In this article, we describe the instability of a contact line undernonequilibrium conditions mainly based on the results of our recent studies.Two experimental examples are presented: the self-propelled motion of a liquiddroplet and spontaneous dynamic pattern formation. For the self-propelledmotion of a droplet, we introduce an experiment in which a droplet of anilinesitting on an aqueous layer moves spontaneously at an air-water interface. Thespontaneous symmetry breaking of Marangoni-driven spreading causes regularmotion. In a circular Petri dish, the droplet exhibits either beeline motion orcircular motion. On the other hand, we show the emergence of a dynamiclabyrinthine pattern caused by dewetting of a metastable thin film from theair-water interface. The contact line between the organic phase and aqueousphase forms a unique spatio-temporal pattern characterized as a dynamiclabyrinthine. Motion of the contact line is controlled by diffusion processes.We propose a theoretical model to interpret essential aspects of the observeddynamic behavior.
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