Plastic bags and gusts of air

Plastic bag animals via wooster collective - 'there's an artist who's been making these animals out of discarded plastic bags. He (or she) ties the bags to the ventilation grates above the subway lines so that when the subway rushes through underneath, the animal jumps up and springs to life'.

Ellen Harvey

Between 1999 and 2001 Ellen Harvey was painting these miniature landscapes around New York. There is a map with links to the pictures on her website here. She has some other nice projects on her website - I love her series of impossible self-portraits -

Gormley men

I love these figures. Pictures of London and Crosby Beach installations courtesey of various flickr members here and of the Time Horizon project from Gormley's website here.

Things David Horvitz will send you for money

More at his website here. Via Heading East. There are some more great postal related projects at The Modern Letter.

Very small objects

The Collier classification system for very small objects is beautiful and can be found here.

Sea Forts

A set of photographs of these things on the north kent coast is on flickr here and the photographer has written a brief history of them here.

Humboldt's Parrot

In 1804, the Prussian naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt returned from his five-year expedition to Central and South America, bringing with him a transcription of 40 words spoken by a parrot which was believed to be the last speaker of an extinct language.

In 1997 Rachel Berwick taught these 40 words to two amazonian parrots, exhibiting them behind translucent screens as last traces of a lost world. She has subsequently used recordings of these parrots to teach other parrots. There are now a total of six speakers of Humboldt's 40 words. More on this and some very cool other projects on Rachel Berwick's website here, and brought together with similar themes at language week at the Kircher Society here.