"Houston resident and French native Émilie Duval invites us to delve into her creative process as she explores how society organizes space and the people living within its boundaries in order to maximize economic productivity and consumerism. In so doing, she examines societal mechanisms that favor algorithmic decision-making in lieu of human judgment. Questioning the effects of algorithms—and the information they process—on people’s lives, Duval delineates a concept of visual arts and creativity that illustrates the arbitrary nature of the division between art, humanities, and sciences. As such, she embodies Rice’s ideal of unconventional wisdom. Duval’s art integrates algorithms, mathematics, Greek philosophy and French social theory, among other influences, to tease out the economics of power in various societal spaces. Her latest work uses Michel Foucault's notion of heterotopias.

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