The question of water crosses all African cultures—water as the critical factor for a happy life (life-water) or water mastered as a source of malediction (death-water). The aquatic nature of such a civilization appears then as the foundation of shapes and contents of African artistic expression. An analysis of various forms of creation shows that, without a lucid understanding of the power of water in the constitution of Africa's identity, it is impossible to interpret correctly African art from yesterday to tomorrow.

This paper describes an approach to computer-based sculpting concerned with the creation and modification of digital models based on physical abstract sculptures. The authors begin by presenting a survey of current methods for the creation of computer-based sculpted artifacts. They proceed to present some original methods and tools based on the Function Representation of geometric models. They introduce a specialized computer language, called Hyper Fun, that facilitates the modeling of complex objects.