Ambio bioluminescent lamp by Teresa van Dongen is "a new way to create light" from Dezeen on Vimeo.

Lamp powered by bioluminescent bacteria. via dezeen

Dezeen and MINI Frontiers: Dutch designer Teresa van Dongen explains how she created a lamp powered by bioluminescent bacteria usually found on octopuses, in this movie filmed in Eindhoven.

an Dongen’s Ambio lamp, which was her graduation project at Design Academy Eindhoven, consists of a glass tube filled with bioluminescent bacteria in a saltwater solution.

“Ambio is a lamp that works with bioluminescent bacteria that are usually found on the skin of an octopus,” says van Dongen in the movie, which was filmed at the Sense Nonsense exhibition at the Van Abbemuseum during Dutch Design Week.

“We isolate the bacteria, grow it and place it in an artificial seawater medium with the right nutrients and food.”

The lamp is suspended with the glass tube at one end and a counterbalancing weight at the other. When it is gently rocked the liquid in the tube is mixed with oxygen, causing the bacteria to glow.

“You might know the phenomenon of these bacteria from the sea,” van Dongen says. “Whenever a wave turns, oxygen is mixed with the waves and these bacteria react to oxygen.”

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