School of Music

View the full Music and Change series here.

Trevor McFedries is the founder of the technology startup Brud and the creator of virtual pop star Miquela or "Lil Miquela", a Gen Z icon with millions of fans around the world. Since its inception in Los Angeles in 2017, Brud has raised funds from venture firms Sequoia Capital, Spark Capital, and SV Angel amongst others. Previously he was an early employee at Spotify and a recording artist and producer that played festivals like Coachella and Lollapalooza.

Aria Dean (b. 1993) is an artist and writer based in New York City. Recent solo and group exhibitions and performances include: Made in LA, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2020); Greene Naftali, New York (2020); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge (2020); Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo (2019); Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond (2019); Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (2019); Centre d’Art Contemporaine Genève, Geneva (2019); The MAC, Belfast (2019); Tai Kwun, Hong Kong (2019); Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2018); Swiss Institute, New York (2018); and de Young Museum, San Francisco (2017). Her writing has appeared in publications including Artforum, Art in America, e-flux, The New Inquiry, X-TRA Contemporary Art Quarterly, Spike Quarterly, Kaleidoscope Magazine, Texte zur Kunst, and CURA Magazine.