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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Exploring museums and hi-res images with Art Project, by Google
Google has collaborated with art museums in the US and Europe to offer Art Project. The viewer navigates each participating museum with the same technology as Google’s Street View and can zoom in to view specific works of art in high resolution. With a Google account, you can create a personalized Art Collection to view… Read more
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Protests in Egypt and the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities
For anyone following the breaking news out of Egypt, Reuters is reporting that the Army has secured the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo. The blog Hyperallergic has been trying to verify stories about threats of fire and/or looting to the museum, whose website is down (internet service has been cut off nationwide), and post… Read more
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Wagering art on the Super Bowl outcome
One way to put your art where your mouth is: The Milwaukee Art Museum and Carnegie Museum of Art have agreed to wager a loan of a major work of Impressionist art on the outcome of Super Bowl XLV. The bet continues a tradition begun last year between the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the… Read more
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Expanded Archivision content now on MDID
We now have all the Archivision content that is licensed by UCSB available locally on MDID. This means you have the choice of accessing it there or through ARTstor. Through both interfaces we now have the Base collection, plus Modules 1, 2 and 4 – a total of 34,736 high-quality images. The content includes architecture,… Read more
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Recent ARTstor additions and agreements
ARTstor Digital Library now contains these collections: Renzo Piano Building Workshop: 299 images of Piano’s early works (1965-1969) and his major projects to date, including plans and preparatory drawings NEW! Themed collection: Judith and Holofernes, sponsored by a grant from the Jessica E. Smith and Kevin R. Brine Charitable Trust, of 332 images added to… Read more
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Detroit in ruins
There was a very powerful and disturbing photo essay in the Guardian recently about Detroit as an abandoned city. The photographers, Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre, visited theaters, libraries, churches, and office buildings that are in varying states of decay. In some cases they appear to have been evacuated in hasty and mysterious ways, as… Read more