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No Blood for Lamps!

Patrick James
By Patrick JamesSep 24, 2009
Patrick James
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When it comes to energy consumption, we often operate on autopilot, taking for granted things like electric lighting-which would have been considered a miracle in an earlier era. We generally forget that even the energy it takes to power a single light bulb has to come from somewhere.In order to confront that disconnect, the artist Mike Thompson has created a clever concept: the Blood Lamp, which is powered by actual human blood. In order to operate the single-use lamp, one simply breaks the glass at the top of the stem, drops the accompanying tablet into the glass, uses the newly broken glass to cut his or her finger, and lets a spot of blood to flow into the lamp. His or her blood then powers the light."By creating a lamp that can only be used once," Thomson writes on his site, "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."Via Inhabitat.
mike thompson

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