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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Architecture and Design Collection acquires Rex Lotery archive
UCSB’s ADC, known for its archival holdings of Southern California-based architects, recently celebrated a new acquisition: the archive of architect Rex Lotery (1930-2007). The archive contains objects from Lotery as well as from the firm Kahn, Kappe, Lotery & Boccato. Architectural historian and guest curator Nicholas Olsberg announced that selections from the archive will be… Read more
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Magnum Photos archive moves to Texas
The Magnum Photos library of more than 180,000 press prints, recently purchased by Michael S. Dell (of Dell Inc.), has moved from New York City to its new home at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin. The sale of the archive will help fund to scan the archive digitally and the move to the Ransom… Read more
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MMA Archives: “Museum Exhibitions 1870-2010”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, through the Thomas J. Watson Library, has announced a new exhibition history resource: a chronological list (PDF) of all special exhibitions held at the Museum from its founding in 1870 to the present. Please note that this is a working document that will be updated periodically. If you have any… Read more
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John Constable’s real Stour Valley
The Guardian is reporting that a UK National Trust land agent has traced the actual location for John Constable’s painting Stour Valley and Dedham Church. The agent, speaking here in this brief video, compares the group of trees on the right side of the painting to those in the valley. Read more
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Architecture and CGI
For a breathtaking look at one filmmaker’s visual dialogue with the built environment, check out the short film The Third & and The Seventh, a “FULL-CG animated piece that tries to illustrate architecture art [sic] across a photographic point of view where main subjects are already-built spaces. Sometimes in an abstract way. Sometimes surreal.” Among… Read more
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LACMA launches Art Reading Room
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art now offers its first online Reading Room. This “room” holds ten rare exhibition catalogues, mostly from the 1960s and 1970s, of Southern California contemporary art. For more information and upcoming projects, see Culture Monster. Read more