Named after the small red sticker that once guided scholars through legacy 35mm slides, The Red Dot is here to help you navigate the ever-evolving landscape of visual and material research. While rooted in the University of California, Santa Barbara community, our posts are open to all.
At MIRL, we engage with art history, digital humanities, and material culture through hands-on research and archival projects. Guided by our core principles—critical engagement with visual and material culture, ethical stewardship of images and data, and innovative approaches to research and pedagogy—we work at the intersection of technology and the humanities. We are especially interested in how digital tools can expand the study of images, objects, and spaces.
Here, we’ll share insights on Digital Art History and Architectural History, highlight new image and data resources, discuss copyright and ethical considerations, and spotlight events that shape our field.
The Red Dot © 2025 is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
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The latest announcements from ARTstor
Here are the most recent additions to ARTstor’s Digital Library: American Folk Art Museum: 1,659 images from their permanent collection of traditional folk art and contemporary self-taught artists The City College of New York: 1,806 images of objects acquired by The City College, including David and Lenore Levy Collection of Contemporary Photography and Percent for… Read more
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Now online: 19th- & 20th-century art and satire journals
The University Library at the University of Heidelberg, with support from the German Research Foundation (DFG), now hosts complete digital access to nineteen art and satire journals from the 19th to early 20th century. These large scans are just the latest in the efforts by the Library to digitize their holdings of historic literature; for… Read more
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LACMA and Getty acquire Mapplethorpe archive
Over 2,000 works by Robert Mapplethorpe and an extensive collection of negatives, personal letters, and other documentation has been jointly acquired by LACMA and the J. Paul Getty Trust from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. The partners were chosen for several reasons, including the emergence of Los Angeles as a major cultural center, and the Getty… Read more
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Photoshop Disasters!
Have you ever come across a print advertisement and thought something just wasn’t quite right? Check out PsD: Photoshop Disasters for a collection of unfortunate, atrocious, and what-were-they-thinking examples of when Photoshop use goes horribly, horribly wrong. Read more
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Art on the go with ARTstor Mobile
ARTstor has just unveiled ARTstor Mobile, with access to all 1,000,000+ images from the ARTstor Digital Library through iPad, iPhone, and the iPod Touch to registered ARTstor users. It’s not an app but through the Safari browser you can search, browse, zoom, and view saved image groups (to which you have access). A great feature… Read more