Selvdestruktiv kunst var især en reaktion på bevidtheden om atombomben, samt de destruktive tendenser der sås i teknologien. I ''Auto-Destructive Art Machine Art Auto-Creative Art'', fra 1961, skriver Gustav Metzger:
{{citat2|Auto creative art is art of change, growth movement. Auto-destructive art and auto creative art aim at the integration of art with the advances of science and technology. The immediate objective is the creation, with the aid of computers, of works of art whose movements are programmed and include "self-regulation". The spectator, by means of electronic devices can have a direct bearing on the action of these works. Auto-destructive art is an attack on capitalist values and the drive to nuclear annihilation.}}
Kunst