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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Travel the world via QTVR panoramas
Panoramas.dk, created by Danish photographer Hans Nyberg, is a site dedicated to offering a variety of interactive QTVR panoramas of cities, sites, or events. You can browse by the year a panorama was created or (farther down the page) by the location it depicts. To download the latest QuickTime player (free), click here. Additional travel… Read more
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Louise Bourgeois dead at 98
Louise Bourgeois has died in New York at the fabulous age of 98. Global recognition came late to her – despite an enormous output she wasn’t widely known until the 1982 retrospective at NY MOMA. Through her diverse and prolific body of work she was known for working through emotional and physical pain, including the… Read more
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Kimbell Art Museum to add new building
We’ve said it before and I guess we’ll say it again: times are lean in the museum world, but that’s not preventing another museum from expanding. This time it’s the Kimbell Art Museum, who chose Renzo Piano to design a separate building for the museum’s site. The new building, slated for completion in 2013, will… Read more
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Italy’s first contemporary art museum to open
Italy’s first state museum dedicated solely to contemporary art, MAXXI, will open its doors May 30 in Rome. The name is a play on the abbreviation for “Museum of Art” and the Roman numerals for the 21st century. The Iraqi-born and London-based architect Zaha Hadid won the commission and designed what she envisioned as an… Read more
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New corpse flower set to bloom at Huntington
If you’re a fan of prehistoric-looking, nasty-smelling plants (and who isn’t!?), you’ll want to get to the Huntington Gardens in about two weeks. This flower is the latest offspring of the first Corpse Flower that bloomed in 1999. The last to bloom, in June 2009, was a different offspring. Read more about the plant and… Read more
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Whitney Museum to add new building
Times are lean in the museum world, but the Whitney Museum in New York is finally moving ahead with plans to build a new building, expected to open in 2015. Rather than an annex, the new building may become the sole home of the Whitney collections. The future of the current museum, the Madison Ave.… Read more