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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MAK Center Tour 2010: Happy Birthday, Julius Shulman
The MAK Center in Los Angeles has released more details about their upcoming Fall architectural tour scheduled for Sunday, 10 October. This year’s tour celebrates the 100th birthday of architectural photographer Julius Shulman. The buildings include Lovell Health House (1929), the Kun House (1936), the Gold House (1945), the Hillside House (1948), the Shulman House… Read more
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Europeana, an online portal to European culture
Europeana.eu allows you to search through dozens of cultural collections of Europe, including national archives, libraries, museums and other research centers. Simple or advanced searches return digitized texts, images, videos and/or sounds. Each item contains information as well as a link to the “original context” — its page within the originating organization. One great feature… Read more
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Vatican to display late works by Henri Matisse
In an effort to increase visibility of modern and contemporary works of art in their collection, the Vatican Museums is preparing a new room devoted to sacred art by Henri Matisse. The new space will house designs, three large-scale preparatory drawings and numerous objects the artist created in 1948-1951 for a small Dominican chapel (Chappelle… Read more
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California architecture news, north and south
Any thoughts on what Los Angeles could/will look like in 20 years? Newsweek put the question to three architectural firms who came up with 2030 concepts for both LA and New York in a feature called The Future of Work. The three firms that participated were Michael Maltzan Architecture, cityLAB UCLA and Gensler. In other… Read more
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New structure found at Stonehenge
Archaeologists using radar at Stonehenge have discovered another circular ditch beneath the prehistoric site. This ditch includes regularly-spaced holes that may have held wooden posts and is believed to date from the same period as the stone circle. via Reuters Read more
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Cole African collection LIVE in ARTstor
At long last the collection “Herbert Cole: African Art, Architecture, and Culture (University of California, Santa Barbara)” is live in ARTstor. We first announced this contribution back in December and have been eagerly anticipating the unveiling. Visual Resources Collection staff worked with ARTstor to contribute nearly 1,000 images from “Skip” Cole’s field research in the… Read more