The creators of Eye Want Change on the terrace at King's. Roar News / Max Barstow
EYE Want Change is the smartphone film competition making waves around England — and its founders are from King’s.Â
The student-run organisation that aims to celebrate ideas, creativity and the positive impact that technology can have on reporting, is in its first year and reclaims the mobile phone as a device capable of social change.
The basis is simple; entries must be 3-10 minutes long and must be shot on a smartphone.
Roar met the founders this week to discuss their exciting project.
We, the selfie generation, tend to favour what EWC call ‘Instagratification’ over using our handheld devices for any meaningful cause.
Upload meaningless photograph of oneself with one’s pals at sickest nightclub in town and wait (im)patiently for the notifications to flurry in.
The competition seeks to explore the capability of our mobile phones on a social level, asking entries to discuss societal issues at some level.
I originally thought the project was a subversive one, but its chieftains explained, modestly, that EWC simply illuminates an already existent potential.
Working against the “narcissism of the selfie”, the competition explores “how the arts can be a vehicle for social change”.
In the wake of LSE-Rugby-gate, which dramatized a rivalry between King’s and LSE, it is particularly exciting to see students from LSE and King’s collaborate on wholly creative grounds.
It is a healthy union, and represents the widespread goal to call upon London’s resources: “London has such an amazing spectrum of young people; interested and interesting people who have such a potential to connect.”
The competition excels in its accessibility. Placing innovation above access to equipment, successful competitors will be those who engage with their subject, rather than those who have the iPhone 6.
At its point of conception, the organisation aimed to reach KCL and LSE students. Since then it has grown to a national and international scale, attracting attention from Turkey, Spain and even Kenya.
You can enter the competition here.
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