Blood Lamp

This Blood Lamp doesn’t look that bloody, but the way you turn it on can be considered gruesome. It only works once, and you need to add of a drop of your blood to activate it! The idea is to stop and think about how badly you need light before you use it. Designer Mike Thompson created the lamp in order to draw attention to how much energy we waste.

Blood Lamp
2009

What if power came at a cost to the individual?

The average American consumes 3383kwh of energy per year. That’s equivalent to leaving the light on in 4 rooms for a whole year. The simple flick of a switch allows us to power appliances and gadgets 24/7 without a thought to where it comes from and the cost to the environment.

For the lamp to work one breaks the top off, dissolves the powder, and uses their own blood to power a simple light. By creating a lamp that can only be used once, the user must consider when light is needed the most, forcing them to rethink how wasteful they are with energy, and how precious it is.