The work, which is based on the active participation of the viewer, belongs to the artist’s series of One Minute Sculptures. A spectator who does not shy away from public appearance must, according to the drawing on the table, lie on his stomach on top of the table, so that, while spreading his arms and holding the pencil referred to in the title between his chin and the table, s/he remains in this position for a few minutes, balancing her/himself. Ernst Mach (1838–1916) was an Austrian physicist and philosopher who conducted research in the fields of aerodynamics (acoustics) and hydrodynamics, among others. He is credited with the description and photography of shock waves and is the namesake of the so-called Mach number, the magnitude of the speed of travel relative to the speed of sound, an important parameter in modern supersonic flight. In addition to his work in physics, he was also involved in psychology and physiology. His starting point was the analysis of sensations; as an exponent of empiricism, which advocated the primacy of sensory data, he had a major influence on the logical positivism of the turn of the century. In addition to observing phenomena, his method of work was introspection, which he often recorded and sketched; one of his best-known drawings is his 1900 drawing of himself as a first-person observer in space. Wurm began making his One Minute Sculptures in the 1990s, which are his own interpretation of the concept of contemporary sculpture. The visitor himself creates the sculpture, based on the artist’s instructions in a drawing, and executes the design. At the end of the creative process, a sculpture is created for a few minutes in the exhibition space, visible for a short time, with the participation of living bodies, which is ephemeral, but which is a work of art that potentially preserves the essence of the sculpture in the instructions forever. Wurm radically separates the creator (the idea) and the process of creation, while engaging with everyday objects and things, whereby any mundane material object of everyday life can become the object of sculpture.