Creepy: Blood-Powered Lamp

By Leo Graziani on October 5th, 2009

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What kind of a Luddite needs plain ol’ electricity to run the lighting in their home? Design artist Mike Thompson has come up with a lamp that’s powered by your own blood. Yeah, you read that right. Not convinced? Read it again. I’ll wait.

Are we good?  OK.

Here’s how it works. You’ve got this glass bottle with a solution in the bottom, right? Then you break off the top, dissolve the accompanying tablet in the now-accessible solution of luminol (that crime scene blood detector stuff) beneath, and then cut yourself on the jagged edge of the bottle, and drop your blood into the lamp. The solution and tablet react with the blood to produce a blue fluorescent glow.

The intent behind the blood lamp is that it would force people to think about the energy they use and how much they waste. A noble thought, but really – who in their right mind would buy a lamp like this? Let’s see: here’s your conventional lamp. It uses a light bulb. You plug it in, turn it on, and you’re done. And in this corner, the blood lamp: break it open, throw this tablet in, and cut yourself to get it working. There’s certainly a cool and dangerous element to it, but somehow I think most people are gonna take option #1. Oh, and the blood lamp only works once, so what about the wastefulness there?

I also wonder: How long does it last? Would it keep its consistency and glow if you removed it from the glass? If so, imagine the cool and totally creepy blood-splattered lighting element you could create on Halloween. You could put it next to your personal urn. And what other bodily-fluid-enabled products can we expect next? Spit-powered TVs? A stove that runs on tears? I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

Lastly – didn’t anyone learn from Little Shop of Horrors? Using your blood to power things in the house can only lead to disaster in the form of carnivorous alien plant life. I’ll stick to electricity, thanks.