Auto-destructive art is a term invented by the artist Gustav Metzger in the early 1960s and put into circulation by his article "Machine, Auto-Creative and Auto-Destructive Art" in the summer 1962 issue of the journal Ark. From 1959, he had made work by spraying acid onto sheets of nylon as a protest against nuclear weapons. In his Acid on Nylon Paintings this procedure produced rapidly changing shapes as the nylon disintegrated before being totally consumed by the hydrochloric acid.