opposite note with one another; at the same form they are seen as one that depends on one another to excel. The question that arises is whether these two fields have something in common which makes them depend on each other. In answer to this, there are two schools of thought, Shlain (1991), claims that there are epistemological similarities between art and the science, another strong similarity is acknowledge as existing between art and science. Also emphasize is on the aesthetic perfection of science, the elegance and beauty of science (Miller, 1996).