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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Art — as a reality series
We reported earlier of Bravo TV’s call for participants for a new, art-themed reality show. It now seems the show has come to fruition. Work of Art: The Next Great Artist will premiere Wednesday, June 9 with 14 aspiring artists competing for the grand prize of a solo show at the Brooklyn Museum and $100,000. Read more
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WorldImages offers thousands of images
WorldImages database, hosted by San José State University, provides access to almost 80,000 images that are global in coverage and include all areas of visual imagery. The database is accessible anywhere and can be searched by specific fields or browsed by subject “portfolios”. Images are continually added and organized and all images may be freely… Read more
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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