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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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
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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