If all the official signage that can be found around an average city bores you, you might not even notice the ones that are a little bit off, warning you of dangerous pigeons and tiny sinkholes or explaining the history of awkward silences in the area. Some are so small, they’re easy to just pass right by – like the one situated next to some velvet ropes and a mouse hole that reads “please wait here until called.” Your loss, really, because in this case, sharp observational skills really pay off.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Michael Pederson (@miguelmarquezoutside)

Australian artist Michael Pederson, better known as ‘Miguel Marquez Outside,’ isn’t interested in art galleries. He prefers to hide his strange and witty signs throughout cities like Sydney to be noticed and enjoyed by the public. A mental health worker by day, Pederson installs his temporary works as quickly as possible knowing they could be up for mere minutes or last for months. It’s all good as long as they make someone smile or help get them out of their own heads, he says.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Michael Pederson (@miguelmarquezoutside)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Michael Pederson (@miguelmarquezoutside)

Pederson’s latest round of signs are even smaller than usual, alerting passersby to sidewalk weeds, questionable holes in shrubbery, exits to other dimensions and what they should do in the event of accidental staring on the bus. Previously, his installations have given parks solitude ratings, offered ‘personal space preference cards’ to pass out in public, and encouraged people to press a button so a trained proxy can go into a secluded wilderness area and scream on their behalf.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Michael Pederson (@miguelmarquezoutside)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Michael Pederson (@miguelmarquezoutside)

If stuff like this won’t prompt you to pay closer attention to your surroundings, what will? Follow Pederson’s work on Instagram @MiguelMarquezOutside or on tumblr.

If you’ve ever wished you could shrink yourself to live inside a book, these incredibly charming miniature houses made of hollowed-out books will only encourage further fantasizing. Florida-based artist Shannon Moore has been crafting these truly tiny houses since the 1970s, and you’re going to want to take a closer look, because those aren’t just doors and windows slapped onto the spines of old unwanted books.

Moore hollows out stacks and creates little rooms inside each one. The doors and windows are actually functional, so you can open them up, peer inside and check out the tiny wallpaper, wood floors, real LED lighting and other details. The miniaturist sometimes creates dollhouse scenes inside, with furniture, figurines and common household objects. The book houses are often made with encyclopedias and other outdated volumes.

She calls her creations ‘Bookboxes,’ and sells them for $200-$700 depending on the size and complexity. Some are up to three stories tall. You can even make special requests and get your own little custom hollow book house. It would be cool to put them on a bookshelf alongside your collection, blending in to all but the most observant visitors.

h/t Messy Nessy Chic

Every dumb thing we humans do in this modern-day ‘civilized’ world is laid out in excruciating detail in these miniature scenes by artist Frank Kunert – not to mention our fears and anxieties. A row of public toilets is placed on a stage so strangers can watch you poop. A bride and groom poise at the end of a diving platform far too high above a pool, their friends and family watching below. A children’s slide empties onto a highway, and a bassinet is equipped with a desk so the little one can get to work as soon as possible. Pipes funnel human waste straight from the toilet upstairs into a television set, and a balcony projects into the path of a train.

Each of these works is a darkly humorous critique mocking us for contemporary habits and practices, from setting ourselves up for danger a la the Darwin Awards to creating cycles of consumption that kill us instead of satisfying us. Art museums are literally out of reach. The only living tree visible in the neighborhood is solely accessible via a dangerous staircase. A beautiful modern villa cuts off sunlight to the hovel below.

Some of the scenes look ordinary upon first glance, and it takes a moment to realize what’s wrong with them. Doors on the side of an apartment tower might lead into nothing but air, or a single chair at a formal dining table is placed out in the cold while the rest are cozy indoors.

Kunert painstakingly crafts each of these miniature scenes as part of his series Photographs of Small Worlds, and then documents them for his portfolio. He works on each one until it captures the mood and message he’s aiming for without any digital manipulation. You can see more of his work at his website, which offers much of his portfolio in photo book form, or in person September 10th 2017 through January 28th 2018 at Germany’s Museum Boppard.

Before special effects went digital with CGI, part of the magic of movie making included artists laboring over tiny scaled-down sets, creating little worlds that look totally real until a normal-sized human hand appears in the scene. One museum in France lets visitors explore over 100 such sets, each standing out for its incredible realism. At Musée Miniature & Cinéma in Lyon, you can gaze upon these miniatures as well as a collection of over 300 full-scale movie props.

Painstaking attention is paid to textures and weathering in the miniature scenes, like a kitchen with cooking implements smaller than sewing needles, peeling floor tiles and grimy windows. A thick layer of dust covers the floor of a brick-lined underground storage space.

A dimly-lit hair barber shop boasts photos of Elvis on the walls, with stained towels crumpled on the counters. The lighting is half of the magic, often coming in through windows or illuminating only one small section of a scene so the rest remains shadowy and mysterious.

Pick up a magnifying glass and examine the museum’s 1,000-piece collection of arts and crafts in miniature, including stringed instruments, origami, micro paper art and other tiny delicate creations. Then, move on to the Cinema Collection, which “unveils all the tricks that are used by cinema magicians” like masks, prop guns and robotic dinosaurs. Walk onto scaled sets that are somewhere between miniatures and full-size, which made train crashes and spaceship scenes a lot easier to film.

The Musée Miniature & Cinéma is owned and curated by Dan Ohlmann, himself a famed miniaturist responsible for many of the scenes that can be found within the museum. You can even go ‘backstage’ to watch him and other miniature artists work on commissioned pieces and restore artifacts from famous films, like the giant Alien Queen body from the movie Alien vs. Predator.

Eagle feathers, the folds on Yoda’s robe and individual bricks on iconic buildings are among the impossibly tiny details captured in pencil lead by miniaturist Salivat Fidai. The Russian artist uses an X-acto knife to carefully scrape away minuscule shavings of graphite, revealing everything from realistic dinosaur heads to the Eiffel Tower.

Sped-up videos on Fidai’s Instagram give us a look at the process, which starts with scraping away an inch or two of wood to reveal the graphite core. The artist creates the basic shape of each sculpture and then makes the refinements. This technique requires not just an eye for detail but a very light hand as well, to avoid putting too much pressure on the lead and snapping it.

They’re all cool, but perhaps most impressive are the ones featuring little pieces that have been carefully separated from the main graphite core, like this lock. Many originals are up for sale at the artist’s Etsy shop.

Another artist creating similar works is Dalton Ghetti, a carpenter by trade who uses sewing needles and razor blades to carve entire chains of graphite as well as other sculptures, all without the benefit of a magnifying glass.