The Red Dot takes its name from the small sticker that once marked slides in a physical archive, flagging them as worth a second look. We’re keeping that spirit alive here.
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.
The Red Dot © 2025 is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
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The latest on Fisk University and the Stieglitz Collection
As we’ve reported before (here and here), Fisk University is pushing to sell a 50% share of their Stieglitz Collection to an Arkansas museum as a way to raise operating funds. The Tennessean recently reported that an anonymous donor has come forward with a pledge to give the university a needed flow of money now… Read more
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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
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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
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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
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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