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
-
Online database for art looted by Nazis
More than 20,000 works of art were plundered in Germany-occupied France and Belgium from 1940 to 1944. These works, meticulously documented during the war by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), can searched and researched via a new online database. The database combines records from the U.S. National Archives in College Park (MD), the German Bundesarchiv… Read more
-
You, too, can be a patron of the arts
Following the model of other micro loan ventures, Kickstarter.com is a site where artists propose projects and everyone can contribute to their funding. Project descriptions are posted on the site, outlining the goals, medium, budget and time frame. Anyone can make a financial contribution, for any amount. According to their website more than half the… Read more
-
Image Resource Center Open House
If you’re in the area today and haven’t seen our new space (or even if you have), please stop for our Open House. We’re in Ellison Hall on the ground floor – through the red doors beside the elevator. Refreshments will be served! Thursday, October 14 – 1:00-4:00pm Read more
-
Survey: architects on architecture
Vanity Fair magazine recently conducted a survey of 52 architects and architecture critics and scholars, asking them to list the five most important structures (including buildings, bridge and monuments) built since 1980, and to name the most significant architectural work of the 21st century. All participants and their choices are listed here. A slideshow… Read more
-
Photographs revealed of Tibet 100 years ago
An album of extremely rare photographs of Tibet and its people, taken during a 1903 British mission, has both been publicized for the first time and auctioned off. The amazing photos were taken by Officer John Claude White and are the first known of their kind. Read or listen to an NPR interview by Renee… Read more