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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Richard Ross Photography Collection Part II now in MDID
The second phase of Richard Ross’ photography is now available through the VRC image database, MDID. This includes material from his books/projects “Man Up”, “Waiting for the End of the World” and “Suitable Placement: Juvenile Justice in America”. This brings the total to 481 images. You can read more about Richard and his work at… Read more
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New: IRC Digital Order Form
Have you ever worked from home (or even abroad) and found a great source from which you would like images scanned? Well, we have good news: The IRC now has a Digital Order Form! This form, a digital version of our paper form, can be downloaded, filled in, and saved from any computer equipped with… Read more
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Jeanne-Claude dead at 74
Jeanne-Claude, artist and wife of Christo, has died. Their creative collaboration produced over 50 years of “wrapping” projects, such as the Reichstag in Berlin (1995) and more recently “The Gates” in Central Park in New York (2005). The couple had been working toward completing “Over The River” and “The Mastaba“. via the LA Times Read more
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Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest on Flickr
Steve Tatum, Visual Resources Curator at Virginia Tech, has taken some beautiful and instructional images of Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest, the president’s personal retreat near Forest, VA, and has uploaded them on Flickr. The estate, begun 1805 or 1806, is being extensively restored in the same order that Jefferson built it. These photos show the… Read more
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Artists go to Obama for copyright support
Over 11,000 visual artists, authors, filmmakers, architects and other artists who are part of the Copyright Alliance have signed a letter sent to the Obama administration asking for stronger copyright policy and support. Read more about the movement at the Copyright Alliance. And you can read the full text of the letter here, which highlights… Read more
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Recent ARTstor collection releases and agreements
ARTstor has announced that 833 images (69% of the roughly 1,200 projected total) from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum are now available in the Digital Library [keyword search: okeeffemuseum]. Additionally, agreements have been reached with the following institutions and should be available by April (all image counts are approximate): Diego Rivera at the Detroit Institute of… Read more