In 1967 Nancy Holt created "Stone Ruin Tour" extending her exploration of language from the page to the landscape, and marking her first experiments with sound. She tape-recorded herself dictating a tour through a crumbling labyrinthine garden with stone walls, overlooks, and disappearing stairways in Cedar Grove, New Jersey. This she transcribed to create an imperfect and unfinished map to explore the site, which was given to artist friends as a guide. 

Along each segment of a square made up of dashed lines, lies the command: “DETACH HERE.” The implied perforation beckons the viewer to tear along the sides and remove the square from the rest of the paper. This call to action renders the work somehow unfinished in its present state, yet a “completed” version—with the square detached—removes with it the essence of the work. One of Holt’s earliest works, Detach Here is a keen example of the artist’s continual desire to rouse the spectator, inviting conscious participation in the act of spectatorship.