Blood debt
A designer based in Eindhoven has come up with a (literally) blood curdling way to get people thinking about energy consumption: what if light came at a physical cost to the individual?
For Mike Thompson’s ‘Blood Lamp’ to work, the user has to break off the top, and then dissolve their own blood into it. Clearly a fan of CSI, Mike uses Luminol, a chemical traditionally used in forensics that exhibits a tell-tale chemiluminescence when it reacts with the iron found in blood.
Thompson came up with the design – which he thankfully describes as a ‘debate piece’ rather than a practicable solution to the energy crisis – while studying for his IM Masters course at the Design Academy Eindhoven in 2009. But the piece will be showing again this October in an exhibition at the Boijman’s Museum in Rotterdam.
Mike assures us that the exhibition will show a video rather than invite people to donate their own blood.